Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/547

 THE SOURCE OF The NILE. 51$-

imagine has the figure of a lion. We now alighted near half a mile from the river, in a small plain, where was only one shepherd with his cot and flock. At some distance, near the river, there was a house or two with fakies. September is the feed-time in this country. When the Nile is at its. height, the flat ground along the side of the water, which is about a quarter of a mile broad, is sown with dora, as far as water can be conducted in rills to it, but after this short space, the ground rises immediately ; there the harvest-time is in November ; and the feed-time at Sennaar is in July, and their harvest in September ; both regulated by the height of the Nile at the refpedive places.

On the 2d of October, at half past five in the morning we left Hajar el Aflad ; for the two last days past our journey lay through woods and desert, without water or villages ; we rested upon the Nile, which soon receded from us. After having gone about two miles we saw some small houses and fakies, with narrow stripes of corn on both sides of the river. About a mile further, we began, instead of the sandy desert, to see large stratums of purple, red and white marble, and also alabaster. It seems as if those immense quarries, which run into Upper Egypt 10" N. from this, first take their rife here. This day we journied through woods of acacia and jujebs. At twenty minutes past eight we alighted in a wood to feed our camels. The sun was so immoderately hot that we could not travel. The Nile from Gerri declines almost insensibly from the E. of N. The whole country is desert and without inhabitants, saving the banks of the river ; for there are here no regular rains that can be depended upon at any certain time for the purpose of agriculture ; only there fall violent showers at the time

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