THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 503 
fions were to bé procured, and that I{mael the Turk, an old 
man, and Georgis the Greek, almoft blind, required an ad- 
-ditional confideration, fo long as it poffibly could be done 
with fafety to us all; but, when we fhould advance to the 
borders of the defert, we mutt all refolve to pafs that jour- 
ney on foot, as upon the quantity of water, and the quan- 
tity of provifions alone, to be carried by us, could depend 
our hopes of ever feeing home. 
On the 8th of September we left the village of Soliman, 
and about three o’clock in the afternoon came to Wed el. 
Tumbel, which is not a river, as the name would feem to 
fignify, but three villages fituated upon a pool of water, 
nearly inaline from north to fouth. The intermediate 
country between this and Herbagi is covered with great 
) crops of dora. .The plain extends as far as the fight reach- 
es. Though there is not much wood, the country is not 
entirely deftitute of it, and the farther you go from Sen- 
naar the finer the trees. At Wed el Tumbel there is. great 
plenty of ebony-buthes, and a particular fort of thorn which 
feems to be a fpecies of dwarf acacia, with very fmall 
leaves, and long pods of a ftrong faccharine tafte. This is 
here in great Abundance, and is called Lauts, or Loto, which 
I fufpect to be the tree on whofe fruit, we are told, the an- 
cient. Libyans fed. At a quarter paft three we left Wed. el 
‘Tumbel, and entered into a thick wood, in which we tra- 
velled till late, when we came to the Nile. We continued 
along the river for about 500 yards, and alighted at Sit el 
Bet, a fmall village about a mile’s diftance from the ftream: 
Here we faw the tomb of a Shekh, or faint, built of brick 
in a conical form, much after the fame figure as fome we 
-had feen in Barbary, which were of ftone.. 
