Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/206

184 obliged to unload our baggage, and, by slow degrees, crawl up the hill, carrying them little by little upon our shoulders round these chasms where the road was intersected. The mountains grow steeper, the paths narrower, and the breaches more frequent as we ascend. Scarce were our mules, though unloaded, able to scramble up, but were perpetually falling; and, to increase our difficulties, which, in such cases, seldom come single, a large number of cattle was descending, and seemed to threaten to push us all into the gulf below. After two hours of constant toil, at nine o'clock we alighted in a small plain called Kedus, or St Michael, from a church and village of that name, neither beast nor man being able to go a step further.

plain of St Michael, where we now were, is at the foot of a steep cliff which terminates the west side of Lamalmon. It is here perpendicular like a wall, and a few trees only upon the top of the cliff. Over this precipice flow two streams of water, which never are dry, but run in all seasons. They fall into a wood at the bottom of this cliff, and preserve it in continual verdure all the year, tho' the plain itself below, as I have said, is all rent into chasms, and cracked by the heat of the sun. These two streams form a considerable rivulet in the plain of St Michael, and are a great relief both to men and cattle in this tedious and difficult passage over the mountain.

air on Lamalmon is pleasant and temperate. We found here our appetite return, with a chearfulness, lightness of spirits, and agility of body, which indicated that our nerves had again resumed their wonted tone, which they had lost in the low, poisonous, and sultry air on the