THE SOURCE OF THE N ILE. 547
The village of Gooz is a coUetlrion of miferable hovels com- pofed of clay and canes. There are not in it above 30 houfcs, but there are fix or feven different villages. The heat feemed here a little abated, but everybody complained of a difeafe in their eyes they call Tilhafh, which often termi- nates in blindnefs. I apprehend it to be owing to the fimoom and fine fand blowing through the defert. Here a misfortune happened to Idris our Hybeer, who was arrefled for debt, and carried to prifon. As we were now upon the very edge of the defert, and to fee no other inhabited place till we fliould reach Egypt, I was not difpleafed to have it in my power to lay him under one other obligation before we trufted our lives in his hands, which we were immedi- ately to do. I therefore paid his debt, and reconciled him with his creditors, who, on their part, behaved very mode- rately to him.
When trade flouriflied here, and the caravans went re- gularly, Gooz was of fome confideration, as being the firfl place where they flopped, and therefore got the firfl offer of the market ; but now no commerce remains, nor is it worth while for flated guides to wait there to condud the caravans through the defert, as they did formerly. Gooz is fituated fifteen miles from the jundion of the two rivers the Nile and Tacazze. By many obfervations of the fun and flars,and by a mean of thefe, I found it to be in lat. if 57' 22"; and by an immerfion of the firfl fatellite of Jupi- ter obferved there the 5th of November, determined its lon- gitude to be 34° 20' 30" eafl of the meridian of Green- wich. The greatefl height of Fahrenheit's thermometer was, at Gooz, the 28th day of Odober, at noon, in".
3 Z 2 Having
