THE SOURCE OF THE NILE, EG 
of the kingdom, this pafs is always occupied to reduce Gon- 
dar to famine. 
Tue village itfelf belongs: tothe office of Betwudet, and, 
fince that office has been. difcontinued, it makes part of the: 
revenue of the Ras; the language here is Falafha, though 
only ufed now by the Jews who.go by that name: it was 
anciently the language of all the province of Dembea, which 
~ has here its fouthern. boundary.. The air of Dingleber is 
excellent, and the. profpect. one of the moft. beautiful. in 
Abyffinia; on the one fide you. have a diftinét: view of the 
‘lake Tzana and all its iflands ;. on the north, the peninfula 
of Gorgora, the former refidence of the Jefuits, where too are: 
the ruins of the king’s palace. On the north: of the lake 
you have a.diftant profpect of Dara, and.of the Nile crofling 
that lake, preferving diftinctly the tract of its flream un- 
- mixed with.-the reft of the water, and iffuing out to-form 
what.is called the fecond cataract at Alata, all places fixed 
in our mind by the memory of former diftreffes. On the 
fouth-eaft,;, we have a. diftant view of the flat country of 
Maittha, for the moft part covered-with.thick trees, and black 
like a foreft:;, farther on the territory of Sacala, one. of the 
diftricts of the Agows, near which are the fountains. of the: 
Nile, the objeét of all my wifhes ;, and clofe behind this, the 
high mountains of Amid. Amid, which furrounded them 
in two femicircles like a.new moon, or amphitheatre, and 
feem by their fhape to deferve the name of mountains of 
the moon, fuch as was given by antiquity to mountains, 
in the neighbourhood.of. which. the Nile was fuppofed to. 
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