= 
THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. Thos 
fhowers, while the fun returned over the zenith, but ftill 
looking very poorly. At half paft twelve we arrived at 
-Suakem, under trees, near a fakia. At four o’clock in the 
afternoon we left Suakem, the mountains of Gerri bearing 
N. E. of us, and, five miles further, alighted in a wood near 
the Arabs Abdelab. 
On the 3oth, at five o’clock in the morning we left this 
ftation, and after having gone eight miles N. E. we came to a 
village, which is, as it were, the fuburb of Gerri. The A- 
caba of Gerri is-a low ridge of rocks that feems firft to run 
from both fides acrofs the bed of the river, as if defigned 
to flop it; and it is impoflible to look at the gap through 
which it falls down below, without thinking that this paf- 
fage was made by the Nile itfelf when firft it began to flow. 
Gerri is built on a rifing ground, confifting of white, barren 
fand and gravel, intermixed with white alabafter hike peb- 
bles, which, in a bright fun, are extremely difagreeable 
to the eye. It confifts of about 140 houfes, none of them 
above one ftorey high, neat, well built, flat-roofed, and all 
of one height, compofed with the fame coloured earth as 
that on which it ftands, and, for this reafon, it is fcarcely 
vifible at a diftance. It is immediately at the foot of the 
Acaba, fomething more than a quarter of a mile from the 
Nile. Gerri is fituated at the end of the tropical rains, in 
lat. 16° 15’, and the Acaba feems to anfwer thofe mountains 
of Ptolemy, beyond which (that is to the N.) he fays it is 
Miaujrov nat aBpovoy yonav™, that is, a country full of fand and 
without rain; it is buta fmall {pot immediately on the Nile, 
which is all cultivated, as it enjoys the double advantage 
both of the overflowing of the river and the accidental 
fhowers.. 
* Ptol. Geograph, lib. iv.. cap.. 8. | 
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