THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 439
ready, and mounted on horfeback, that we might join them. Yet it was a thing appeared to us fcarcely poffible, that Fa- fil mould beat Ras Michael fo eafily, and with .fo fliort a re- finance.
We had not gone far in the plain before we had a fight of the enemy, to our very great furprifo and no fmall comfort. A multitude of deer, buffaloes, boars, and va- rious other wild beafts, had been alarmed by the noife and daily advancing of the army, and gradually driven be- fore them. The country was all overgrown with wild oats, a great many of the villages having been burnt the year be- fore the inhabitants had abandoned them ; in this fhelter the wild beads had taken up their abodes in very great num- bers. When the army pointed towards Karcagna to the left, the filence and folitude on the oppofite fide made them turn to the right to where. the Nile makes a femi-circle, the Jemma being behind them, and much overflowed. When the army, therefore, inftead of marching fouth and by eafl towards Samfeen, had turned their courfe north-weft, their faces towards Gondar, they had fallen in with thefe innu- merable herds of deer and other beafts, who, confined be- tween the Nile, the Jemma, and the lake, had no way to re- turn but that by which they had come. Thefe animals, finding men in every direction in which they attempted to pafs, became defperate with fear, and, not knowing what courfe to take, fell a prey to the troops. The foldiers, hap- py in an occaiion of procuring animal food, prefently fell to firing wherever the beafts appeared; every loaded gun was difcharged upon them, and this continued for very near an hour. A numerous flock of the largeft deer met us juft in the. face, and feemed fo defperate, that they had every
appearance
