Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/48

xxxii I passed to Muchtar, corruptly now so called. Its ancient name is Tucca Terebinthina. Dr Shaw says its modern name is Sbeeba, but no such name is known here. I might have passed more directly from Spaitla southward, but a large chain of mountains, to whose inhabitants I had no recommendation, made me prefer the safer and plainer road by Gilma. At Tucca Terebinthina are two triumphal arches, the largest of which I suppose equal in taste, execution, and mass, to anything now existing in the world. The lesser is more simple, but very elegant. They are both, with all the particulars of their parts, not yet engraved, but still in my collection.

Muchtar, or Tucca Terebinthina, we came to Kisser, which Dr Shaw conjectures to have been the Colonia Assuras of the ancients, by this it should seem he had not been there; for there is an inscription upon a triumphal arch of very good taste, now standing, and many others to be met with up and down, which confirms beyond doubt his conjecture to be a just one. There is, besides this, a small square temple, upon which are carved several instruments of sacrifice, which are very curious, but the execution of these is much inferior to the design. It stands on the declivity of a hill, above a large fertile plain, still called the Plain of Surse, which is probably a corruption of its ancient name Assuras.

Kisser I came to Musti, where there is a triumphal arch of very good taste, but perfectly in ruins; the 1