We observed a variety of traps and cages, some of them very ingenious, which the Daveina, or other Arabs, had set to catch these birds, several of which we found dead in these snares, and some of them had not yet been touched by beasts; and as there was but a small distance between the traps and the water's edge, which could only be answerable to a few days evaporation, we with great reason inferred, that the Daveina, or some other Arabs, had been there a very short time before. We found in the mud of the pool large green shell-snails, with the animals alive in them; some of them weighed very near a pound, in nothing, but size and thickness of the shell, different from common garden-snails.
Not a little alarmed at this discovery that the Arabs were near us, we left Imhanzara at four o'clock in the evening of the 21st, our journey mostly N. W.; at eight we lost our way, and were obliged to halt in a wood. Here we were terrified to find, that the water in our girbas was entirely gone; whether by evaporation of the hot wind, or otherwise, I know not; but the skin had the appearance of water in it, till its lightness in unloading discovered the contrary. Though all the people were sick, the terror of being without water gave us something like alacrity, and desire to push on. We set out at eleven, but still wandered in the wood till three o'clock in the morning of the 22d, when we were obliged again to alight. I really then began to think we were lost. I ordered the girbas to be examined: a large one which we had filled at Rashid was entirely empty; and that one which we had partly filled at Imhanzara on account of the badness of the water, had not much more in it than what kept liquid the mud which had been taken up with it. This, however, (bad as it was) was greedily guzzled up in a moment. The people who conducted the asses, seeing that we had skins to contain plenty of water for us, had omitted to fill the small goat-skin which each of them carried. A general murmur of fear and discontent prevailed through our whole company; for we could have no guess at the nearness or situation of the next well, as we had lost our road; and some of the caravan even pretended that we had passed it. But though we had travelled thirteen hours, I cannot compute the distance to have been above fourteen miles.
This day, being the sixth from Ras el Feel, at half after five in the morning, we set off in great despondency; and, upon the first dawn of day, I set our route by the compass, and found it north and by east, or more easterly. This did not seem the probable road to Sennaar, after having gone so considerably to the north-west. But, before I could make much reflection upon the observation, one of the caravan declared he knew the road, and that we had gone very little out of it, and were now proceeding straight to the well. Accordingly, at half past nine, we reached it; it is called Imgellalib[24]. There is great plenty of water, with a leather-bucket, and a straw rope to draw it up, but it is very ill-tasted. However, the fear of dying with thirst, more than having materially suffered from it, made every one press to drink; and the effect of this hurry was very soon seen. Two Abyssinian Moors, a man and woman, died after drinking; the man instantly, and the woman a few minutes after; for my own part, though thirsty, I was sensible I could have held out a considerable time without danger; and, indeed, I did not drink till I had washed my head, face, and neck all over. I then washed my mouth and throat, and, having cooled myself, and in great measure assuaged my thirst, I then drank till I was completely satisfied, but only by small draughts. I would have persuaded all my companions to do the same, but I was not heard; and one would have thought, like the camels, they had been drinking once for many days to come. Yet none of them had complained of thirst till they heard the girbas were empty; and it was not sixteen hours since they had drank at Imhanzara, and but twelve since the girbas were found to be dry, when we first lost our way, and stopped in the wood.
The extensive, and very thick forest, which had reached without interruption all the way from Tcherkin, ended, here at Imgellalib. The country is perfectly flat, and hath very little water. The forest, however, though thick, afforded no sort of shade; the hunters, for the sake of their sport, and the Arabs, for destroying the flies, having set fire to all the dry grass and shrubs, which, passing with great rapidity, in the direction of the wood from east to west, though it had not time enough to destroy the trees, did yet wither, and occasion every leaf that was upon them to fall, unless in those spaces where villages had been, and where water was. In such spots a number of large spreading trees remained full of foliage, which, from their great height, and being cleared of underwood, continued in full verdure, loaded with large, projecting, and exuberant branches. But, even here, the pleasure that their shade afforded was very temporary, so as to allow us no time for enjoyment. The sun, so near the zenith, changed his azimuth so rapidly, that every few minutes I was obliged to change the carpet on which I lay round the trunk of the tree, to which I had fled, for shelter; and, though I lay down to sleep, perfectly skreened by the trunk, or branches, I was presently awakened by the violent rays of a scorching sun, the shade having passed beyond me; and this was particularly incommodious, when the trees, under which we placed ourselves, were of the thorny kind, very common in those forests. The thorns, being all scattered round the trunk upon the ground, made either changing-place, or lying, equally uneasy; so that often, however averse we were to fatigue, with the effects of the simoom, we found, that, pitching the head of our tent, and sometimes the whole of it, was the only possible means of securing a permanent protection from the sun's oppressive heat. In all other places, though we had travelled constantly in forests, we never met with a tree that could shade us for a moment, the fire having deprived them of all their leaves.
———————— Latè tibi gurgite rupto
Ambitur nigris Meroë fœcunda colonis,
Læta comis hebeni; quæ quamvis arbore multâ
Frondeat, æstatem nullâ sibi mitigat umbrâ,