THE BLUE NILE 



193 



having been present to receive me and for the smallness 

 of his gift. I gave him a drink, and was much amused 

 at the way he covered his head with his own burnous, 

 besides getting one of his men to assist with his, while 

 he drank. The dread of the evil eye must be great 

 here, for he was the first man, with the exception of the 

 Emperor, whom I had seen do so. After dinner, two 

 Gallas appeared, and, throwing themselves on their 

 knees, with their foreheads touching the ground, said 

 they had been ordered to bring me the fuel. Would 

 I, in my graciousness, give them a present? When I 

 ordered them to be given a salt they wanted to crawl 

 up and kiss my boots ! Next morning the headman 

 was back early, and, while the caravan started by a 

 circuitous route, he took me to the top of a mass of 

 rock that overlooked the valley of the Abbai or Blue 

 Nile. It was a splendid panorama that lay before us, 

 the river making its great bend, as it came from Lake 

 Tana in the north, away towards the west. To the 

 east Ras Dargee's summer residence, perched on the 

 edge of a great cliff, stood out against the sky. Away 

 to the north-east, so far as the eye could reach, was 

 the great fold in the ground in which the Blue Nile 

 flows ; other lesser folds — the sides sometimes jungle- 

 clad, sometimes standing out in naked rock — showed 

 where its numerous tributaries joined. 



Immediately below us the ground fell away in a line 

 of precipitous cliffs, at whose foot there nestled — on a 

 narrow plateau — a little village ; below this a long, steep 

 stretch of jungle led to a second rampart of rock, to be 

 again succeeded by steep, broken ground, partly clothed 



