THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 15 
above it is the mountain, or high hill, on which ftands Zarai, 
now a collection of villages, formerly two. convents built 
by Lalibala ; though the monks tell you a ftory of the queen 
of Saba refiding there, which the reader may be perfectly 
fatisfied fhe never did in her life. 
Tuer Mareb is the boundary between Tigré and the Ba- 
harnagath, on this fide. It runs over a bed of foil; is large, 
deep,and fmooth; but, upon rain falling, it is more danger- 
ous to pafs than any river in Abyfflinia, on account of 
the frequent holes in its bottom. We then entered the nar- 
row plain of Yeeha, wherein runs the {mail river, which 
either gives its name to, or takes it from it. The Yeeha 
rifes from many fources in the mountains to the weft; it 
is neither confiderable for fize nor its courfe, and is fwal- 
lowed up in the Mareb. 
Tue harveft was in great forwardnefs in this place. The 
wheat was cut, and a confiderable fhare of the teff in ano- 
ther part; they were treading out this laft-mentioned grain 
with oxen. The Dora, and a {mall grain called telba, (of 
which they make oil) was not ripe. -— 
Art eleven o'clock we refted by the fide of the mountain 
whence the river falls. All the villages that had been built 
here bore the marks of the juftice of the governor of Tigré. 
They had been long the moft incorrigible banditti in the 
province. He furrounded them in one night, burnt their 
houfes, and extirpated the inhabitants; and would never 
fuffer any one fince to fettle there. At three o’clock in the 
afternoon we afcended what remained of the mountain of 
Yeeha; came to the plain upon its top; and, ata quarter be- 
1 P 2 fore 
