Hcugli)is " Reise Nach Abessifiien" i47 



tunity, it would doubtless have sent some one to execute in 

 anticipation of the present campaign. It is an itinerary, and 

 so far as we can judge of one through a country which we have 

 not seen, we should say it is exceedingly well done. The details of 

 an itinerary, however, are caviare to the general reader or the 

 naturalist, who will look rather for incidents of travel and in- 

 structive observations in natural history. As to the former, it 

 is difficult to believe that the country passed through by Heuglin 

 is part of the same land visited by Sir Samuel Baker, and that 

 lions, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami, were 

 or might have been encountered by the one as well as the other. 

 But so it is ; while Sir Samuel's course was one continued scene of 

 dangerous encounter with these animals. Von Heuglin, so far 

 as can be gathered from this book, seems to have seen little more 

 of them than their traces, and not have come into close contact 

 with any of them. It would be quite a sufficient explanation of 

 this that Heuglin's route was along a tolerably frequented line of 

 march, the " Great North Road " of Abyssinia, while Baker's 

 was purposely in the pathless desert wilds, where the larger game 

 had sought shelter from the intrusion of their dreaded enemy, 

 mankind ; but a still more important reason was that the one 

 hunted in the lower grounds, while the other was in the high 

 plateau, to which the larger game does not ascend. The lion does 

 not go higher than 7000 or 8000 feet, the elephant than 5000, and 

 the rhinoceros 7000, while the height of the main plateau is 

 10,000 feet. 



Another reason may possibly be a difference in the constitution 

 of the two men; for, although it is plain, from the number of 

 birds and animals collected by Heuglin, that he is by no means an 

 indifferent sportsman, he either met no adventures to recount, or 

 he has not the faculty of making the most of them. Keeping in 

 view that the work is published in 1868 (although the journey was 

 made some years before), and that he visited King Theodore, 

 whom, besides, he had known in former years, we think he might 

 have given us a little more about that potentate than a couple 

 of pages. We cannot suppose that Von Heuglin does not 

 know more about Theodore than the best infomied special corres- 

 pondents ; but he may hold it not honesty in one occupying his 

 position (Austrian Consul at Chartum) to set down all he 

 knows. It is a good rule to speak well of the bridge that carries 

 you over, and if you cannot, the next best is to say nothing at all. 



