fresh volume to the river. The rainy season commences in Abyssinia in
the middle of May, but the country being parched by the summer heat, the
first rains are absorbed by the soil, and the torrents do not fill until
the middle of June.

From June to the middle of September the storms are terrific; every
ravine becomes a raging torrent; trees are rooted up by the mountain
streams swollen above their banks, and the Atbara becomes a vast river,
bringing down with an overwhelming current the total drainage of four
large rivers--the Settite, Royan, Salaam, and Angrab--in addition to its
own original volume. Its waters are dense with soil washed from most
fertile lands far from its point of junction with the Nile; masses of
bamboo and driftwood, together with large trees, and frequently the dead
bodies of elephants and buffaloes, are hurled along its muddy waters in
wild confusion, bringing a rich harvest to the Arabs on its banks, who
are ever on the look-out for the river's treasures of fuel and timber.

The Blue Nile and the Atbara receiving the entire drainage of Abyssinia,
at the same time pour their floods into the main Nile in the middle of
June. At that season the White Nile is at a considerable level, although
not at its HIGHEST; and the sudden rush of water descending from
Abyssinia into the main channel, already at a fair level from the White
Nile, causes the annual inundation in Lower Egypt.

During the year that I passed in the northern portion of Abyssinia and
its frontiers, the rains continued with great violence for three months,
the last shower falling on the 16th September, from which date there was
neither dew nor rain until the following May. The great rivers expended,
and the mountain torrents dried up; the Atbara disappeared, and once
more became a sheet of glaring sand. The rivers Settite, Salaam, and