VII SHOA NATIVES 67 



constructed by the Italiem prisoners. At the top 

 of this gorge is a plateau, which stretches to the 

 capital and beyond. Close to the edge of this cliff 

 is Balji, the seat of the local governor and a tele- 

 phone station. We reached this at 1.20 in the after- 

 noon, having been nine hours and forty minutes on 

 the road. The governor was away, anil no one set'med 

 inclined to bestir himself for us. liovvever, Mahomed 

 found a friend and got us some tnjcrra. thin, tlat 

 cakes of native bread, about 18 inches across, and 

 a few eggs. The air was very cold, and we were glad 

 to lie round a fire under a tree. This was the first 

 good -sized Abyssinian village we had visited, and we 

 wandered round it with interest. The houses were all 

 of the same type as those at Choba, each with a very 

 dirty little yard, divided ofi" by a dilapidated fence. 

 There was no order or method in the arrangement 

 of the huts. The intervening streets were sometimes 

 wide and sometimes narrow, but always the recognised 

 dumping-ground for all refuse, solid or li(]uid. The 

 men for the most part wore tight-fitting short trousers 

 of dirty white cotton cloth, rather a long-tailed shirt 

 with \t;r)- tight sleeves, and a s/iaiiiiiia or cotton sheet 

 wrapped round their shoulders. They wore no boots, 

 and their legs were bare almost to the knees. The 

 men were short but mostly of sturdy build, their features 

 generally good, with straight noses and not very thick 

 lips ; in colour they varied greatly, from very dark brown 

 to quite a light olive, and all had their curly black hair 

 closely clipped. The women are, as a rule, by no means 

 well-favoured. Sometimes you see a young girl with 



