xxvii THE DERVISH INVASION 301 



the audience-chamber being above 120 feet long. A succession of 

 kings have built apartments by the side of it of clay, only in the 

 manner and fashion of their own country.^ 



The palace and all the buildings are surrounded by 

 a substantial stone wall 30 feet high and \\ mile in 

 circumference. A parapet roof between the outer 

 battlemented wall and the inner wall forms a gallery, 

 from which missile weapons can be discharged. On the 

 other side of the rise is a Mohammedan town of one 

 thousand houses, the inhabitants of which are mostly 

 employed in the care of the king's and nobility's bag- 

 gage and field-equipage. They load and conduct the 

 mules and pitch camp, but do no fighting on either side. 



Up to the Dervish invasion in 1887 under Abu 

 Angar, Gondar, although no longer the capital of an 

 empire, was still a considerable place, being, as it is, the 

 natural centre to which traders converge from what is 

 now the Italian colony of Erythrea, the salt-mines of 

 Assal, the Soudan, and both shores of Lake Tana. 

 Many rich Nagadis lived there, who despatched their 

 caravans in every direction, but nearly all of these lost, 

 not only their wealth, but their lives as well at the hands 

 of the Dervishes. Now there is only one large merchant 

 remaining in the place, and so low has the state of trade 

 fallen that only five to six salts go to a dollar, whereas at 

 Dungoler, which is eight marches further from the mines, 

 seven was the rate of exchange when I was there. 

 However, under a settled government, with the Soudan 



^ This passage is reprinted verbatim from the ist ed. vol. iii. p. 380. 



