Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/366

338 without consuming the body of the tree. After the tropical rains begin, the vegetation immediately returns; the springs increase, the rivers run, and the pools are filled with water. All sorts of verdure being now in the greatest luxuriancy, the Arabs revisit their former stations. This conflagration is performed at two seasons; the first, by the Shangalla and hunters on the southern parts of this woody country, begins in the month of October, on the return of the sun, the circumstances of which I have already mentioned; the latter, which happens in March, and lasts all April, besides providing future sustenance for their flocks, is likewise intended to prevent, at least to diminish, the ravages of the fly; a plague of the most extraordinary kind, already described.

We left Quaicha a little before four in the morning of the 19th of March, and at half an hour past five we came to Jibbel Achmar, a small mountain, or rather mount; for it is of a very regular form, and not above 300 feet high, but covered with green grass to the top. What has given it the name of Jibbel Achmar, or the Red Mountain, I know not. All the country is of red earth about it; but as it hath much grass, it should be called[23] the Green Mountain, in the middle of the red country; though there is nothing more vague or undetermined than the language of the Arabs, when they speak of colours. This hill, surrounded with impenetrable woods, is in the beginning of autumn the rendezvous of the Arabs Daveina, when there is water; at which time the rhinoceros and many sorts of beasts, crowd hither; tho' few elephants, but they are those