234 SOURCES OF THE GAMBIA AND RIO GRANDE. 
arrangement, I, however, prepared to resist any attack, and 
loaded my guns. It would be difficult to describe the uneasi- 
ness of Ali ; he looked behind him eveiy moment ; but his 
anxiety to fulfil his promises made him forget the dangers 
which threatened us, and the mere idea of which chilled him 
with horror. Continuing in a western direction we rapidly 
descended the ferruginous mountain, the summit of which 
we had been traversing since sun-rise, and arrived in a beau- 
tiful valley. On the right and left appeared small villages ; 
the ground was covered with high and thick dry grass, not a 
stone was to be seen on it ; two thickets, which shaded the 
sources, the objects of my research, rose in the midst of this 
plain, which drought had despoiled of its verdure. When I 
entered that which covers the source of the Rio Grande, I was 
seized with a feeling of awe, as if I was approaching one of 
the sacred springs where Paganism placed the residence of its 
divinities. Trees, coeval with the river, render it invisible 
to the eyes of those who do not penetrate into this wood ; its 
source gushes from the bosom of the earth, and runs north, 
north-east, passing over rocks. At the moment when I saw 
the Rio Grande, it slowly rolled along its turbid waters ; at 
about three hundred paces from the source they were clearer, 
and fit to drink. Ali inforaied me, that in the rainy season 
two ravines hollowed in the neighbouring hill, but then dry. 
and which terminate at the source, conduct thither two tor- 
rents which increase its current ; at some leagues distance 
