Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/177

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THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.
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whose top runs in an even ridge like a wall. At the bottom of this cliff, where our tent was pitched, the small rivulet Maisbinni rises, which, gentle and quiet as it then was, runs very violently in winter, first north from its source, and then winding to S.W. it falls in several cataracts, near a hundred feet high, into a narrow valley, through which it makes its way into the Tacazzé. Maisbinni, for wild and rude beauties, may compare with any place we had ever seen.

This day was the first cloudy one we had met with, or observed this year. The sun was covered for several hours, which announced our being near the large river Tacazzè.

On the 25th, at seven in the morning, leaving Maisbinni, we continued on our road, shaded with trees of many different kinds. At half an hour after eight we passed the river, which at this place runs west; our road this day was thro' the same plain as yesterday, but broken and full of holes. At ten o'clock we rested in a large plain called Dagashaha; a hill in form of a cone stood single about two miles north from us; a thin straggling wood was to the S.E; and the water, rising in spungy, boggy, and dirty ground, was very indifferent; it lay to the west of us.

Dagashaha is a bleak and disagreeable quarter; but the mountain itself, being seen far off, was of great use to us in adjusting our bearings; the rather that, taking our departure from Dagashaha, we came immediately in sight of the high mountain of Samen, where Lamalmon, one of that ridge, is by much the most conspicuous; and over this lies the passage, or high road, to Gondar. We likewise see the rugged, hilly country of Salent, adjoining to the foot of themountain