Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/509

 ed by black slaves, armed with coats of mail, and without any other weapon but a broad Sclavonian sword. These I suppose, by the weight and power of man and horse, would bear down, or break through double the number of any other troops in the world: nobody, that has not seen this cavalry, can have any idea to what perfection the horse rises here. The Mek has not one musket in his whole army. Besides these horse, there is a great, but uncertain number of Arabs, who pay their tribute immediately to the Mek and to the great men in government, and live under their protection close by the town, and thereby have the advantage of trading with it, of supplying it with provisions, and, no doubt, must contribute in part to its strength and defence in time of need.

After what I have said of the latitude of Sennaar, it will scarcely be necessary to repeat that the heats are excessive. The thermometer rises in the shade to 119°, but as I have observed of the heats of Arabia, so now I do in respect to those of Sennaar. The degree of the thermometer does not convey any idea of the effect the sun has upon the sensations of the body or the colour of the skin. Nations of blacks live within lat. 13° and 14°, when 10° south of them, nearly under the Line, all the people are white, as we had an opportunity of seeing daily in the Galla, whom we have described. Sennaar, which is in lat. 13°, is hotter, by the thermometer, 50 degrees, when the sun is most distant from it, than Gondar is, though a degree farther south, when the sun is vertical.

Cold and hot are terms merely relative, not determined by the latitude, but elevation of the place; when, therefore, we