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 5th of April, at five in the morning, we left our present station
at Correva, where, though we had employed several hours in the search,
we found very little remarkable of either plants or trees, being mostly
of the kind we had already seen. We continued our road chiefly to the
south, through the same sort of country, till we came to the foot of
a mountain, or rather a hill, covered with bushes and thorny trees,
chiefly the common acacia, but of no size, and seeming not to thrive.
I pitched my tent here to search what that cover would produce. There
were a great quantity of hares, which I could make no use of, the
Abyssinians holding them in abhorrence, as thinking them unclean; but
to make amends, I found great store of Guinea fowls, of the common grey
kind we have in Europe, of which I shot, in a little time, above a
score; and these, being perfectly lawful food, proved a very agreeable
variety from the raw beef, butter, and honey, which we had lived upon
hitherto, and which was to be our diet (it is not an unpleasant one,
at least a part of it) till we reached Emfras.
At eight in the morning I passed through Tangouri, a considerable
village. About a hundred yards on the right from this we have a finer
prospect of the lake than even from Correva itself. This village is
chiefly inhabited by Mahometans, whose occupation it is to go in
caravans far to the south, on the other side of the Nile, through
the several districts of Galla, to whom they carry beads and large
needles, cohol, or Stibium, myrrh, coarse cloths made in Begemder,
and pieces of blue cotton cloths from Surat, called Marowti. They are
generally nearly a year absent, and bring in return slaves, civet,
wax, hides, and cardomum in large beautiful pods; they bring likewise
a great quantity of ginger, but that is from farther south, nearer
Narea. It appears to me to be a poor trade, as far as I could compute
it, considering the loss of time employed in it, the many accidents,
extortions, and robberies these merchants meet with. Whether it would
be ever worth while to follow it on another footing, and under another
government, is what I am not qualified enough to say.
On the left of Tangouri, divided from it by a plain of about a mile
in breadth, stands a high rock called Amba Mariam, with a church upon
the very summit of it. There is no possibility of climbing this rock
but at one place, and there it is very difficult and rugged; here the
inhabitants of the neighbouring villages retreat upon any sudden alarm
or inroad of an enemy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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