and o f little efteem, owing to thè lupine flowers on which the
bees feed, and o f which a great quantity covers the whole
face o f the country; this gives.abitternefs to the grèâteft part
o f the honey, and occafions, as they believe, vertigo’s, or diz-
zinefles, to thofe that eat it : the fame would happen with
the Agows, did they not take care to eradicate thé lupines
throughout their whole country.'
A l l tins little''territory Of Aroofli is "by much the mo®
pléafant that we had feen in Abyflinia, perhaps it is equal
to any thing the eaft can produce ; the whole is finely fliaded
with acacia-trees, I mean the acacia vera, or the Egyptian
thorn, the tree w hich, in the fultry parts o f Africa, produces
the gum-arabic. Thefe trees grow feldom above fifteen or
fixteen feet high, then flatten and fpread wide at the top,
and touch each other, while the trunks are farafunder, and
under a vertical fun, leave you, many miles together, a free
fpace to w alk in a cool, delicious -lhade. There is fcarce
any tree but this in Maitiha ; all Guanguera and Wainade-
g a are fu ll o f them ; but in thefe laft-mentioried places,
near the capital, where the country grows narrower, being
confined between the lake and the mountains, thefe trees
are more in the w ay o f the march o f armies, and are
thinner, as being cònftaiitly cut down for fuel, and never
replanted, or fuffered to replace themfelves, Which they o-
therwife would do, and cover the whole face o f th,e .country,
as once apparently they did. The ground below thofe
trees, all throughout Aroofli, is thick covered with lupines,
ahnoft to the exclufion o f every other flower ; wild oats alfo
grow up here fpontaneoiifly to a prodigious he ight' and
fize, capable often o f concealing both the horfe and his
rider, and fome o f the ftalks being little lefs than an inch
i in
S u b o r d i n a t i o n , i f now not entirely gone, was expiring,,
lb that I Scarcely expeifted to have intereft enough with my
-own fervants to help me to fet u p my la rg e quadrant: Yet
1 was exceedingly curious t6 know the fituation o f this
remarkable place, which Idris the Hybeer declared to be
h a lfw a y to AfloUan. But it feems their Curiofity was not lefs
than mine ; above all, they wanted'to prove that Idris was
smiftaken, and that we were confiderably nearer to Egypt
than we were to Barbar. While Idris and the men filled the
.ikins with water, the Greeks and I fet up the quadrant, and,
"by obfervation o f the .two bright ftars o f Orion, I found the
latitude o f Chiggre to be.2.0° ¡S ' 3d" N.; fo that, allowing even
fome fmall error in thepofition o f Syene in the French maps,
Idris’s guefs was very near the truth, and both the latitude
and longitude o f Chiggre and Syene Teemed to'require no
further inveftigation.
D u r i n g the whole time o f the obfervation,'an antelope,
o f a vCry large kind, went feveraf times round and. round
the quadrant; and at the time when my eyes were fixed
upon'{he ftar, came To hear as to 'bite a part Of my cotton
cloth which I had fpread like a carpet to kn e e l on. Even
when I ftirred, It would leap about two o f three yards from-
me,and then ftand andgaze with fuch attention, tharit woula
have appeared to by-Randers (had there been any) that we
had been a lon g time acquainted, The firft idea was
the common one, to k ill it. I eafily cotild have done this
with a lan ce ; but it feemed To interefied in what I was doin
g , that I began to think it might perhaps be my good genius
w hich had come to vifit, p roteft, and encourage me in
the defperace fituation in which I then was.
V o l . IV. CHAP»