Ch. viii. different Parts of Africa. 155 



The effect of poverty, with bad diet, and, its al- 

 most constant concomitant, want of cleanliness, in 

 aggravating malignant distempers, is well known ; 

 and this kind of wretchedness seems generally to 

 prevail. Of Tchagassa, near Gondar, Bruce ob- 

 serves that the inhabitants, notwithstanding their 

 threefold harvests, are miserably poor.* At 

 Adowa, the capital of Tigr6, he makes the same 

 remark, and applies it to all the Abyssinian 

 farmers. The land is let yearly to the highest 

 bidder, and in general the landlord furnishes the 

 seed and receives half of the produce; but it is 

 said that he is a very indulgent master who does 

 not take another quarter for the risk he has run; 

 so that the quantity which comes to the share of 

 the husbandman is not more than sufficient to af- 

 ford a bare sustenance to his wretched family.^ 



The Agows, one of the most considerable na- 

 tions of Abyssinia in point of number, are described 

 by Bruce as living in a state of misery and penury 

 scarcely to be conceived. We saw a number of 

 women, he says, wrinkled and sun-burnt so as 

 scarcely to appear human, wandering about under 

 a burning sun with one and sometimes two chil- 

 dren upon their backs, gathering the seeds of 

 bent grass to make a kind of bread 4 The Agow 

 women begin to bear children at eleven years old. 

 They marry generally about that age, and there is 



* Bruce, vol. iii. c. vii. p. 195. 

 f Id. c. v. p. 124. 

 | Id. c. xix. p. 738. 



