504 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
houfes and poflemons, and thefe, therefore, being refpected by Michael, had not been involved in the devaftation of the late war. The villages are all furrounded with KoL quail trees, as large at the trunk as thofe we met on the fide of the mountain of Taranta, when we afcendedit on our journey from Mafuah to enter into the province of Tigre ; but the tree wants much of the beauty of thofe of Tigre ; the branches are fewer in number, lefs thorny, and lefs in- dented, which feems to prove that this is not the cli- mate for them.
The 30th of October, at fix in the morning, we continued our journey from Bab Baha ftill rounding the lake at W. S. W. and on the very brink of it : the country here is all laid out in large meadows of a deep, black, rich foil, bearing very high grafs, through the midft of which runs the ri- ver Sar-Ohha, which, in Englifh, is the Graffy River ; it is a- bout forty yards broad and not two feet deep, has a foft clay bottom, and runs from north to fouth into the lake Tzana.
We turned out of the- road to the left at Bab Baha, and were obliged to go up the hill ; in a quarter of an hour we reached the high road to Mefcala Chriuos. At feven o'clock we began to turn more to the fouthward, our courfe being S. W. ; three miles and a half on our right remained the vil- lage of Tcnkel ; and four miles and a half that of Tfhem- mera to the N. N. W. ; we were now clofe to the border of the lake, whole bottom here is a fine fand. Neither the fear of crocodiles, nor other monfters in this large lake, could hinder me from fwimming in it for a few minutes. 4 Though
