Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/181

Rh season of the year, when most rivers in Abyssinia ran now no more.

the middle of the stream we met a deserter from Ras Michael's army, with his firelock upon his shoulder, driving before him two miserable girls about ten years old, stark-naked, and almost famished to death, the part of the booty which had fallen to his share in laying waste the country of Maitsha, after the battle. We asked him of the truth of this news, but he would give us no satisfaction; sometimes he said there had been a battle, sometimes none. He apparently had some distrust, that one or other of the facts, being allowed to be true, might determine us as to some design we might have upon him and his booty. He had not, in my eyes, the air of a conqueror, but rather of a coward that had sneaked away, and stolen these two miserable wretches he had with him. I asked where Michael was? If at Buré? where, upon defeat of Fasil, he naturally would be. He said, No; he was at Ibaba, the capital of Maitsha; and this gave us no light, it being the place he would go to before, while detachments of his army might be employed in burning and laying waste the country of the enemy he had determined to ruin, rather than return to it some time after a battle. At last we were obliged to leave him. I gave him some flour and tobacco, both which he took very thankfully; but further intelligence he would not give.

banks of the Tacazzé are all covered, at the water's edge, with tamarisks; behind which grow high and straight trees, that seem to have gained additional strength from having often resisted the violence of the river. Few of these