THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 4% 



theirvery infancy. This being the cafe, niis climat^i mull 

 have \indcrgone a flrange revolution, as Sennaar is but a.. 

 fmall diRance from where the ancients phice the Macrobii, 

 a nation fo called froin the remarkable length of their 

 lives. Btit perhaps thefe were moiuitaineers from the fron- 

 tiers of Kuara, being defcribed as having gold in their ter- 

 ritory, and are the race now called Guha. It is very re- 

 markable, that, though they are Mahometans, they are fa 

 brutal, not to fay indelicate, with regard to their women, 

 that they fell their flaves after having lived with, and even 

 bad children by them. The king himfelfjit is faid, is often 

 guilty of this unnatural praflice, utterly unknown in any 

 other Mahometan country. 



Once in his reign the king is obliged, with his own hand, 

 to plow and fow a piece of land. From this operation he 

 is called Eaady, the countryman or peafant ; it is a name 

 common to the whole race of kings, as Ca^far was among the 

 Romans, though they have generally another name peculi- 

 ar to each perfon, and this not attended to has occalloned 

 confufion in the narrative given by llrangers writing con^ 

 cerning them. . 



No librfe, mule, afs, or any beafl of burden, will breed, or 

 even live at Sennaar, or many iniles about it. Poultry does 

 not live there. Neither dog nor cat, flreep nor bullock, can 

 be preferved a feafon there. They mull go all, every half 

 year, to the fands. Though all poflible care be taken of 

 them, they die in every place where the fat earth is abour 

 the town during the firft feafon of the rains. Two grey- 

 hounds v/hich I brought from Atbara, and the mules which 



I brought ; 



