778 THEOUGH SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA TO THE SUDAN. 



.said to have piled up in one night a small mountain situated southeast 

 of the town. The faces of the inhabitants show clearly that they are 

 descended from old Arab colonists. Their chief is the Imam, a direct 

 descendant of Sheikh Husein. The Christian Abyssinians, who for 

 about ten or twelve years have been masters of these countries, treat 

 the Mohammedans here and their traditions with much respect. Ever}^- 

 thing in and near Sheikh Husein is hol\", and belongs to the dead 

 sheikh. It is not permitted to cut wood near the town, no cattle are 

 sold, and we were asked not to shoot birds. One of my Somal having 

 caught two bats with a butterfly net in the holy tomb, a large assembly 

 was held and the poor fellow and myself were cursed by the Imam 

 imtil I gave him some dollars to appease the wrath of the dead sheikh. 

 I will simpl}^ mention that, besides the tombs, there are other stone 

 ])uildings in Sheikh Husein which, in my opinion, are perhaps of a 

 pre-Islamatic origin, such as a wall about 2 feet thick surrounding 

 a small lake near the town. 



Prior to our arrival we had received messages from the Abyssinian 

 dejasmach (General of the Center), Wolde Gabriel, the governor of 

 these countries, ordering us, in the name of the Emperor Menelik, 

 to proceed straight to Adis Abeba. Meanwhile we had lost so many 

 camels ))y the rough roads in the Ennia and Arussi lands that we 

 were compelled to leave here about half our stores. Directly west 

 of Sheikh Husein there was no road practicable for camels, so we had 

 to proceed two days in a southwesterly direction, crossing the beau- 

 tiful and forest-clad chain which Dr. Donaldson Smith has called the 

 Gillet mountains. The forests here show nothing of the character of 

 a tropical African forest. Looking at the tall tir-like juniper trees, 

 among which, in some places, the barley fields of the Arussi are 

 scattered, the traveler might imagine himself in the Black Forest 

 or in the forests of Tyrol. West of the Gillet mountains is an 

 isolated mountain called Abunas, or Gara Daj, by the Arussi, which 

 we ascended after some quarrels with the Abyssinian chief whom 

 Wolde Gabriel had sent us as escort. This fellow seemed to be afraid 

 that we might run away on the other side of the mountain. On the 

 top of the Abunas there are ruins of a sanctum probably of pre- 

 Islamitic age. The view here is splendid, and boundless on every side 

 except the north, where Mount Abulkassim, about 900 feet higher 

 than Abunas, is situated. From the summit we descended to the 

 Wabbi, recrossed the river to the north, and camped about halfway 

 up Mount Abulkassim, the holy mountain of the inhabitants of Sheikh 

 Husein. 



This mountain, already seen from a very far distance fifteen years 

 ago b}^ the Italian explorer Ragazzi, had never before been visited by 

 any European. There is a good way leading upward to a high preci- 

 pice, in which are about a dozen caverns, at some seasons of the year 



