THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 587 
had got the better of their other fenfations. In fhort, there 
was nothing more vifible, than that their apprehenfions 
were of two forts, and produced very different operations. 
The fimoom, the ftalking pillars of fand, and probability of 
dying with thirft or hunger, brought on a torpor, or in- 
_ difference, that made them inactive; but the difcovery of 
the Arab at Terfowey, the fear of meeting the Bifhareen at 
the wells, and the dead bodies of the Aga and his unfor- 
tunate companions, produced a degree of activity and irri- 
tation that refembled very much their fpirits being elevated 
by good news. I told them, that, of all the places in the 
defert through which they had paffed, this was by far the 
fafeft, becaufe fear of being met by troops from Affouan, 
feeking the murderers of Mahomet Towafh would keep all 
the Bifhareen at a diftance.. Our Arab faid, that the next 
well belonged to the Ababdé, and not the Bifhareen, and 
that the Bifhareen had flain the Aga there, to make men 
believe it had been done by the Ababdé. Idris contributed 
his morfel of comfort, by affuring us, that the wells now, as 
far as Egypt, were fo fcanty of water, that no party above 
ten men would truft their provifion to them, and none of 
us had the leaft apprehenfion from marauders of twice 
that number. The night at Umarack was exceflively cold 
as to fenfation; Fahrenheit’s thermometer was however at 
49° an hour before day-light. 
On the 23d we left Umarack at fix o’clock in the morn- 
ing, our road this day being between mountains of blue 
ftones of a very fine and perfect quality, through the heart 
of which ran thick veins of jafper, their ftrata perpendicu- 
lar to the horizon. There were ather mountains of marble 
of the colour called Mabella. In other places the rock feem- 
452 ed 
