The Country Is Ornamented By
Extensive Cultivation, And Numerous Villages.
We halted at 5 P.M.
having marched twenty-one miles.
The fertile soil of this country
is thoroughly melted by rain during the wet season, and in the
intense heat of the drought it becomes a mass of gaping crevices
many feet deep, that render hunting on horseback most dangerous.
Fortunately, as we halted, I observed a herd of tetel, and three
ostriches: the latter made off immediately, but I succeeded in
stalking the tetel, and shot two, right and left, one of which
escaped, but the other became the prize of my Tokrooris.
"March 29.--Started at 5.30 A.M. and reached the river Salaam at
8 A.M.; the total distance from our camp in Mek Nimmur's country
is thirty-five miles S.W. The Bahr Salaam is precisely similar in
character to the Settite, but smaller; it has scooped through the
rich lands a deep valley, like the latter river, and has
transported the fertile loam to the Atbara, to increase the rich
store of mud which that river delivers to the Nile. The Salaam is
about two hundred yards wide; it flows through perpendicular
cliffs that form walls of rock, in many places from eighty to a
hundred and fifty feet above its bed; the water is as clear as
crystal, and of excellent quality; even now, a strong though
contracted stream is running over the rounded pebbles that form
its bed, similar to that of the Settite. We descended a difficult
path, and continued along the dry portion of the river's bed up
the stream. While we were searching for a spot to encamp, I saw
a fine bull mehedehet (A. Redunca Ellipsiprymna) by the water
side; I stalked him carefully from behind a bed of high rushes,
and shot him across the river with the Fletcher rifle; he went
on, although crippled, but the left-hand barrel settled him by a
bullet through the neck. We camped on the bank of the river.
"March 30.--I went out to explore the country, and, steering due
east, I arrived at the river Angrab or Angarep, three miles from
the Salaam; from a high rock I could trace its course from the
mountain gorge to this spot, the stream flowing N.W. This noble
river or mountain torrent is about a hundred and fifty yards
wide, although the breadth varies according to the character of
the country through which it passes; in most places it rushes
through frightful precipices; sometimes it is walled within a
channel of only forty or fifty yards, and in such places the
cliffs, although at least a hundred feet perpendicular height,
bear the marks of floods that have actually overtopped the rocks,
and have torn away the earth, and left masses of bamboos and
withered reeds clinging to the branches of trees, which, growing
on still higher rocks, have dipped in the swollen torrent. I
followed the circuitous course of the river for some miles,
until, after a most fatiguing exploration among precipices and
deep ravines, I arrived at the junction of the Salaam river.
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