Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/174

 and was the safest and readiest supply for the army, as being perfectly under command of our musquets, where our horses could water without danger: immediately south from this ran a valley full half a mile broad, which ended in a large plain about two miles off.

The valley where Michael and the van first engaged was formed by the hills of Belessen on the east, and the river Mariam on the west, and near the middle of the valley there was a low and flat-topt hill, not above 30 yards in height, which did not join with the hill of Serbraxos. Between them there was an opening of about 100 yards through which ran Deg-Ohha, to the ford of the river Mariam, from which you ascended in a direction nearly N. W. up into the plain which reached to the lake Tzana. On the south end of this hill, as I have said, which might have been about two miles in length, the banks of the Mariam are very high, and the river stands in large deep pools, with banks of sand between them. Where this hill ends to the right is another ford of the river Mariam, where a deep and narrow sandy road goes winding up the banks, in a direction N. W. like the former, and leads to the same plain bordering on the lake Tzana: so that the plain of the valley where the Mariam runs, which is bordered by the foot of the mountains of Belessen, and continues along the plain south to Tangouré, is near 200 feet lower than the plain that extends on the side of the lake Tzana. Nor is there a convenient access from the plain to the valley, at least that I saw, by reason of the height and steepness of the banks of the Mariam, excepting these two already mentioned; one between the extremity of the long even hill, and slope of the mountain on the north, and the other on the south,