THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 5+7 



which comes here feldom more frequently than once in fif-" 

 ■ teen or twenty years ; that when one of thefe houfes is taint- 

 ed with the difeafe, their neighbours, who know it will 

 infedl the whole colony, furround it in the night, and 

 fet fire to it, which is confumed in a minute, whilfl 

 the unfortunate people belonging to it (who would endea- 

 vour to efcape) are unmercifully thruft back with lan- 

 ces and forks into the flames by the hands of their own 

 neighbours and relations, without an inftance of one ever 

 being fuffered to furvive. This to us will appear a barba- 

 rity fcarcely credible : it would be quite otherwife if we 

 faw the fituation of the country under that dreadful vifita- 

 tion of the fmall-pox ; the plague has nothing in it fo ter- 

 rible. 



The river Kelti has excellent fiih, though the Abyflinians 

 care not for food of this kind ; the better people eat fome 

 fpecies in the time of Lent, but the generality of the com- 

 mon fort are deterred by pailages of fcripture, and distinc- 

 tions in the Mofaic law, concerning fuch animals as are 

 clean and unclean, ill understood ; they are, befides, exceed- 

 ingly lazy, and know nothing of nets ; neither have they 

 the ingenuity we fee in other favages of making hooks or 

 lines : in all the time I {laid, I never faw one Abyffinian 

 .fiiher engaged in the employment in any river or lake. 



At Keiti begins the territory of Aroofli : it is in fact the 

 fouthmoft divifion of Maitfha, on the weft-fide of the Nile : 

 it is not inhabited, however, by Galla, but by Abyflini- 

 ans, a kindred of the Agow. When therefore we palled 

 the river Kelti, we entered into the territory of Arooffi 

 -bounded on the north by that river, as it is -on the fouth 



3 Z a by 



