TRADE DOLLARS 



177 



the further you get from the capital the more difficult to 

 please they are. Every piece offered is carefully scruti- 

 nised, two or three friends being often called in for their 

 opinion. A new one, or one that is much worn or on 

 which the ornaments of the neck, especially the points of 

 the star, are not clear, is at once rejected. I have had as 

 many as thirty of these coins refused out of fifty, but 

 fortunately no two men agree as to what should be 

 accepted and what not, so that when I reached Asmara 

 there were only some 25 of the 1500 that no one 

 would look at. Mr. Baird and I rode over to Captain 

 Ciccodicola, who showed me the maps of the country 

 from Adua to Asmara, and advised me as to the best 

 road to follow, and the places where I was likely to find 

 the most game. He gave me a letter to the Governor of 

 Erythrea, and said he was also writing to him about my- 

 self and my proposed journey, so that I should have no 

 trouble on reaching the frontier. At the Italian Resi- 

 dency we met M. Seljan whom, when he returned 

 penniless from Count Leontieff's expedition to the Omo, 

 Captain Ciccodicola had kindly received and sheltered 

 in his house. He was busy sorting out the curios he 

 had brought back with him. They mostly consisted of 

 bracelets of iron and ivory, and other personal ornaments 

 of skin and bead-work, the largest being the state-cloak 

 of a petty chief composed of the skins of different animals. 

 We left the Italian Residency late, and, trying a short 

 cut, got mixed up in a stone quarry and had to go a long 

 way round. On reaching our compound, we found that 

 Seljan had sent some of the curios to Captain Harrington 

 who, knowing that most of them had been collected by 



