Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/668

 644 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

'Nee contigit ulli

Hoc vidijfe caput; And again,

Nee licuit populis parvum te t Nile, videre.

Here, at the ford, after having ftepped over it fifty times, I obferved it no larger than a common mill ftream. The Nile, from this ford, turns to the weftward, and, after run- ning over loofe Hones occafionally, in that direction, about four miles farther, the angle of inclination increafing great- ly, broken water, and a fall commences of about fix feet, and thus it gets rid of the mountainous place of its nativity, and iflues into the plain of Goutto, where is its firft cata- ract ; for, as I have faid before, I don't account the broken water, or little falls, cataracts, which are not at all vifiblein the height of the rains.

Arrived in the plain of Goutto, the river feems to have loll all its violence, and fcarcely is feen to flow, but, at the fame time, it there makes fo many fharp, unnatural wind- ings, that it differs from any other river I ever faw, making above twenty lharp angular peninfulas in the courfe of five miles, through a bare, marfhy plain of clay, quite deftitute of trees, and exceedingly inconvenient and unpleafant to travel. After pairing this plain, it turns due north, receives the tribute of many fmall ftream s, the Gometti, the Goo- gueri, and the Kebezza, which defcend from the mountains of Aformafha; and, united, fall into the Nile about twenty miles below its fource ; it begins here to run rapidly, and again receives a number of beautiful rivulets, which have their rife in the heights of Litchambara, the femi-circular range of mountains that pafs behind, and feem to inclofe

Aformaiha.