THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 459 
marched.a little farther, he changed his order of battle; he 
drew up the body of troops which he commanded, toge- 
ther with the king, on a flat, large hill, with two valleys 
running paralle! to the fides of it like trenches. Beyond - 
thefe trenches were two higher ridges of hills that ran along 
the fide‘of them, about half a mufket-fhot from him ; the 
valleys were foft ground which yet could bear horfes, and 
thefe hills, on his right and on his left, advanced about 100 
yards on each fide farther than the line of his front. The 
grofs of thefe fide-divifions occupied the height; but a line 
of foldiers from them came down to the edge of the valleys 
like wings. In the plain ground, about three hundred yards 
dire@tly in his front, he had placed all the cavalry,-except 
the king’s body-guards drawn up before him, commanded 
by an old officer of Mariam Barea. As prince George was 
in the cavalry, he ftrongly folicited the Ras at leaft to let 
him remain with them, and fee them engage; but the Ras, 
confidering his extreme youth and natural rafhnefs, called 
‘him back, and placed him befide me before the king. | It 
‘was not long before the Fit-Auraris’s two meffengers arri- 
ved, running like deer along the plain, which was not abfo- © 
lutely flat, but floped gently down towards us, declining, as 
1 fhould guefs, not a fathom in fifteen. 
THEIR account was, that they had fallen in-with Fafil’s 
‘Fit-Auraris ; that they had attacked him {martly, and, though 
the enemy were-greatly fuperior, being all horfe, except a few 
-mufqueteers, had killed four of them. The Ras having firft 
heard the meflage of the Fit-Auraris alone, he fent a man 
to report it to the king; and, immediately after this, he or- 
dered two horfemen to go full gallop along the eaft fide of 
the hill, the low road to Wainadega, ‘to warn Kefla Yafous 
3Ma2 of 
