Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 4 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 4 (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
At fourteen minutes past seven, continuing north-west, we crossed
the river Mai Lumi, which here runs west; and, continuing still
north-west, at eight o'clock we came to the mouth of the formidable
pass, Dav-Dohha, which we entered with good countenance enough, having
first rested five minutes to put ourselves in order, and we found our
appetites failing us through excessive heat. The pass of Dav-Dohha is
a very narrow defile, full of strata of rocks, like steps of stairs,
but so high, that, without leaping, or being pulled up, no horse or
mule can ascend. Moreover, the descent, though short, is very steep,
and almost choked up by huge stones, which the torrents, after washing
the earth from about them, had rolled down from the mountain above.
Both sides of the defile are covered thick with wood and bushes,
especially that detestable thorn the kantuffa, so justly reprobated in
Abyssinia.
Having extricated ourselves successfully from this pass, our spirits
were so elated, that we began to think our journey now at an end, not
reflecting how many passes, full of real danger, were still before
us. At three quarters past eight we came to Werkleva, a village of
Mahometans. Above this, too, is Armatchiko, a famous hermitage, and
around it huts inhabited by a number of monks. These, and their
brethren of Magwena, are capital performers in all disorders of the
state; all prophets and diviners, keeping up the spirit of riot,
anarchy, and tumult, by their fanatical inventions and pretended
visions.
Having rested a few minutes at Tabaret Wunze, a wretched village,
composed of miserable huts, on the banks of a small brook, at a
quarter after two we passed the Coy, a large river, which falls
into the Mahaanah. From Mai Lumi to this place the country was but
indifferent in appearance; the soil, indeed, exceedingly good, but a
wildness and look of desolation covered the whole of it. The grass was
growing high, the country extensive, and almost without habitation,
whilst the few huts that were to be seen seemed more than ordinarily
miserable, and were hid in recesses, or in the edge of valleys
overgrown with wood. The inhabitants seemed to have come there by
stealth, with a desire to live concealed and unknown.
On the 31st of December we left our station at the head of a difficult
pass called Coy Gulgulet, or the Descent of Coy, at the foot of which
runs the river Coy, one of the largest we had yet seen, but I did not
discern any fish in it. Here we rested a little to refresh ourselves
and our beasts, after the fatigues we had met with in descending
through this pass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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