treasures, which evidently tempted their virtue in a most perilous degree.
Meanwhile a special messenger arrived, bearing reiterated compliments from
the Negoos, (king,) with a horse and a mule from the royal stud, attired
in the peculiar trappings which belong to majesty. Those animals awoke all
the loyal curiosity of the people. At the sight women and girls, enveloped
in blood-red shifts, who had thronged to stare at the strangers, burst
into a scream of acclamation. A group of hooded widows thrust their
fingers into their ears and joined in the clamour. The escort and
camel-drivers placed no bounds to their hilarity. A fat ox, that had been
promised, was turned loose among the spectators, pursued by fifty savages
with their gleaming _creeses_, and hamstrung by a dexterous blow, which
threw it bellowing to the earth in the height of its mad career, and
tribes of lean curs commenced an indiscriminate engagement over the
garbage.

The neighbouring nations look upon the population of this province with
great contempt. They say that their tongues are long for lying, their arms
are long for stealing, and their legs are long for running away.

The mission now approached another region, perhaps the finest in Africa.
Every change in the climate and soil in Africa is in extremes, and
barreness and unbounded fertility lie side by side.

"As if by the touch of the magician's wand, the scene now passes, in
an instant, from parched wastes to the geen, and lovely islands of
Abyssinia, presenting one scene of rich and thriving cultivation. The
baggage having at length been consigned to the shoulders of six
hundred grumbling Moslem porters--for here the camel, from the
steepness of the hills, was useless--and forming a line, which
extended upwards of a mile, the embassy, on the morning of the 17th,