Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/544

 5i6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

north and a large one to the weft. The Nile here runs ^. E. of us. This whole day was fpent in woods of a very plea- fan t kind ; there were large numbers of birds of various co- lours, but none of them, fo far as I could hear fmce we left Sennaar, endowed with the gift of fong. Sakies* in the plain, all between the Nile and the road, lift the water from the ftream, and pour it on the land, in hopes that it may produce fome miferable crops of dora ; for the river overflows none of this country, and it is very precarioufly and fcantily watered with rain.

In a little time, continuing our journey, we came to Shekh Atman's, the tomb of a Fakir on the road. There js a high ridge of mountains on our left, weft of the Nile about five miles, and a low ridge on our right, about eight miles diftant ; our diredion was ftraight north. At half paft eight, about five miles further, we came to the village Wed Hojila. The river Abiad, which is larger than the Nile, joins it there. Still the Nile preferves the name of Bahar el Azergue, or the Blue River, which it got at Sennaar. The village was once intended to be built at the jundlion of the two rivers, but the Fakir's tomb being on ' t]\e fide of ilie Nile, the village likewife was placed there. The Abiad is a very deep river; it runs dead and with little inclination, and preferves its ftream always undiminifhed, becaufe ri- fing in latitudes where there arc continual rains, it there- fore fuffers' not the decreafe the Nile does by the fix months dry weather. Our whole journey this day was through woods, with large intervals of fandy plains producing no- thing ..except fome few fpots of corn fown in time of the

fhowers,


 * A machine for raiCng waljct from ite Nile, otherwifc called the Perfr.n wheel.