IDEAS UPON ETHNOLOGY. 103 



life having traversed in different directions the 

 whole of the table land from Enarea to Gondah, he 

 had been enabled by comparison and re-observation 

 to check and correct himself upon many points 

 which would otherwise have been very obscure. 

 It was not unusual for him to repeat to me instances 

 of such errors that he had at first fallen into, but 

 which he was subsequently enabled to correct by 

 other opportunities of observation. His ideas upon 

 ethnology were also exceedingly interesting and 

 curious, and I am convinced myself that many 

 conclusions he had arrived at on this subject are 

 correct, for by comparing my book-acquired informa- 

 tion with the remarkable knowledge he had col- 

 lected from facts, I could confirm many of the 

 singular truths that seemed to have enlightened his 

 mind, and which contributed greatly to my own 

 progress in that science. 



My aged instructor would frequently draw upon 

 the earth floor of my residence a rude diagram of 

 the elevated plateau of Abyssinia, which was sup- 

 posed for our purposes to extend to the parallel of 

 Massoah in the north, and to that of Zanzibar 

 in the south. East and west its extent was 

 represented to be about half this distance. In a 

 large depression in the eastern border, the sources 

 of the river Hawash were represented to be, and 

 opposite, upon the west, was a similar indentation, 

 where the waters of the various rivers that 

 drain this table land fall from above to join 



