Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/585

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. SS7

On the i6th, at half pail ten in the forenoon we left El Mout, {landing in the diredlion clofe uponSyene. Our men, if not gay, were however in better fpirits than I had feen them fince we left Gooz. One of our Barbarins had even attempted a fong ; but Hagi Ifmael very gravely reproved him, by telling him, that fmging in fuch a fituation was a tempting of Providence. There is, indeed, nothing more different than aftive and paflive courage. Hagi Ifmael would fight, but he had not ftrength of mind to fuffer. At eleven o'clock, while we contemplated with great pleafure the rug- ged top of Chiggre, to which we were fail approaching, and where we were to folace ourfelves with plenty of good wa- ter, Idris cried out, with a loud voice, Fall upon your faces, for here is the fnnoom. I faw from the S. E. a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not fo com- prefled or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high trom the ground. It was a kind of bluHa upon the air, and it moved very rapidly, for I fcarce could turn to fall upon the groimd with my head to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly up- on my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I fasv, was indeed paffed, but tht light air that Hill blew wa- of heat to threaten fuffocarion. For my part, I found diflind:ly in my bread that I had imbibed a part of it, nor was I free of an ailhmatic fenfation till 1 had been fome months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, near two years af- terwards..

An univerfp.l defpondency had taken poffeiTion of our people. Ihey cealed to fpeaL to one anothcr,_ and when.

they;.