Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/666

 04-2 T R A VE L S T O D I S G O V E H

"T

T'ha-d ■• procured from the Englifh mips, while at Jidda, fome quick-fdver, perfectly pure, and heavier than the com- mon fort ;. warming therefore the tube gently at the fire, I filled it with this quick-filver, and, to my great furprife, found that it Hood at the height of 22 Englifh inches : fuf- pecting that fome air might have infmuated itfelf into the tube, I laid it by in a warm part of the tent, covered till morning, and returning to bed, llept there profoundly till fix, when, fatisfied the whole was in perfect order, 1 found it to ftand at 22 Englifh inches ; neither did it vary fenfibly from that height any of the following days I ftaid at Geefh ; and thence I inferred, that, at the fources of the Nile, I was then more than two miles above the level of the fea ; a pro- digious height,, to enjoy a fky perpetually clear, as alfo a hot fun never over-cad for a moment with clouds from riling to fetting..

On the 6th of November, at a quarter paft five in the morning, Fahrenheit's thermometer flood at 44, at noon 96%. and at fun-fet 46. It was, as to fenfe,.cold at night, and flilli more fo an hour before fun-rife. ..

The Nile, keeping nearly in the middle of the marfh, runs - eaft for thirty yards, with a very little increafe of ftream, but perfectly vifible, till met by the graffy brink of the land declining from Sacala. This turns it round gradually to the N. E. and then due north ; and, in the two miles it flows in that direction, the river receives many fmall contributions from fprings that rife in the banks on each fide of it: there &re two, particularly one on the hill at the back of St Mi- shael Geefh, the other a little lower than it on the other fide, on the ground declining from Sacala, Thefe laft-mention-

ed