afford to his boy. His people frequently made excuses for the conduct of their chief, by stating that he either had been drinking, or else that he had not; so, drunk or sober, it seemed quite natural to them that the old fellow should be in a continual ill-humour from some undefined connexion with strong drink.

I

I took care to promise him another present on the occasion of our leaving Farree, as I conceived that it might be some expectation of the sort that was operating to cause our tiresome detention. was wrong in this, for it was not his pleasure, but the King's, his master, that we should be kept at Farree, although he tried to make us believe it was his own, and assuming an authority that did not belong to him, made our confinement more irksome than it needed to have been, on purpose to evince his power. With our sentinels behind us, however, we could wander all over the hill of Farree, and we accordingly amused ourselves by endeavouring to extend our information upon the various subjects of novel interest with which we were surrounded.

One observation I cannot do better than to insert here, respecting the rocks and soil of Farree, which abound with the nitrate of potass, the bald face of the former, in many places, being hollowed into deep grooves by the constant attrition of the tongues of the numerous flocks and herds, which seem to be as fond of this salt as the same animals are of common table salt in other countries; a

42

THE PROVINCE OF EFAT.

circumstance that is well shown in those saline resorts of deer and buffaloes, called the "licks" of North America. The geological structure of the hills in this neighbourhood is a finely-grained trachytic rock; grey, save where the intrusion of narrow dykes of some blacker rocks, a few feet in thickness, and evidently heated on their first appearance, has changed the general colour to a deep red, which gradually recovers its natural hue at the distance of some yards on either side the dyke. This rock contains a considerable quantity of decomposing felt-spar, supplying the potass, and, I presume, deriving from the atmosphere, and the moisture it contains, the other necessary elements to form the thick efflorescence of saltpetre that covers in some places the surface of the rock.

The religion of Farree is exclusively Mahomedan, as is also that of more than three-fourths of the towns and villages of the province of Efat, all of which are under the hereditary viceregal Wallasmah, who boasts a descent from the famous Mahomed Grahnè, the Adal conqueror of many portions of the ancient Abyssinian empire, in the sixteenth century. Efat forms a portion of the valley country, or Argobbah, which extends from the edge of the table land of Shoa to the Hawash, that flows along the base of this slope, from the south towards the north. The northern boundary of Efat is the river Robee, the southern one being the Kabani; both of them flow into the Hawash.

Late in the afternoon of the 30th of May, the

CONVEYANCE OF THE STORES.

his presence.

43

messenger returned from Angolahlah, with orders from the King that I should be allowed to proceed thither, and that the stores should be conveyed to Considerable bustle and confusion seemed thereupon to take possession of the previously quiet town. Vociferous proclamations were from time to time issued by the misselannee in person, standing upon the stone enclosure in the centre of the market-place. Numerous informants,

willing to be the first bearers of good news, hurried to acquaint us with the cause of all the stir, and to assure us that we were to start in the morning; for that the requisite permission had arrived from the King, and the Wallasmah had directed our mules to be brought in from the grazing ground. The proclamations of the misselannee were to the effect that all persons owing suit and service to the Wallasmah, on account of land held of him, must present themselves; and either personally, or by their slaves, convey the boxes and other packages as far as Aliu Amba, on the road to Angolahlah, from which town a relief party would then take the duty of carrying them the remaining distance.

From the character of the road, badly constructed and in wretched condition, all the packages had to be conveyed up the long ascent to Shoa upon the shoulders of men. Besides, the only beasts of burden, except an occasional worn-out mule or horse, employed by the Abyssinians, are asses, and these were found to be unequal to the carriage of large angular-formed boxes, which, in

44

ADIEU TO THE ESCORT.

fact, could not have been properly secured upon the backs of these little animals.

In the evening the Hy Soumaulee came to bid me good-bye, objecting to the cold of Angolahlah, when I asked them if they did not intend to visit me there. They shuddered at the thought of it, and all business transactions, as regarded payment for their services, were referred to the agency of the two heads of the Kafilah, Ohmed Mahomed and Ebin Izaac, who were obliged, of course, to present themselves to the Negoos Sahale Selassee, and to the British ambassador.

I saw them depart with feelings of regret that I had no means in my power to reward the services of these faithful, and I will add, attached Bedouins; beyond bearing testimony to the great capabilities of their people, who are possessed certainly of the greatest virtues and of the noblest attributes of our nature, if judged by the standard of human excellence contained in the Iliad or neid, the heroes of which I would undertake to match with many Dankalli warriors of the present day. During my stay in this town, it was customary for them to come from Channo, where they were quartered, to sit with me an hour or so in the cool of the morning or the evening. On these occasions their appearance always gave me pleasure, bursting into sight all at once as they chased each other over the crest of the hill, their dark forms for a moment boldly relieved upon the bright sky behind them; down they would come

LAST VISIT TO THE WALLASMAH.

45

full speed along the tortuous, but easy sloping descent across the market-place and up the low bank to my residence, shouting as they came,

Ahkeem, ahkeem," to give me notice of their approach. On entering, four or five of them, with their usual impetuosity, would extend their hands for the sliding contact with the palm of mine, at the same time calling out together the oft-repeated expression, "Negarsee," or "Myhisee," which respectively characterizes the evening or morning salutation.

It was after sunset of the last day we were at Farree, before the Wallasmah sent for us to communicate the pleasure of the King, or Negoos, as I shall call him for the future. We were ordered to proceed to Angolahlah; and whilst we were talking, our mules were brought up and delivered over to Mr. Scott's servants, that we might start as early as we pleased the next morning. The Wallasmah also was ordered to attend at Angolahlah, which was one reason of his having withheld the information of our departure from us until the last moment. The summons which he was obliged to obey did not exactly accord with his wishes, and a two days' journey for an old man of sixty years of age, we admitted was a sufficient reason for the increased ill-temper with which he received the causers of so much trouble when we visited him on the last occasion. I took with me another pound of gunpowder and some more coloured cotton cloth; and these had the good