500 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



ly filled with water. The principal pool is about forty 

 yards fquare. and five feet deep ; but the beft tafted water 

 was in the cleft of a rock, about 30 yards higher, on the 

 weft fide of this narrow outlet. All the water, however, 

 was very foul, with a number of animals both aquatic and 

 land. It was impoffible to drink without putting a piece 

 of our cotton girdle over our mouths, to keep, by filtration, 

 the filth of dead animals out of it. We faw a great many 

 partridges upon the face of the bare rock ; but what they 

 fed upon I could not guefs, unlefs upon infeifts. We did 

 not dare to fhoot at them, for fear of being heard by the 

 wandering Arabs that might be fomewhere in the neigh- 

 bourhood ; for Chiggre is a hauntof the Billiareen of the 

 tribe of Abou, Bertran, who, though they do not make it a 

 ftation, becaufe there is no paflure in the neighbourhood, 

 nor can any thing grow there, yet it is one of the moll va- 

 luable places of refrelhment, on account of the great quan- 

 tity of water, being nearly half way, when they drive their 

 cattle from the borders of the Red Sea to the banks of the 

 Nile ; as alfo in their expeditions from fouth to north, when 

 they leave their encampments in Barbar, to rob the Ababde 

 Arabs on the frontiers of Egypt. 



Our firfc attention was to our camels, to whom we gave 

 that day a double feed of dora, that they might drink for 

 the reft of their journey, fliould the wells in the way prove 

 fcant of water. We then walhed in a large pool, the coldeft 

 water, I think, I ever felt, on account of its being in a cave 

 covered with rock, and was inaccellible to the fun in any 

 diredlion. All my people feemed to be greatly recovered by 

 this refrigeration, but from fome caufe or other, it fared 

 otherwife with the Tucorory ; one of whom died about 

 an hour afterour arrival, and another early the next morning. 



3 SUjBORDINATION 



