FROM WHENCE BROUGHT. 235 



or Emperor's dollar is taken at all by the Shoans. 

 I considered that twopence halfpenny was above 

 the actual value of an ahmnlah in English money. 



The salt-brokers are generally Christians, who 

 proceed in little kafilahs of fifty or sixty donkeys to 

 the northern confines of the kingdom of Shoa, to a 

 town called Giddem, where they meet with Ma- 

 homedan merchants, subjects of Berroo Lobo, the 

 chief of the Argobbah, or valley country, to the 

 north of Efat. These latter obtain the ahmulahs 

 that they bring to Giddem from the salt-plain of 

 Ahoo, situated on the confines of the old kingdom of 

 Dankalli, to the south-east of the kingdom of Tigre. 

 At Giddem the best dollars are exchanged for 

 twenty-eight or thirty ahmulahs ; so that a profit of 

 nearly fifty per cent, repays the expense and trouble 

 of carriage for little more than a distance of forty 

 miles to Aliu Amba. A like increase in value is 

 attendant upon farther carriage : thus sixteen 

 ahmulahs can only be got in exchange for the best 

 dollar in Angolahlah, which is about thirty miles 

 from Aliu Amba. 



No people are more troublesome than the Abys- 

 sinians in inspecting the money, whether salt-pieces 

 or dollars, that pass through their hands ; the 

 former are turned over, spanned, balanced doubt- 

 ingiy in the hand for several minutes before the final 

 determination is taken. The w r orst is, that the 

 vendors generally insist upon choosing, or at least 

 beg to be permitted to do so as a great favour, out 



