THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 



497 



I have alfo faid, that, for the fake of commerce, thefe 

 Shangalla have been extirpated in two places, which are 

 like two gaps, or chafms, in which are built towns and vil- 

 lages, and through which caravans pafs between Sennaar 

 and x^byflinia. All the reft of this country is impervious 

 and inacceffible, unlefs by an armed force. Many armies 

 have perifhed here. It is a tract totally unknown, unlefs 

 from the fmall detail that I have entered into concerning it 

 in my travels. 



And here I mull fet the critic right alfo, as to what he 

 fays of the produce of thefe parts. There is no grain cal- 

 led Dara, at leaft that I know of. If he meant millet, he 

 fhould have called it Dora. It is not a mark of barrennefs in 

 the ground where this grows : part of the nneft land in 

 Egypt is fown with it. The banks of the Nile which pro- 

 duce Dora would alfo produce wheat ; but the inhabitants 

 of the defert like this better ; it goes farther, and does not 

 fubject- them to the violent labour of the plough, to which 

 all inhabitants of extreme hot countries are averfe. 



The fame I fay of what he remarks with regard to cot* 

 ton. The finerl: valleys in Syria, watered by the cool refrefh* 

 ing fprings that fall from Mount Libanus, are planted with 

 this fhrub ; and, in the fame grounds alternately, the tree' 

 which produces its filter in manufactures, filk, whofe va- 

 lue is greatly inhanced by the addition. Cotton clothes all E- 

 thiopia ; cotton is the bails of its commerce with India, 

 and of the commerce between England, France, and the 

 Levant ; and, were it not for fome fuch ignorant, fuperiicial 

 reafoners as Abbe P.enaudot, cotton, after wool, mould be 

 the favourite manufacture of Britain. It will in time take 



Vol. IL j R place 



