Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/492

 departed the 15th in the evening, and travelled all the night as far as Bacras, and arrived the day after at Abec; then at Baha, a long day's journey of about ten hours. He is mistaken, however, when he fays Baha is situated upon the banks of the Nile, for it is upon a small river that runs into it. Bin, at the season he passed it, most of thofe rivers were dried up.

the 19th he came to Dodar, a place as inconsiderable as Baha; then to Abra, a large village; then to Debarke and Enbulbul. On the 25th they came to Giesim. Giesim is a large village situated upon the banks of the Nile, in the middle of a forest of trees of a prodigious height and size, all of which are loaded with fruit or flowers, and crowded with paroquets, and variety of other birds, of a thousand different colours. They made a long flay at this place, not less than nineteen days.

this interval, father Brevedent is said to have made an observation of the latitude of the place, which, if admitted, would throw all the geography of this journey into confusion. Poncet says, that Giesim is half-way between Sennaar and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and that a small brook, a little beyond Serké, is the boundary between those states. Now, from Sennaar to Giesim are nine stages, and one of them we may call a double one, but between Giesim and Serké, only four; Giesim then cannot be half way between Sennaar and Serkè.— Again, the latitude of Sennaar is 13° 4' north, according to Brevedent, or rather 13° 34'. Now, if the latitude of Giesim be 10", then the distance between Sennaar and it must be about 250 miles which they