I brought ; from Abyifinia; lived only a few wetks .after-1 arrived.
They ¡Teemed to have fome inward.complainq for
nothing appeared outwardly. The. dogs had abundance o f
water, but I killed one . o f .them from àpprehenfion o f mad-
nefs. Several kings have tried to ' keep lions, but no care
could prolong their lives beyond the.,firft rains. IShekh
Adelan had two* which were in great health, being kept with
his horfes at grafs in the fands but three miles from Sennaar :
neither rofe, nor any fpecies o f jeflainin, grow here ; no tree
but the lemon flowers near the city, that ever I faw ; the rofe
has been often tried, but in vain.
Sennaar is in lat. 13* 34' 36" north, and in long.
eaft from the meridian o f Greenwich. It is on the weft fide
o f the Nile, and cl ole upon the banks o f it. .The ground
whereon it ftands rifes juft enough to .prevent, the river
from entering the town, even in the height o f the inunda-
tion, w hen it comes to be even with the ftreet./: Poncet fays,
that when he was at this city, his companion, father Bre-
vedent, a. Jefuit, an able mathematician, on the ai-ft o f
March 1699, determined the latitude o f Sennaar to be 13?
4' N. the difference therefore w ill be about h a lf a degree.
The reader however may implicitly rely upon the flirtation
I have given it, being the mean refult o f above ’ fiftjt obfer-
vations, made both night and day, on the moll favourable
occafions, by a quadrant o f three feet radkis, andifèìefcopes
o f two, and fometimes o f three feet focal length, both, reflectors
and refractors made by the bell mailers. - : . .1
T he town of Sennaar- is very populous, there being in it
many good houfes,after the fafhion o f the country. Poncet
fays, in his time they were all o f oneftorey high ; but now
3 the
the great officers' have all houfes o f two. They have parapet
roofs, which is a finguiar coiiftruétion ; for in other
plates; within the rains, the roofs afe all conical. The houfes
are alb built1 o f clay, with very little ftraw mixed with it,
which fu-fficicntly fhews the rains here muft be lefs violent
than to the fouthward, probably-from the diftance o f th e
mountains. However, when I was there, a week o f confiant
tain happened, and on the '30th o f July the Nile ihcrea-
fcd-violently; after loud thunder, and a great darknefs to the
fouth. The whole ftream was covered with wreck o f houfes,
Sanes, wooden bowls,- and platters; living camels -and cattle;
and- fèveràl dead; ones pafied Sennaar, hurried along by
thé current with great velocity. A hyaena, endeavouring to
Crofs before the' town, was furrounded and killed by the inhabitants.
T h e water got into the houfes that ftand upon
its banks, and; by riling fèveral feet high, the walls melted,
being clay,- which-occafioned fcveral o f them to fall. It
feemed, by the floating wreck o f houfes that appeared in
the ftream, to have deftroyed a great many villages to the:
fouthward towards Fazuclo.
T he foil o f Sennaar, as I have already faid, is very unfa- •
Vourable both to man and beaft, and-particularly adverfe to
théir propagation. This feems to me to be owing to fome
noxious tjuality o f the fat earth with which-it is every way
furrounded; and' nothing may be depended upon more fure-
ly than the faét already mentioned, that no mare, or ihe-
beaft of-burden, ever foaled in-the town, or in any village
within feveral miles round- i t •’ This remarkable quality
ceafes upon removing from the fertile country to the fands..
Aira, between three and four miles from Sennaar, with no«
water near it but the Nile, furrounded with .white barren
fand,,