THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. .643
ed fprings are more than double its quantity ; and being arrived under the hill whereon ftands the church of Saint Michael Sacala, about two miles from its fource, it there becomes a ftream that would turn a common mill, fhallow, clear, and running over a rocky bottom about three yards wide : this muft be understood to be variable according to the feafon ; and the prelum observations are applicable to the 5th of November, when the rains had ceafedfor feyeral weeks. There is the ford which we palled going to Geefh, and we crofled it the day of our arrival, in the time of my converiation with Woldo about the fafh.
Nothing can be more beautiful than this fpot ; the fmall rifing hills about us were all thick-coveredwith verdure,efpe- cially with clover, the largeft arid nneft I ever faw; the tops of the heights crowned with trees of a prodigious lize ; the ilream, at the banks of which we were fitting, was limpid and pure as the nneft cryftal ; the ford, covered thick with a bulhy kind of tree that feemed to affecT: to grow to no height, but thick with foliage and young branches, rather to court the furface of the water, whilft it bore, in prodigi- ous quantities, a beautiful yellow flower, not unlike a fingle wild rofe of that colour, but without thorns ; and, indeed, upon examination, we found that it was not a fpecies of the i'ofe, but of hypericum.
From the fource to this beautiful ford, below the church of St Michael Geefh, I enjoyed my lecond victory over this coy river, after the firft obtained at the fountains themfelves. What might Hill be faid of the world in general no longer applied to me : —
4 M 2 Nee
