1808.] 
vail only at stated seasons. The river el 
Aice is twice as broad as the Nile, and 
very deep in all the course of it. Betore 
it joins the Nile are many islands, in 
these dwell the Shilock, who rob in barks 
up the whole of it.—Upon the Bahr el 
Aice is the town el Aice, three days jour- 
ney west of Sennaar.—All the rivers in 
these countries fail when the sun goes 
south of the line, however abundant and 
full they were before; and were it not 
for the Abiad which rises near the line, 
and whose inundation is perpetual, from 
its enjoying the rains of both rainy sea- 
sons, the Nile itself would be eight months 
in the year dry, and at no time arrive 
across the desart in so much fulness as to 
answer any purpose of agriculture in 
Egypt. The Abiad river is three times 
as big as the Nile. I always believe it 
to be the Hibbee of the Nareans or Gala, 
the Zebee of the jesuits; the Yabons of 
the Fazuclans being the boundary of that 
province to the westward.—The Shilock 
are very numerous. There are three 
principal islands. These are scarcely a 
day’s journey above the river (town) el 
Aice. ‘They leave these islands in the 
rainy time, and repair to them in the dry 
season, and then they ravage and plunder 
all the neighbourhood. ‘There are seve- 
ral other islands farther up. Their towns 
are on the riverand very numerous. ‘The 
river el Aice is a very deep running river ; 
it scarcely can be seen torun. It rises 
in latitudes of perpetual rain.—The 
Nile would fail were it not for the never 
failing Abiad or Bahr el Aice; this rising 
near the line considerably south of the 
sources of the Nile in the latrtudes where 
fall perpetual rains, it never ,decreases 
but is always full. There is no such 
western branch as has been spoke of, nor 
none necessary; the ground rises every 
where to the west and south trom the 
Nile. The rivers of Foor, Sel, Bagorma, 
Kolkol, and Borro, all run west, 
through the course of the Nile and 
Abiad is often FE. and S. E. it is the 
ground that rises from the Nile to Dar- 
Borno, where is the high land, or spine of 
Afvica, and there slopes to the Ocean, as 
to the east of that it does to the Red Sea; 
whatever the Nubian geographer, Ludolf, 
Vossius, and others, may say to the contra- 
ry.--South-west fromGubais the mountain 
Ashintol.—From near Ashintol rises the 
Dendar.—On the west side of the Nile, 
nearly opposite Ashintol, the river Yabons 
comes from the south-east, and falls into 
the Nile. From Fazuclo to the Yabons, 
and south-west along its banks as far as 
2 
On the Credit due to Bruce’s Travels. $33 
is known, it is very rainy, and from May 
to July, and again from September to the 
middle of November, very unwholesome. 
—This is the account the natives give 
of this country.” 
At Halfeia he writes, “The river Abiad 
joins the el Azergue, or Nile, at Hojile, 
or Hogila, about nie miles south of Hal- 
feia.—The Nile is still at Halfeia called 
el Azergue, not the Nile.” 
From the copious and curious informa- 
tion contained in the Journals of which 
little or nothing is inserted in the Tra= 
vels, 1¢ appears, that the Abiad is a river 
three times as large as the Azergue, full 
of islands and infested by pirates; which 
rises within tour degrees of the line, and 
never decreases, aud which Mr. Bruce 
miust have considered as the great and 
principal branch of the Nile. On de- 
scendmg from Abyssinia, he was morti- 
fied to find a river still larger than the 
one he had visited, proceeding from a far 
more remote and unknown source; and 
he endeavours, even in his Journals, to 
persuade himself that it was only a colla- 
teral stream from the southern provinces 
of Abyssinia, the same with the Kibbee 
of the Nareans, the Zebee of the jesuits, 
the Yabons of the Fazuclans, and 
that there was no western branch what- 
svever of the Nile. The Zebee, or Kibbee, 
discharges itself into the Indian Ocean at 
Melinda, as Mr. Bruce, in his Abyssinian 
History, was afterwards convinced, vol. 
Ill. p. 333. The Yabons is probably a 
different pronunciation of the same river; 
butin his Journals he brings it afterwards 
from the south-east into the Azergue, be- 
tween 11° and 12° of latitude (abour 
5° from the junction of the Abiad), and 
at the same time informs us, that to the 
south-west along its banksy as far as it is 
known, it is very rainy. ‘These contra. 
dictions proceed entirely from a desire to 
persuade himself that the Abiad was 
merely a collateral branch of the Abyssi- 
nian river; and perhaps he was sincere 
In his opinion when his journals were 
written. On his return, however, to Eu- 
rope, he must have heard when in France, 
that the information obtained by Maillet 
in Egypt, and the Gcography of the ce- 
lebrated D’Anville, who was then alive, 
and whose maps and memoirs he con- 
sulted with advantage*, coincided with 
that 
a a a 
* Not only for the supposed situation of 
the Gazamantica wallis in his map, but for the 
measure of the 4iigyptian Stadium, and for 
the difference of latitude and longitude be- 
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