74 



TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



of Abyffinia : Yet, from very attentive and frequent obfer- 

 vation, I found that the fky-lark at Mafuah fang the fame 

 notes as in England. It was obfervable, that the great eft 

 part of the beautiful painted birds were of the jay, or mag- 

 pie kind : nature feemed, by the finenefs of their drefs, to 

 have marked them for children of noife and impertinence, 

 but never to have intended them for pleafure or medita- 

 tion. 



The reafon of the Hazorta making, as it were, a fixed 

 ftation here at Tubbo, feems to be the great exuberancy 

 of the foliage of thefe large trees. Their principal occupa- 

 tion feemed to be to cut down the branches moft within 

 their reach ; and this, in a dry feafon, nearly dripped every 

 tree ; and, upon failure of thefe, th'ey remove their flocks, 

 whatever quantity of grafs remained. 



The fycamores conflitute a large proportion of thefe 

 trees, and they are everywhere loaded with figs ; but the 

 procefs of caprification being unknown to thefe favages, 

 thefe figs come to nothing, which elfe might be a great re- 

 fource for food at times, in a country which feems almoft 

 deflitute of the neceffaries of life. 



We left Tubbo at three o'clock in the afternon, and we 

 wifhed to leave the neighbourhood of the Hazorta. At four,, 

 we encamped at Lila, where we paffed the night in a nar- 

 row valley, full of trees and brufhwood, by the fide of a ri- 

 vulet. Thefe fmall, but delightful ftreams, which appear, 

 on the plain between Taranta and the fea, run only after 

 October. When the fummer rains in Abyffinia are ceafmg, 

 they begin again on the eait fide of the mountains ; at other 



2 times, . 



/ 



