128 NORTH-EAST AERICA. 



The Abyssinian Plateau. 



On the whole, the Ethiopian plateau consists of numerous distinct table-lands, 

 like the polyhedric prisms formed by the dessication of the clayey soil of plains 

 exposed to the action of heat. These table-lands, intersected by precipices and 

 surmounted by crags, stand at different elevations. Some of them form entire 

 provinces, with towns and numerous populations ; others, the so-called amba, are 

 mere blocks or quadrangular masses some 800 or 1,000 feet high, similar to the 

 drugs or "inaccessibles" of Southern India, or the isolated crags of Saxon 

 Switzerland. In eastern Ethiopia the origin of these ambas is doubtless due to 

 the disintegration of a thick layer of red or greyish sandstone, cleft into vertical 

 masses, and revealing here and there stratas of lower schistose and crystaline 

 formations. In the interior, and especially towards the west, where volcanic 

 lands prevail, most of the natural cliffs consist, not of sandstone, like those of the 

 eastern plateaux of India and of Saxony, but of lava, and terminate in basaltic 

 columns, some disposed in converging clusters or else forming colonnades like the 

 temples of the Acropolis. These crystaline rocks, whose upper terrace is large 

 enouffh to contain arable tracts and form the source of rivers, have for the most 

 part served as strongholds, where many a tribe or horde of robbers has remained 

 for years besieged and cut off from the rest of the world. Other ambas have 

 been chosen by the monks as the sites of their monasteries, and such holy places 

 often serve as sanctuaries to those fleeing from justice or oppression. Lastly, the 

 smaller basalt columns are frequently used as prisons for the great personages 

 who have incurred the displeasure of the reigning sovereign. 



In Eastern Ethiopia the general face of the plateau is more broken and cut up 

 into more secondary plateaux and crystaline rocks than in the west. The escarp- 

 ments of most of the isolated mountain masses slope more gradually westwards. 

 They thus reproduce in miniature the general aspect of the whole region, which 

 terminates abruptly towards the Red Sea, and slopes gradually towards the Nilotic 

 plains. This general incline, however, can only be determined by accurate instru- 

 ments, the aspect of the plateau and of the surrounding ranges being too irregular 

 to enable the observer to detect its primitive outline. The ambas stand out at 

 various elevations in bold relief against the blue sky like citadels and towers. 

 Lower down, the verdant base of the plateau breaks into abrupt precipices, 

 whose walls present from a distance the aspect of regular quadrangular lines. On 

 these harder rocks rest the soft foundations, here scored by avalanches of falling 

 rocks, elsewhere clothed with verdure. The Abyssinian landscapes, like those of 

 the Rocky Mountains, consist of superimposed terrace-lands and vast strata of 

 monumental aspect. Near Magdala the eastern edge of the Talanta plateau is said 

 to terminate abruptly in a vertical wall of basaltic pillars over three thousand 

 feet high. 



The Kvs^allas and River Gorges. 



The height of the Ethiopian plateaux varies greatly, presenting between the 

 Simen range in the north and those of Lasta and Gojam in the south-east and 



