ninhabitable, is so far from being true, that the climate is
very temperate. The blacks have better features than in other countries,
and are not without wit and ingenuity. Their apprehension is quick, and
their judgment sound. There are, in this climate, two harvests in the
year; one in winter, which lasts through the months of July, August, and
September; the other in the spring. They have, in the greatest plenty,
raisins peaches pomegranates, sugar-canes, and some figs. Most of these
are ripe about lent, which the Abyssins keep with great strictness. The
animals of the country are the lion, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the
unicorn, horses, mules, oxen, and cows without number. They have a very
particular custom, which obliges every man, that has a thousand cows, to
save every year one day's milk of all his herd, and make a bath with it
for his relations. This they do so many days in each year, as they have
thousands of cattle; so that, to express how rich a man is, they tell
you, 'he bathes so many times.'

"Of the river Nile, which has furnished so much controversy, we have a
full and clear description. It is called, by the natives, Abavi, the
Father of Water. It rises in Sacala, a province of the kingdom of
Goiama, the most fertile and agreeable part of the Abyssinian dominions.
On the eastern side of the country, on the declivity of a mountain,
whose descent is so easy, that it seems a beautiful plain, is that
source of the Nile, which has been sought after, at so much expense and
labour. This spring, or rather these two springs, are two holes, each
about two feet diameter, a stone's cast distant from each other. One of
them is about five feet and a half in depth. Lobo was not able to sink
his plummet lower, perhaps, because it was stopped by roots, the whole
place being full of trees. A line of ten feet did not reach the bottom
of the other. These springs are supposed, by the Abyssins, to be the
vents of a great subterraneous lake. At a small distance to the south,
is a village called Guix, through which you ascend to the top of the
mountain, where there is a little hill, which the idolatrous Agaci hold
in great veneration. Their priest calls them together to this place once
a year; and every one sacrifices a cow, or more, according to the
different degrees of wealth and devotion. Hence we have sufficient
proof, that these nations always paid adoration to the deity of this
famous river.

"As to the course of th