ii6 A SPORTING TRIP THROUGH ABYSSINIA chap. 



but a mule may go up to three hundred. In doing my 

 marketing, my usual plan was to ride down with 

 Mr. Beru, and, with his assistance, hunt for curios or 

 whatever I wanted, while taking snapshots of any- 

 thing that struck me as characteristic of the market, 

 my camera often exciting a good deal of curiosity. One 

 girl, I remember, when her attention was drawn to the 

 fact that I was taking her portrait, called out, as she 

 ducked her head out of sight, " By the Holy Trinity, tell 

 me, what is he doing '^. " 



In purchasing mules, after my men had selected such 

 as appeared to be suitable animals, we used to go ov^er 

 and see them tried, and then arrange the price. Then 

 we crossed to the meeting-tree, where the head syce 

 would report his purchases for the stable, and the head 

 woman show us the stores she had bought for feeding 

 the numerous retinue. All around the rendezvous were 

 piled up fuel, forage, and provisions for a week's 

 consumption at the Agency, all of which had to be 

 loaded on mules and carried the five miles to the 

 Residency. 



In the palpitating life and varied scenes of the 

 market one might see more of the people and their 

 ways of life in one morning than in a week's wandering 

 about the capital. There were to be seen the Galla 

 girls staggering under loads of wood or grass ; the 

 priests in their white caps (like a tall hat with the 

 brim cut off), and carrying in one hand a grass -plaited 

 umbrella to shield them from the sun, and in the other 

 a fly-whisk of short horse-hair dyed red ; women of the 

 better class muffled up to the eyes and attended by their 



