82 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
no peace whatever while in the Abyssinian town. There 
were a thousand permanent inhabitants in Ginea, mostly 
slaves, except a body of four hundred and fifty men, armed 
with rifles; but many hundreds of natives from all parts 
of the country came to the town daily, driving their 
flocks, or bringing salt from the south, and various mar- 
ketable articles. There was a large market held twice a 
week in Ginea, where durrha, Indian corn, oats, beans, 
pumpkins, tobacco, coffee, chilli-peppers, sour oranges 
(introduced into Abyssinia by Frenchmen), salt, cloth, 
ornaments, and various utensils, besides slaves, were 
sold. I could buy two sacks of ground durrha meal-for 
two tobes of American sheeting, costing at Aden less 
than an American dollar,— enough to last eighty men 
for four days. 
Wal-da-Gubbra’s daughter came to my tent one day 
and requested that I should bring about an interesting 
event that she had been expecting for three years! Poor 
woman! was she deceiving herself, or me? We were ob- 
liged to go frequently to Wal-da-Gubbra’s house; but as 
it was always so full of fleas, monkeys, and slaves, and as 
carrying on a conversation through the medium of three 
languages was not very amusing, we made our visits as 
short as possible. 
Wal-da-Gubbra tried to put every impediment in our 
way if we wanted to make any long journey; but we had 
heard of some curious caves some thirty miles to the south 
of Ginea, so Fred and I determined to evade the Abyssin- 
ans for a few days, on the excuse of elephant-hunting, and 
visit them. 
We started off on October 22, with a guide provided by 
Wal-da-Gubbra to take us to the elephant country and to 
see that food was provided for us. We made a short curve 
about the hill of Ginea, and then descended precipitously 
