Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/277

Rh CHAP. VIII.

The Author sets out from Kenné — Crosses the Desert of the Thebaid — Visits the Marble Mountains — Arrives at Cosseir, on the Red Sea — Transactions there.

IT was Thursday, the 16th of February 1769, we heard the caravan was ready to set out from Kenné, the Cæne Emporium of antiquity. From Kenné our road was first East, for half an hour, to the foot of the hills, which here bound the cultivated land; then S. E. when, at 11 o'clock in the forenoon, we passed a very dirty small village called Sherassa. All the way from Kenné, close on our left, were desert hills, on which not the least verdure grew, but a few plants of a large species of Solanum, called Burrumbuc.

At half past two we came to a well, called Bir Ambar, the well of spices, and a dirty village of the same name, belonging to the Azaizy, a poor inconsiderable tribe of Arabs. They live by letting out their cattle for hire to the caravans that go to Cosseir, and attending themselves, when necessary. It got its name, I suppose, from its having formerly been a station of the caravans from the Red Sea, loaded with this kind of merchandise from India. The houses of the Azaizy are of a very particular construction, if they can be called

.I.