SERVANT WALDERHEROS. 195 



the struggles he made to escape, and he was again 

 tumbled backwards out of the hole, head and neck 

 over on to the ground, quite as suddenly and as 

 expeditiously as he had before fallen into the 

 dilemma. Confounding his zeal, and that of all such 

 injudicious friends, I was in no humour to laugh 

 when he came in, covered with mud and broken 

 bits of straw, as if he had been tarred and feathered ; 

 whilst the shouts and jeers of all the boys of the 

 neighbourhood, and Miriam's high displeasure, 

 was all the return he got for the readiness 

 he shewed to risk in my service, his very heavy 

 carcase upon a rotten roof. An ahmulah was 

 the estimate of the damage done : Walderheros 

 procuring for that sum straw sufficient to thatch 

 the whole roof afresh, and before night, such was 

 his dexterity, and that of some of the neighbours 

 who good-naturedly came forward to assist him, 

 the work was finished, and the house several 

 ahmulahs better for comfort, considering the season, 

 than previously to the accident. 



A long coarse grass, called " cimbyllal," three or 

 four feet long, which grow T s chiefly in what is 

 called, "Wana daggan middre," that is land 

 situated between the " colla " or low land, and the 

 " daggan," or elevated table land, is chiefly used 

 in thatching Abyssinian houses. Straw is too 

 valuable as fodder, to be so employed, even if its 

 broken and bruised condition after the grain has 

 been thrashed out, in the usual maner, by the feet 

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