VAPOUR BATH. 251 



seemed to assume a more umbrageous aspect, for 

 high " shuahlah" sycamore fig-trees, and mimosas, 

 sheltered beneath their foliage the unassuming 

 roofs of thatch, which less and less, diminishing 

 as they descended the slope of the hill-side, 

 seemed at a very short distance from my garden to 

 have dropped into the yawning valley that separated 

 Aliu Amba from the opposite height; which 

 still higher, differed in its more gently sloping 

 ascent, and its ridge being occupied by a village 

 inhabited exclusively by Christians. Over this 

 again could be seen still more elevated crests, and 

 beyond these others, until the eye reached the last, 

 the commanding height of Ankobar; which, ex- 

 tending some ten or twelve miles north and south, 

 each extremity then curved towards the east in one 

 vast amphitheatre, that encircled, as in an embrace, 

 an extensive valley of little village-crowned hills 

 and sunny slopes of cultivated fields. 



This afternoon, having another serious attack of 

 my fever fit, one of my first acquaintances in Aliu 

 Amba, Hadjji Abdullah, undertook to provide me 

 with a certain cure. He went away, and returned 

 after a short time with a large bundle of green 

 odoriferous herbs. Walderheros was directed to boil 

 these well in my tea-kettle, and having poured out 

 the decoction into an open-mouthed earthen vessel. 

 I was wrapt up in a large tobe, underneath the 

 folds of which the remedy was placed. In this 



