1 2 6 SFOR T IN ABYSSINIA. 



donkeys sometimes singly and sometimes in pairs ; 

 we had on an average to pay six dollars a-piece for 

 them, which was a great deal too much. This in- 

 cluded the pads on which the package was strapped, 

 and also the " mechanias," or leather thongs which 

 strap the baggage on. The only thing to be assured of 

 in buying donkeys is that they are not suffering from 

 recent sores on their backs ; and a very good way of 

 testing their strength is to put both hands in the 

 small of their back and to press down with all your 

 weight : a good donkey's back will yield very little, 

 but a bad one cannot bear it at all. Cassa, the man 

 who had charge of our transport arrangements, helped 

 me greatly in buying the donkeys. The very minute 

 I bought one and paid for it I marked it by clipping 

 a square patch on its rump with a pair of nail scissors : 

 this was quite enough for all present purposes. The 

 great difficulty was to make the natives bring the 

 pads and straps, as without them of course the 

 donkeys were perfectly useless. We here employed 

 some servants in making sandals for themselves out 

 of cow-skin that I had bought at Deevaroua ; in fact, 

 most of them asked me to allow them to make some, 

 as the paths through the jungle are very thorny and 

 stony, and not like travelling through the cultivated 

 fields of Tigre. Plowden Gubrihote, H.'s gun-bearer, 

 was shoe — or rather sandal — maker to the rest ; he had 



