MESHEK. 71 



I sent them on, and remained some time examinino; the 

 rocks. When I re-started, I missed the road, and soon 

 foimd myself wandering amongst hills. I came to a 

 village, and succeeded somehow in explaining that I 

 wanted a guide, and moreover in inducing a man, for 

 a dollar, to show me the way ; and he took me back into 

 the proper route before nightfall, at the spot where it 

 entered a deep valley, with fine trees and a running 

 stream. Up this I rode for some miles in the dark, till 

 I reached the camp at Meshek, where I found a party 

 of friends wondering at my absence. 



Meshek is a lovely spot. A small grass plain, with a 

 few scattered wUlow-trees, looking as if made for a 

 camping-ground, occupies a rather wide portion of the 

 valley. Above, there is cultivation, irrigated by the little 

 stream in the bottom of the glen ; below, dense forest. 

 The hills at the side are composed of sandstone and lime- 

 stone, capped by trap. The sedimentary beds are greatly 

 disturbed ; near the camp they are, in places, even con- 

 torted or vertical. In this part of the valley the beds 

 appear to be higher in the series than the mass of the 

 limestone about Antalo, and sandstone and conglomerate 

 prevail to a much greater extent than elsewhere. These 

 rocks are dark in colour, and far less pure than the sand- 

 stones of Adigrat and Senafe ; and I have scarcely any 

 doubt of their belonging to a different series altogether. 

 The general dip is west or south-west. I found a few 

 very ill-preserved fossils in one place. 



We had now left the comparatively open plains of 

 Tigr^, and entered the deep valleys between the rugged 



