Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/448

336 quence: rain in abundance, at certain seasons, still falls there. It is covered with young plants of rack tree, whose property it is, as I have already said, to vegetate in salt water. The old trees had been cut down, but there was a considerable number of Saiel, or Acacia trees, and of these we were in want.

Zimmer is said to be without water, yet there are antelopes upon it, as also hyaenas in number, and it is therefore probable that there is water in some subterraneous caves or clefts of the rocks, unknown to the Arabs or fishermen, without which these animals could not subsist. It is probable the antelopes were brought over from Arabia for the Sherriffe's pleasure, or those of his friends, if they did not swim from the main, and an enemy afterwards brought the hyaena to disappoint that amusement. Be that as it will, though I did not myself see the animals, yet I observed the dung of each of them upon the sand, and in the cisterns; so the fact does not rest wholly upon the veracity of the boatman. We found at Zimmer plenty of the large shell fish called Bisser and Surrumbac, but no other. I found Zimmer, by an observation of the sun at noon, to be in lat. i6° 7' North, and from it we observed the following bearings and distances.

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