She had persisted in eating the fruit
of the hegleek, although she had suffered from dysentery upon
several occasions.
She was at length attacked with congestion of
the liver. My wife took the greatest care of her, and for weeks
she had given her the entire produce of the goats, hoping that
milk would keep up her strength; but she died after great
suffering, and we buried the poor creature, and moved our camp.
CHAPTER XVII.
WE REACH THE ROYAN.
HAVING explored the Settite into the gorge of the mountain chain
of Abyssinia, we now turned due south from our camp of
Delladilla, and at a distance of twelve miles we reached the
river Royan. The intervening country was the high and flat
table-land of rich soil, that characterises the course of the
Settite and Atbara rivers; this land was covered with hegleek
trees of considerable size, and the descent to the Royan was
through a valley, torn and washed by the rains, similar in
appearance to that of the Settite, but upon a small scale, as the
entire width did not exceed a mile.
Descending the rugged ground, we arrived at the margin of the
river. At this season (February) the bed was perfectly dry sand,
about ninety yards from bank to bank, and the high-water mark
upon the perpendicular sides was a little above nine feet deep.
The inclination was extremely rapid: thus the Royan during the
rainy season must be a most frightful torrent, that supplies a
large body of water to the Settite, but which runs dry almost
immediately upon the cessation of the rains.
We descended the bank in a spot that had been broken down by
elephants, and continued our course up stream along the sandy
bed, which formed an excellent road. The surface was imprinted
with the footsteps of every variety of game, and numerous holes
about two feet deep had been dug in the sand by the antelopes and
baboons to procure water. Great numbers of the oterop, a small
reddish-brown antelope without horns (Calotragus Montanus) were
drinking at these little watering-places, and did not appear to
heed us. We disturbed many nellut and tetel upon the banks, and
after having marched about four miles along the river's bed, we
halted at a beautiful open forest of large trees at the junction
of Hor Mai Gubba. This was a considerable torrent, which is
tributary to the Royan; at this spot it had cut through a white
sandstone cliff, about eighty feet perpendicular: thus upon
either side it was walled in. The word Gubba is Abyssinian for
the nabbuk, therefore the torrent was the Nabbuk River: this
flowed past the village of Mai Gubba, which is the head-quarters
of Mek Nimmur, from which we were not twenty-five miles distant.
We camped in a forest of the largest trees that we had as yet
seen in Africa, and as we had observed the fresh tracks of
horses, on the sand, some of my Arabs went in search of the
aggageers of Taher Sheriff's party, whom they had expected to
meet at this point.
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