THE SOURCE OF THE NILE 547 
‘which comes here feldom more frequently than once in fif- 
teen or twenty years; that when one of thefe houfes is taint- 
ed with the difeafe, their neighbours, who know it will 
infe& the whole colony, furround it in the night, and 
fet. fire to it, which is confumed in a minute, whilft 
the unfortunate people belonging to it (who would endea- 
vour to efcape) are unmercifully thruft back with lan- 
ces and forks into the flames by the hands of their own 
neighbours and relations, without.an inftance of one ever 
being fuffered to furvive. This to us will appear a barba- 
rity fcarcely credible: it would be quite otherwife if we 
faw the fituation of the country under that dreadful vifita- 
tion of the i re ha the plague has nothing in it {fo ter- 
mate, ST oH Bitlis | 
“Tue river Kelti has excellent fith, ree the Abyffinians 
‘care not for food of this kind; the better people cat fome 
fpecies in the time of Lent, but the generality of the com- 
mon fort are deterred by paflages of {cripture, and. diftinc- 
tions in the Mofaic law, concerning fuch animals as are 
clean and unclean, il underftood,; they are, befides, exceed- 
ingly lazy, and know nothing of nets; neither have they 
the ingenuity we fee in-other favages of making hooks or 
lines: in all the time I ftaid, I never faw one Abyfiinian 
fifher engaged in the employment in any river or lake. 
Ar Kelti begins the territory of Arooffi: it is in fact the 
fouthmoft divifion of Maitfha, on the weft-fide of the Nile : 
it is not inhabited, however, by Galla, but by Abyflini- 
ans, a kindred of the Agow. When therefore we pafled 
the river Kelti, we entered into the territory of Aroofii, 
bounded on the north by that river, as it is on the fouth 
ce Ae by 
