272 THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA CHAP. 
of the country—and baskets piled high with the enormous pan- 
cakes which pass for bread. Next day, dressed in our best 
uniform and half choked by dust, we entered Harar with the 
Ras, who himself came to meet us near the outskirts of the city. 
As we passed a hill, the summit of which was crowded with 
thousands of soldiers, we received a salute from Makunan’s 
field-guns. 
Our stay at Harar, in a camp which we chose for ourselves, 
was a very pleasant one, for, as may have been already learnt 
from this book, Makunan is a good host, with pleasant features, 
a quiet and musical voice, and the gentlest and most graceful 
manners. The time passed partly in audiences and partly in 
the hurried purchasing of mules, which had apparently never 
carried a load before, and let us know it. 
As soon as the first detachment of forty mules could be got 
together, Captain Speedy and myself, as interpreter to the Mission 
and officer in charge of transport, were sent ahead. It was a 
relief to be clear of the city and again on our journey; and a 
very pleasant time we had. Speedy is an accomplished traveller, 
well versed in all things Abyssinian, his experience dating from 
a time earlier than Lord Napier’s expedition of 1867, which he 
accompanied. 
On the first evening after leaving Harar we formed our 
bivouac on the side of a hill, and had to picket our mules in 
long grass in the dark. We hada good deal of trouble with 
them, but nothing like that of the main caravan. Next day, 
passing Haramaya Lake, we reachéd Garsa without the loss of 
a mule. Here the main caravan eventually joined us. Its 
troubles are well described in The Mission to Menelik. 
We marched westward over the green valleys and wooded 
hills of the Harar highlands, in spring-like weather, generally 
cold at night. We passed, in weird forests of dead pines, over 
the scenes of many battles for the possession of Harar (dating 
from the conversion of Abyssinia about 330 a.p.) between 
Christians from the West and Moslems from the East. All this 
country—elevated from six thousand to eight thousand feet or 
more—between Harar and the depression of the Hawash river, 
which divides Harar from Shoa, has a beauty of its own. In 
some places it looked like English park country ; while in others, 
where the green downs were overhung by dark pine ridges, were 
reproduced those gems of scenery, the margs or alpine meadows 
of the mountains bordering the valley of Kashmir. 
