Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 2 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 2 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773
Bruce, James
Egypt -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- History; Natural history -- Ethiopia; Nile River
The distance from Minè to Narea is 50 leagues due south, with little
inclination to west. The road to it, and the places through which you
pass, are very distinctly set down in my map, and, I believe, without
any material error; it is the only place where the reader can find this
route, which, till now, has never been published.
The next day our travellers entered the kingdom of Bizamo, inhabited
by Pagan Galla. These people came in crowds with arms in their hands,
insisting upon being paid for liberty of passing through their country;
but, seeing the company of the ambassador take to their arms likewise,
they compounded for a few bricks of salt and coarse cotton cloaths, and
thereupon suffered them to pass. The same day, the guide, sent from
Narea to conduct them by crooked and unfrequented paths out of the way
of the Pagan Galla, made them to enter into a large thicket through
which they could scarcely force themselves; after which they came to
a river called _Maleg_, when it was nearly night. Next day they could
find no ford where they could pass. They now entertained a suspicion,
that the guard from Narea had betrayed them, and intended to leave them
in these woods to meet their death from the Galla.
The day after, they found the ford, and passed it without difficulty;
and, being on the other side, they began to be a little more composed,
as being far from the Pagans, and now near entering the territory of
Narea. After ascending a high mountain, they came to Gonea, where they
found a garrison under one of the principal officers of that kingdom,
who received them with great marks of honour and joy, on account of the
warm recommendation Sela Christos had given them, and perhaps as much
for a considerable present they had brought along with them.
Narea, the southmost province of the Abyssinian empire, is still
governed by its native princes, who are called _the Beneros_; its
territory reached formerly to Bizamo.
The Galla have quite surrounded them, especially on the south-east and
north. What is to the west is a part of Africa, the most unknown. The
people of Narea have a small trade with Melinda on the Indian Ocean,
and with Angola on the western, by means of intermediate nations. Narea
is abundantly supplied with gold from the Negro country that is nearest
them. Some have, indeed, said there is gold in Narea; but, after a
very diligent investigation, I find it comes chiefly from towards the
Atlantic.
The kingdom of Narea stands like a fortified place in the middle of a
plain. Many rivers, rising in the fourth and fifth degrees of latitude,
spread themselves, for want of level, over this flat country, and
stagnate in very extensive marshes from south by east, to the point of
north, or north-west.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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