SPOILT AA' ABYSSINIA. 1 39 



dance, they all sat down and clapped their hands, 

 making a hissing noise. The young chief said if we 

 would give them a dollar they would be very pleased ; 

 so we presented them with one, and they went aw-ay 

 delighted. We had bought a quantity of corn at 

 Adiaboo for food for our servants in the jungle, but 

 we could not manage to get it ground at Adiaboo ; 

 the young chief, however, said we should be able to do 

 so in the villages as we went on. He came to us in 

 the middle of the day and said, " I cannot make the 

 ballagas grind your corn ; you must go through the 

 villages and make them give you an equal weight of 

 flour in exchange for your corn." The reason why 

 he could not make the ballagas of the nearest village 

 grind the corn was that the village belonged to the 

 Monastery of Debra Bizen, which my readers will 

 remember was situated on a high mountain that 

 overlooked the little valley of Gindar. The priest 

 of the village said that the young chief had no power 

 over these people, who paid tribute to the monastery. 

 We went into the village and said that we must have 

 some flour, and that we had brought corn to exchange 

 for it. We sent our servants round to the different 

 houses to fetch the flour, while a priest, a nice-looking 

 old fellow in a green turban, looked on to see that 

 we did not take more than was right. From one of 

 the little hamlets, to which I went to look for some 



