the rains, and
fell in one sheet of water half a mile in breadth, with a noise that was
truly terrible, and made me for a time perfectly dizzy.

Returning to the king's army, I rode through a country of smoking ruins
and awful silence. The miserable natives, though Christians, were being
hunted to be sold into slavery to the Turks. I found that the campaign
was finished, and that we were to return to Gondar, on reaching which,
on May 30, Fasil returned to his allegiance. Having successfully
prescribed for Fasil's principal general, the king was so pleased that
he promised me any favour. I asked the village of Geesh at the source of
the Nile. Whereupon the king said:

"I do give the village of Geesh and its fountains to Yagoube (which was
my name) and his posterity for ever, never to appear under another name
in the Deftar (land register), and never to be taken from him, or
exchanged in peace or war."

On June 5 the king and Michael retired to Tigre; Gusho and Powussen--two
of the rebel governors--entered Gondar in triumph, and proclaimed a
young man, reputed to be the son of Yasous II., who died in 1753, king
under the name of Socinios. I remained at Gondar unmolested until
October 28, 1770, when I determined to make an attempt to reach the head
of the Nile, and with my followers and instruments marched through the
country of the Aroussi, much the most pleasant territory in Abyssinia,
being finely shaded with forests of the Acacia Vera, the tree which
produces the gum arabic. Below these trees grew wild oats of prodigious
height and size. I often made the grain into cakes in remembrance of
Scotland.

_III.--At the Source of the Nile_

After passing the Assar River, going in a south-east direction, we had
for the first time a distinct view of the high mountain of Geesh, the
long-wished-for end of our dangerous and troublesome journey. This was
on November 2, 1770, and on the following day we rode through a marshy
plain in which the Nile winds more in the space of four miles than I
believe any river in the world. It is not here more than 20 feet broad
and one deep. After this, we pushed forward to a terrible range of
mountains, in which is situated the village of Geesh, where are the
long-expected fountains of the Nile. These mountains are disposed one
range behind the other, nearly in the form of arcs, and three
concentrate circles, which seems to suggest the idea that they are the
Montes Lunae of antiquity, or t