Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/502

 tremity of the rains, was a place properly chosen for this purpose by the Arab prince before the conquest of the Funge, (for his troops there cut them off, either from the sands, or the fertile country, as he pleased), yet many of them might have remained behind at Shaddly, and to the westward, free from the terror of the fly, and consequently without any necessity of advancing so far north as Gerri, and there subjecting themselves to contribution.

In this extensive plain, near Shaddly, arise two mountainous districts, the one called Jibbel Moia, or the Mountain of Water, which is a ridge of considerable hills nearly of the same height, closely united; and the other Jibbel Segud, or the Cold Mountain, a broken ridge composed of parts, some high and some low, without any regular form. Both these enjoy a fine climate, and are full of inhabitants, but of no considerable extent. They serve for a protection to the Daheera, or farms of Shaddly and Wed Aboud. They are also fortresses in the way of the Arabs, to detain and force them to payment in their flight from the cultivated country and rains to the dry lands of Atbara. Each of these districts is governed by the descendant of their ancient and native princes, who long resisted all the power of the Arabs, having both horse and foot. They continued to be Pagans till the conquest: of the Funge. Bloody and unnatural sacrifices were said to have been in use in these mountainous states, with horrid circumstances of cruelty, till Abdelcader, son of Amru, the third of the kings of Sennaar, about the year 1554, besieged first the one and then the other of these princes in their mountain, and forced them to surrender; and, having fastened a chain of gold to each of their ears,