Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/483

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

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marched a little farther, he changed his order of battle ; he drew up the body of troops which he commanded, toge- ther with the king, on a fiat, large hill, with two valleys running parallel to the fides of it like trenches. Beyond thefe trenches were two higher ridges of hills that ran along the fide of them, about half a mufket-fhot from him ; the valleys were foft ground which yet could bear horfes, and thefe hills, on his right and on his left, advanced about 100 yards on each fide farther than the line of his front. The grofs of thefe fide-divifions occupied the height ; but a line of foldiers from them came down to the edge of the valleys like wings. In the plain ground, about three hundred yards directly in his front, he had placed all the cavalry, except the king's body-guards drawn up before him, commanded by an old officer of Mariam Barea. As prince George was in the cavalry, he flrongly folicited the Ras at leafl to let him remain with them, and fee them engage ; but the Ras, confidering his extreme youth and natural rafhnefs, called him back, and placed him befide me before the king. It. was not long before the Fit-Auraris's two meffengers arri- ved, running like deer along the plain, which was not abfo- lutely flat, but floped gently down towards us, declining, as I fhould guefs, not a fathom in fifteen.

Their account was, that they had fallen in with Fafil's Fit-Auraris ; that they had attacked him fmartly, and, though the enemy were greatly fuperior, being all horfe, except a few mufqueteers, had killed four of them. The Ras having firft heard the meffage of the Fit-Auraris alone, he fent a man to report it to the king ; and, immediately after this, he or- dered two horfemen to go full gallop along the eafl fide of the hill, the low road to Wainadega, to warn Kefla Yafous

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