Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/693

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 66 9

The clouds, drawn by the violent adtion of the fun, are condenfed, then broken, and fall as rain on the top of this high ridge, and fwell every river, while a wind from the ocean on the eaft blows like a monfoon up each of thefe ftreams in a direction contrary to their current, during the whole time of the inundation, and this enables boats to af- cend into the weftern parts of Sofala,and the interior coun- try to the mountains, where lies the gold. The fame effect, from the fame caufe, is produced on the weftern fide towards the Atlantic ; the high ridge of mountains being placed between the different countries weft and eaft, is at once the fource of their riches, and of thofe rivers which con- dud to the treafures which would be otherwife inacceflible in the eaftern parts of the kingdoms of Benin, Congo, and Angola.

There are three remarkable appearances attending the inundation of the Nile ; every morning in Abyffinia is clear, and the fun mines. About nine, a fmall cloud, not above four feet broad, appears in the eaft, whirling violently round as if upon an axis, but, arrived near the zenith, it firft abates its motion, then lofes its form, and extends itfelf greatly, and feems to call up vapours from all oppolite quarters. Thefe clouds having attained nearly the fame height, ruin againft each other with great violence, and put me always in mind of F.lifha foretelling rain on Mount Carmel*. The air, impelled before the heavieft mafs, or fwifteft mover, makes an impreffion of its own form in the collection of clouds oppofite, and the moment it has taken poffeinon of the fpace

made


 * 1 Kings, di^jj. XTiii. ver. 43.