6 
CHARACTER OF RIVERS. 
[chap. I. 
stream, rising and falling with, great rapidity; the 
other is of lake origin, flowing through vast marshes. 
The course of the Blue Nile is through fertile soil; 
thus there is a trifling loss by absorption, and during 
the heavy rains a vast amount of earthy matter of a 
red colour is contributed by its waters to the general 
fertilizing deposit of the Nile in Lower Egypt. 
The Atbara, although so important a river in the 
rainy season of Abyssinia, is perfectly dry for several 
months during the year, and at the time I first saw it, 
June 15, 1861, it was a mere sheet of glaring sand; 
in fact a portion of the desert through which it flowed. 
For upwards of one hundred and fifty miles from its 
junction with the Nile, it is perfectly dry from the 
beginning of March to June. At intervals of a few 
miles there are pools or ponds of water left in the deep 
holes below the general average of the river s bed. In 
these pools, some of which may be a mile in length, 
are congregated all the inhabitants of the river, who as 
the stream disappears are forced to close quarters in 
these narrow asylums; thus, crocodiles, hippopotami, 
fish, and large turtle are crowded in extraordinary 
numbers, until the commencement of the rains in 
Abyssinia once more sets them at liberty by sending 
down a fresh volume to the river. The rainy season 
commences in Abyssinia in the middle of May, but the 
country being parched by the summer heat, the first 
rains are absorbed by the soil, and the torrents do not 
fill until the middle of June. From June to the middle 
of September the storms are terrific ; every ravine be¬ 
comes a raging torrent; trees are rooted up by the 
mountain streams swollen above their banks, and the 
Atbara becomes a vast river, bringing down with an 
overwhelming current the total drainage of five large 
rivers—the Settite, Boyan, Salaam, and Angrab, in ad¬ 
dition to its own original volume. Its waters are dense, 
with soil washed from most fertile lands far from its 
point of junction with the Nile, masses of bamboo, and 
drift wood, together with large trees, and frequently 
