Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/731

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 705

Mr Pococke makes two very curious and fenfible remarks in point of fact, but of which he does not know the reafon. u The Nile, he fays, in the beginning, turns red, and fome- times green ; then the waters are unwholefome. Hefuppofes that the fourcc of the Nile beginning to flow plentifully, the waters at firft bring away that green or red filth which may be about the lakes at its rife, or at the rife of thefe fmall rivers that flow into it, near its principal fource ; for, though there is fo little water in the Nile, when at loweft, that there is hardly any current in many parts of it, yet it cannot be fuppofed that the water mould ftagnate in the bed of the Nile, fo as to become green. Afterwards the water becomes very red and ftill more turbid, and then it begins to be wholefome V

The true reafon of this appearance is from thofe immenfe marfhes fpread over the country about Nareaand Caffa, where there is little level, and where the water accumulates, and is ftagnant, before it overflows into the river Abiad, which ri- fes there. The overflowing of thefe immenfe marfhes carry firft that difcoloured water into Egypt, then follows, in Abyf- finia, the overflowing of the great lakeTzana, through which the Nile paffes, which, having been ftagnated and without rain for fix months, under a fcorching fun, joins its putrid waters with the firft. There are, moreover, very few rivers in Abyflinia that run after November, as they Hand in pro- digious pools below, in the country of the Shangalla, and afford drink for the elephant, and habitation and food for die hippopotamus. Thefe pools likewife throw off their ftagnant water into the Nile on receiving the firft rains ;

Vol. III. 4 U at


 * Pococke. vol. i. p. 199. 200.