THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 303 



wipe his fingers upon ; and afterwards the fervant, for bread 

 to his dinner. 



Two or three fervants then come, each with a fquare 

 piece of beef in their bare hands, laying it upon the cakes 

 of teff, placed like difhes down the table, without cloth or 

 any thing elfe beneath them. By this time all the guells 

 have knives in their hands, and their men have the large 

 crooked ones, which they put to all forts of ufes during the 

 time of war. The women have fmall clafped knives, fuch 

 as the worll of the kind made at Birmingham, fold for a 

 penny each. 



The company are fo ranged that one man fits between 

 two women ; the man with his long knife cuts a thin piece, 

 which would be thought a good beef-fleak in England, 

 while you fee the motion of the fibres yet perfectly diitind, 

 and alive in the flefh. No man in Abyflinia, of any fafhion 

 whatever, feeds himfelf, or touches his own meat. The 

 women take the fteak and cut it length-ways like firings, 

 about the thicknefs of your little finger, then crofsways into 

 fquare pieces, fomething fmaller than dice. This they lay 

 upon a piece of the teff bread, ftrongly powdered with black 

 pepper, or Cayenne pepper, and foffile-falt, they then wrap- 

 it up in the teff bread like a cartridge. 



In the mean time, the man having put up his knife, with 

 each hand refling upon his neighbour's knee, his body 

 ftooping, his head low and forward, and mouth open very 

 like an idiot, turns to the one whofe cartridge is firfl ready, 

 who fluffs the whole of it into his mouth, which is fo full 

 that he is in conflant danger of being choked. This is a 



, mark 



