Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/24

4 Naybe finding, the great distance he was from his protectors, the Turks in Arabia, on the other side of the Red Sea, whose garrisons were every day decaying in strength, and for the most part reduced; sensible, too, how much he was in the power of the Abyssinians, his enemies and nearest neighbours, began to think that it was better to secure himself at home, by making some advances to those in whose power he was. Accordingly it was agreed between them, that one half of the customs should be paid by him to the king of Abyssinia, who was to suffer him to enjoy his government unmolested; for Masuah, as I have before said, is absolutely destitute of water; neither can it be supplied with any sort of provisions but from the mountainous country of Abyssinia.

same may be said of Arkeeko, a large town on the bottom of the bay of Masuah, which has indeed water, but labours under the same scarcity of provisions; for the tract of flat land behind both, called Samhar, is a perfect desert, and only inhabited from the month of November to April, by a variety of wandering tribes called Tora, Hazorta, Shiho, and Doba, and these carry all their cattle to the Abyssinian side of the mountains when the rains fall there, which is the opposite six months. When the season is thus reversed, they and their cattle are no longer in Samhar, or the dominion of the Naybe, but in the hands of the Abyssinians, especially the governor of Tigré and Baharnagash, who thereby, without being at the expence and trouble of marching against Masuah with an army, can make a line round it, and starve all at Arkeeko and Masuah, by prohibiting any sort of provisions to be carried thither from their side. In the course of this history we have seen this practised with great