CHURCHES IN SHOA. 135 



religion, and serving as retreats for officiating priests, 

 each of whom has his little cottage among the trees, 

 it is impossible to help reflecting upon the changes 

 in man's history, recalled by observing snch existing 

 monuments of former feelings and religious pre- 

 judices. The question naturally suggested itself, 

 what could have been the popular belief when the 

 more ancient of the St. Michael's groves was first 

 planted; for a long period must have elapsed to 

 have occasioned, by the disintegrating action of its 

 vegetation, so much denudation of the hill it crowns, 

 as to make it more than one hundred feet lower 

 than the present frequented one ; and originally it 

 must have been the highest in the neighbourhood. 

 I have observed other customs existing in Abys- 

 sinia that strongly reminded me of Druidism and of 

 similar characteristic observances among the ancient 

 Persians ; and I certainly looked with some degree 

 of interest upon a grove, that might once have 

 been the scene of the celebration of religious 

 ceremonies, of a very different character to those 

 which distinguish the modern faith. 



Although it was so early when we reached the 

 church of Abbo, Walderheros proposed breakfast- 

 ing. I accordingly dismounted, and after a gaze 

 upwards at the largest tree I had seen since I left 

 England, took my seat beneath its widely- extended 

 branches, upon one of a number of small boulders 

 which had rolled from the rocks above. A 

 quantity of long strips of grilled mutton, was pro- 



