Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (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 pointed mountain of Dagashaha continued still visible; I set it
this day by the compass, and it bore due N. E. We had not seen any
cultivated ground since we passed the Tacazzè.
The 5th, at seven o’clock in the morning, we left Debra Toon, and came
to the edge of a deep valley bordered with wood, the descent of which
is very steep. The Anzo, larger and more rapid than the Angueah, runs
through the middle of this valley; its bed is full of large, smooth
stones, and the sides composed of hard rock, and difficult to descend;
the stream is equally clear and rapid with the other. We ascended
the valley on the other side, through the most difficult road we had
met with since that of the valley of Sirè. At ten o’clock we found
ourselves in the middle of three villages, two to the right, and one on
the left; they are called Adamara, from Adama a mountain, on the east
side of which is Tchober. At eleven o’clock we encamped at the foot of
the mountain Adama, in a small piece of level ground, after passing a
pleasant wood of no considerable extent. Adama, in Amharic, signifies
_pleasant_; and nothing can be more wildly so than the view from this
station.
Tchober is close at the foot of the mountain, surrounded on every side,
except the north, by a deep valley covered with wood. On the other side
of this valley are the broken hills which constitute the rugged banks
of the Anzo. On the point of one of these, most extravagantly shaped,
is the village Shahagaanah, projecting as it were over the river; and,
behind these, the irregular and broken mountains of Salent appear,
especially those around Hauza, in forms which European mountains never
wear; and still higher, above these, is the long ridge of Samen, which
run along in an even stretch till they are interrupted by the high
conical top of Lamalmon, reaching above the clouds, and reckoned to be
the highest hill in Abyssinia, over the steepest part of which, by
some fatality, the reason I do not know, the road of all caravans to
Gondar must lie.
As soon as we passed the Anzo, immediately on our right is that part of
Waldubba, full of deep valleys and woods, in which the monks used to
hide themselves from the incursions of the Shangalla, before they found
out the more convenient defence by the prayers and superior sanctity
of the present saints. Above this is Adamara, where the Mahometans
have considerable villages, and, by their populousness and strength,
have greatly added to the safety of the monks, perhaps not altogether
completed yet by the purity of their lives. Still higher than these
villages is Tchober, where we now encamped.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773 — John Shaqi
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