XI WITH BRITISH MISSION TO KING MENELIK 273 
For the first twenty-five miles after leaving Harar the road 
passes, at about six thousand five hundred feet above sea-level, 
over fields of barley, in open country. After leaving Garsa 
there is a sudden change to Warabili, at over seven thousand 
feet, a really beautiful hollow in the top of a high range, looking 
like wooded English scenery with somewhat of a Swiss character. 
The weather became colder here, the thermometer falling to 
within three degrees of freezing-point. 
Round Tyalanka, about two hundred feet lower, there was 
another slight difference, and we wound among open grass 
downs and pine-forest; the skeleton stems of dead pine-trees 
standing scattered in open order, very like some spots on the 
lower slopes of Kinchin-Junga in the Himalayas. There were 
also larches and firs. The cedars smelt like the wood used for 
lead-pencils, as do those of Gdlis in Somaliland, and seemed to 
be of the same kind. After Tyalanka we reached different 
country again—perfect English park scenery—at Derru, over 
seven thousand five hundred feet above the sea and some fifty- 
five miles west of Harar. Open turf-covered rounded ridges, 
with large trees and copses dotted about, appeared like some of 
the parks which overlook the Weald of Kent; and had I been 
roused suddenly to consciousness after a long illness I should 
have believed myself in some hilly part of England. 
At Burka, below six thousand feet, we entered a shallow 
valley between low hills, down the middle of which wound a 
stream with sand and pebble bottom, in which were masses of 
dark or bright green weed of the finest texture, with various 
fish darting about in it. The meadow-grass, the stream, the 
ridges on either side of the valley, were so English in character 
that the eye half expected to see a thatched cottage at a turn 
of the path. 
Three more days of this hill and dale country brought us to 
Kunni, nearly eight thousand feet above the sea, and one 
hundred miles west of Harar. Here more pleasant surprises 
awaited the eye, for the mule-track wound over hills covered 
with heavy forest of cotton-wood, juniper, and mountain cedar. 
One of the trees I measured was twenty-three feet in girth, very 
straight, and growing to a great height, which could not be 
estimated. The close growth of the stems and the branches 
above caused a twilight effect, and the slightly buttressed stems 
almost recalled the aisles of a cathedral. Through miles of 
primeval forest of tropical luxuriance, festooned with giant 
T 
