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‘326 - TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
‘SomETIME before I left Gondar I had been threatened 
‘with an attack of the dyfentery. At my arrival at Hor- 
Cacamoot it grew worfe, and had many unpromifing fymp- 
toms, when I was cured by the advice and application of a 
common Shangalla, by means of a {hrub called Wooginoos*, 
growing very common in thofe parts, the manner of ufing 
which he taught me. 
THE country, from Tcherkin to Ras el Feel, or Hor-Caca- 
moot, is all a black earth, calledMazaga, which fome authors \ 
have taken for the name of the province. However, the 
word Mazaga, in the language of the country, fignifies fat, 
loofe, black earth, or mold, fuch as all that ftripe of land 
from 13° to 16° of latitude is compofed of, at leaft till you 
reach to the deferts of Atbara, where the rains end. Ras 
el Feel is, I fuppofe, one of the hotteft countries in the 
known world. On the 1ft day of March, at three o’clock in 
the afternoon, Fahrenheit’s thermometer, in the fhade, was 
114°, which was at 61° at fun-rife, and 82° at fun-fet. And 
yet this exceflive heat did not make a proportional impref- 
fion upon our feelings. The evenings, on the contrary, ra- 
ther feemed cold, and we could hunt at mid-day. And this 
I conftantly obferved in this fultry country, that, what was 
hot by the glafs,never appeared to carry with it any thing 
proportionate in our fenfations. 
Ras Ex Feex formerly paid 400 ounces of gold, which is 
4000 crowns ; Sancaho paid too. But trade having decrea- 
fed, fince the expedition of Yafous II. to Sennaar, without . 
the 
* See the aiticle Wooginoos in the Appendix. 
