500 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
Our quarters here were fo bad that we were impatient 
to depart, but came toa water juft below Chergué, which 
quickly made us wifh ourfelves back in the village ; this 
is a torrent that has no fprings in the hills, but only great 
bafons, or refervoirs, of ftone ; and, though it is dry all the 
year elfe, yet, upon a fudden, violent fhower, as this was, it 
fwells in an inftant, fo that it 1s impaflable for man or horfe 
by any device whatever. This violence is of fhort duration; 
we waited above half an hour, and then the peafants fhewed: 
us a place, forne hundred yards above, where it was fhallow- 
er; but even here we paffed with the utmoft difficulty, from 
the impetuofity of the ftream, after getting all poffible affift- 
ance from four people of the village ; but we ftood very 
much in need of fome check to our impatience, fo eager 
were we to get forward and finifh our journey before fome 
revolution happened. 
. We had not many minutes been delivered from this 
torrent, before we pafled two other rivers, the one larger, 
the other fmaller. All thefe rivers come from the north- 
weil, and have their fources in the mountains a few miles: 
above, towards Woggora, from which, after a {hort courfe 
en the fide of the hills, they enter the low, flat country 
ef Dembea, and are {wallowed up in the Tzana. 
We continued along the fide of the hillin a country very 
@hinly inhabited; for, it being direétly in the march of 
the army, the peafants naturally avoided it, or were 
driven from it. Our road was conftantly interfected by 
rivers, which abound, in the fame fpace, more than in any’ 
ether country in the world. We then came to the river 
Derma, the largeft and moft rapid we had yet met with, 
and 
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