256 A SPORTING TRIP THROUGH ABYSSINIA chap. 



Belaire. To the south we could see the hills bounding 

 the plain, while to the north the landscape gradually 

 widened out till its boundaries were lost in the horizon. 

 The flat-topped Ouarra Mountain, the haunt of the 

 robber-chief Kidarnar Mariam and his band, cut the 

 sky-line in the far distance to the north-west. We 

 began the steep descent by a good path through a forest 

 of fine trees, the atmosphere getting perceptibly warmer 

 as we descended. Passing, on the lower slopes, various 

 little villages, surrounded by patches of cultivation, we 

 kept on till we reached Mungut, a somewhat larger 

 village, encircled on three sides by hills, but with a good 

 stretch of level, cultivated ground in front of it, containing 

 several pools of water. All the villagers turned out to 

 ■ gaze at me and my belongings, for I was the first white 

 man they had seen. Later in the day, Belat Wurgie 

 arrived with a large following, and asked me to remain 

 for one day, while he collected enough men to guard me 

 from the robber band ! As he already had over fifty men 

 with him, armed to the teeth with every description of 

 weapon, from an Italian magazine-rifle to an ancient 

 muzzle-loader tied to the stock with string, I thought he 

 was joking. But no : he explained that it was evident 

 I was a person of consequence, or the Emperor would 

 not have sent such a letter to me ; that if anything 

 happened to me in his district, his villages would be laid 

 waste, and he and the headman marched to Adis Ababa 

 in chains. 



Next morning I was off soon after five, over a long, 

 low-lying ridge of hills to the north-west ; from the top 

 of this I searched the country with the glasses, and far 



