Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/577

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. s¥)

htd between the hands into a ckift or powder, for the fake of package; and the goat's lldn .crammed as Full as pofliblff,. and tied at the mouth with a leather thong. This bread has a fouriih talle, which it imparts to the water when mingled with it, and fwells to fix times the fpace that it occupied when dry. A handful, as much as you could grafp, put into a bowl made of a gourd fawed in two, about twice the contents of a common tea-bafon, was the quan- tity allowed to each man every day, morning and evening.; ; and another fuch, gourd of water divided, one half two hours before noon, the other about an hour after. Suck were the regulations we all of us fubfcribed to ; we had not camels for a greater provifion. The Nik at Hafla runs at the foot of a mountain called Jibbel Atefhan, or the Mountain ofThirJl; the men, emphatically enough, confider- ing that thofe who part from it, entering the defert, take there the firil provifions againft thiril, and there thofe thai come to it from the defert firfl ailuage theirs.

On the nth, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon we left Hafla. It required a whole day to fill our ficins, and foak them well in the water, in order to make an experi- ment, which was of the greatell confequence of any one we ever made, whether thefe fkins were water-tight or not. I had taken the greateft care while at Chendi to dawb them well over with grcafe and tar, to fecure their pores on the outfide ; but Idris told us this v/as not enough, and that foaking the infide with water, filling them choak-full, and tying their mouths as hard as poffible, w^as the only way to be certain if they were v/ater-tight without.

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