Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/462

350 sand, mixed with shells and other marine productions. It is destitute of all sorts of herbage, at least in summer, unless a small quantity of bent grass, just sufficient to feed the few antelopes and goats that are on the island. There is a very beautiful species of this last animal found here, small, short-haired, with thin black sharp horns, having rings upon them, and they are very swift of foot.

island is, in many places, covered with large plantations of Acacia trees, which grow to no height, seldom above eight feet, but spread wide, and turn flat at top, probably by the influence of the wind from the sea. Though in the neighbourhood of Abyssinia, Dahalac does not partake of its seasons: no rain falls here, from the end of March to the beginning of October; but, in the intermediate months, especially December, January, and February, there are violent showers for twelve hours at a time, which deluge the island, and fill the cisterns so as to serve all next summer; for there are no hills nor mountains in Dahalac, and consequently no springs. These cisterns alone preserve the water, and of them there yet remain three hundred and seventy, all hewn out of the solid rock. They say these were the works of the Persians; it is more probable they were those of the first Ptolemies. But whoever were the constructors of these magnificent reservoirs, they were a very different people from those that now possess them, who have not industry enough to keep one of the three hundred and seventy clear for the use of man. All of them are open to every sort of animal, and half full of the filth they leave there, after drinking and washing in them. The water of Dobelew, and Irwée, tasted strong of musk, from the dung of the goats and antelopes, and the smell before

Rh