3 88 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



fpices, hunting in the feafon to provide himfelf with ivory ; 

 and food throughout the winter. His mountains, and the 

 cities he built afterwards, were fituated uponaloomy, black 

 earth, fo that as foon as the tropical rains began to fall, a 

 wonderful phenomenon deprived him of his cattle. Large 

 fwarms of flies appeared wherever that loomy earth was, 

 which made him abfolutely dependent in this refpect upon 

 the fhepherd, but this affected the fhepherd alfo. 



This infect is called Zimb ; it has not been defcribed by 

 any naturalifl. It is in lize very little larger than a bee, of 

 a thicker proportion, and his wings, which are broader than 

 thofe of a bee, placed feparatc like thofe of a fly ; they are 

 of pure gauze, without colour or fpot upon them ; the 

 head is large, the upper jaw or lip is fliarp, and has at the 

 end of it a ftrong-pointed hair of about a quarter of an 

 inch long ; the lower jaw has two of thefe pointed hairs v , 

 and this pencil of hairs, when joined together, makes a re- 

 fillence to the finger nearly equal to that of a flrong hog's 

 brittle. Its legs are ferratcd in the infide, and the whole 

 covered with brown hair or down. As foon as this plague 

 appears, and their buzzing is heard, ail the cattle for- 

 fakc their food, and run wildly about the plain, till they 

 {lie, worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No remedy 

 remains, but to leave the black earth, and haften down to 

 the lands of Atbara, and there they remain while the rains 

 laft, this cruel enemy never daring to purine thcrn farther.. 



What enables the fhepherd to perform the long and 

 toillbmc journies acrofs Africa is the camel, emphatically 

 called by the Arabs, the Jlolp of the defert. He feems to have 

 been created for this very trade, endued with parts and 



qualities' 



