SPOR T IN ABYSSINIA. 1 2 7 



been, when a little boy, servant to Consul Plowden, who 

 was murdered in South Abyssinia, and he was a 

 capital servant, but rather cowardly. 



In the evening Barrakee, the young chiefs tutor, 

 proposed that we should go up to the top of a 

 high-peaked hill close by, and see the country we 

 were approaching. We rode up some distance, and at 

 last had to get off our mules as the way became very 

 steep. Certainly a more glorious view I never saw. 

 To the north-west we could see the plains through 

 which the Mareb runs, and to the south-west were the 

 mountains among whose gorges that splendid river 

 the Tackazzee flows ; beyond the Tackazzee to the 

 west, in fact in front of us, might be seen two 

 mountains, one of which is of a very peculiar shape 

 — these mark the province of Walkait. On the 

 top of one of these mountains is a fort or stronghold 

 which cannot be reached except by ropes — no human 

 being can climb up to it. Due south of where we 

 were standing lay crowded together that mass of 

 mountains called the Siemien range, the tops of 

 which, the natives informed us, were covered with 

 snow the whole year round. This I cannot vouch for, 

 as I certainly did not see any at that time ; and I 

 almost think, if there had been snow, it would have 

 caught the rays of the setting sun, and it could have 

 been seen quite distinctly. The Tackazzee rises in 



