Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/316

 earth from about them, had rolled down from the mountain above. Both sides of the defile are covered thick with wood and bushes, especially that detestable thorn the kantussa, so justly reprobated in Abyssinia.

Having extricated ourselves successfully from this pass, our spirits were so elated, that we began to think our journey now at an end, not reflecting how many passes, full of real danger, were still before us. At three quarters past eight we came to Werkleva, a village of Mahometans. Above this, too, is Armatchiko, a famous hermitage, and around it huts inhabited by a number of monks. These, and their brethren of Magwena, are capital performers in all disorders of the state; all prophets and diviners, keeping up the spirit of riot, anarchy, and tumult, by their fanatical inventions and pretended visions.

Having rested a few minutes at Tabaret Wunze, a wretched village, composed of miserable huts, on the banks of a small brook, at a quarter after two we passed the Coy, a large river, which falls into the Mahaanah. From Mai Lumi to this place the country was but indifferent in appearance; the soil, indeed, exceedingly good, but a wildness and look of desolation covered the whole of it. The grass was growing high, the country extensive, and almost without habitation, whilst the few huts that were to be seen seemed more than ordinarily miserable, and were hid in recesses, or in the edge of valleys overgrown with wood. The inhabitants seemed to have come there by stealth, with a desire to live concealed and unknown.