Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/493

 had travelled in eight days, or more than thirty miles a-day, which, in that country, is absolutely impossible.

what must make this evident is, that we know certainly that Gondar, the metropolis to which they were then going, is in lat. 12° 34' north. Giesim then would be south of Gondar, and the caravan must have passed it when the observation was made. But they were not yet arrived at the confines of Sennaar, much less to the capital of Abyssinia, to which they were indeed advancing, but were still far to the northward of it. There is a mistake then in this observation which is very pardonable, Brevedent being then ill of a mortal dysentery, which terminated in death soon after. We shall, therefore, correct this error, making the latitude of Giesim 14° 12' north, about 110 English miles from Sennaar, and 203 from Gondar.

11th of June they set out from Giesim for Deleb, then to Chow, and next to Abotkna. They rested all night, the 14th, in the delightful valley of Sonnone, and, two days after, they came to Serkè, a large town of trade, where there are many cotton weavers. Here ends the kingdom of Sennaar, the brook without this town being the boundary of the two states.

now in Abyssinia, they halted at Tambisso, a village which belongs to the Abuna; next at Abiad, a village upon the mountain. On the 23d they flopped in a valley full of canes and ebony-trees, where a lion carried away one of their camels. On the 24th they passed the Gandova, a large, violent, and dangerous river. The country being prodigiously woody, one of their beasts of carriage,