THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 547 
The village of Gooz is a collection of miferable hovels com- 
pofed of clay and canes. There are not in it above 30 houtfes, 
but there are fix or feven different villages. The heat 
feemed here a little abated, but everybody complained of 
a difeafe in their eyes they call Tifhafh, which often termi- 
nates in blindnefs, I apprehend it to be owing to the 
fimoom and fine fand blowing through the defert. Here a 
misfortune happened to Idris our Hybeer, who was arrefted 
_for debt, and carried to prifon. As we were now upon the 
very edge of the defert, and to fee no other inhabited place 
till we fhould reach Egypt, I was not difpleafed to have it 
in my power to lay him under one other obligation before 
we trufted our lives in his hands, which we were immedi- 
ately to do. I therefore paid his debt, and reconciled him 
with his creditors, who, on their part, behaved very mode- 
rately to him. | | 4 
Wuen trade flourifhed here, and the caravans went re- 
~ gularly, Gooz was of fome confideration, as being the firft 
‘place where they ftopped, and therefore got the firft offer 
-of the market; but now no commerce remains, nor is it 
worth while for ftated guides to wait there to condu& the 
caravans through the defert, as they did formerly. Gooz 
is fituated fifteen miles from the junction of the two rivers, 
the Nile and Tacazzé. By many obfervations of the fun 
and flars,and by a mean of thefe, I found it to be in lat. 17° 
57 22”; and by an immerfion of the firft fatellite of Jupi- 
ter obferved there the 5th of November, determined its lon- 
gitude to. be 134° 20 30” eaft of the meridian of Green- 
wich. The greateft height of Fahrenheit’s thermometer 
was, at Gooz, the 28th day of October, at noon, 111°. 
342 HAVING 
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