The Crocodile Is Not A Grass-Feeder,
Therefore The Stomach Is Comparatively Small, And The Contents Do
Not Generate The Amount Of Gas That So Quickly Distends The Huge
Stomach Of The Hippopotamus; Thus The Body Of The Former Requires
A Longer Period Before It Will Rise To The Surface.
In the evening we crossed with our baggage and people to the
opposite side of the river, and pitched our tents at the village
of Goorashee.
A small watercourse had brought down a large
quantity of black sand. Thinking it probable that gold might
exist in the same locality, I washed some earth in a copper
basin, and quickly discovered a few specks of the precious metal.
Gold is found in small quantities in the sand of the Atbara; at
Fazogle, on the Blue Nile, there are mines of this metal worked
by the Egyptian Govermnent. From my subsequent experience I have
no doubt that valuable minerals exist in large quantities
throughout the lofty chain of Abyssinian mountains from which
these rivers derive their sources.
The camels arrived, and once more we were ready to start. Our
factotum, El Baggar, had collected a number of both
baggage-camels and riding dromedaries or "hygeens;" the latter he
had brought for approval, as we had suffered much from the
extreme roughness of our late camels. There is the same
difference between a good hygeen or dromedary and a baggage-camel
as between the thoroughbred and the cart-horse; and it appears
absurd in the eyes of the Arabs that a man of any position should
ride a baggage-camel.
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