Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/349

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THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.
241

I went ashore here to gather shells, and shot a small animal among the rocks, called Daman Israel, or Israel's Lamb; I do not know why, for it has no resemblance to the sheep kind. I take it to be the saphan of the Hebrew Scripture, which we translate by the coney. I have given a drawing, and description of it, in its proper place *[1]. I shot, likewise, several dozens of gooto, the least beautiful of the kind I had seen, being very small, and coloured like the back of a partridge, but very indifferent food.

The 12th, we sailed from Cape Mahomet, just as the sun appeared. We passed the island of Tyrone, in the mouth of the Elanitic Gulf, which divides it near equally into two; or, rather the north-west side is narrowest. The direction of the Gulf is nearly north and south. I judge it to be about six leagues over. Many of the Cairo ships are lost in mistaking the entry of the Elanitic for that of the Heroopolitic Gulf, or Gulf of Suez; for, from the island of Tyrone, which is not above two leagues from the Main, there runs a string of islands, which seem to make a semicircular bar across the entry from the point, where a ship, going with a south wind, would take its departure; and this range of islands ends in a shoal with sunken rocks, which reaches near five leagues from the Main. It is probable, that, upon these islands, the fleet of Rehoboam perished, when sailing for the expedition of Ophir †[2].

Vol. I.
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  1. * See the article Ashkoko in the Appendix.
  2. † 2 Chron. chap. xx. ver. 37th.