EFFECTS OF A LANDSLIP. 279 



hollow way, upon each bank of which thick bushes 

 of a large strong-leaved plant, meeting above the 

 head of the traveller, forms an umbrageous tunnel, 

 nearly impervious to the sun's rays. At the bottom 

 of the descent we crossed a stream, yellow with 

 suspended earth, for, like most other rivers of 

 Shoa, during the wet season, its running water is 

 an active agent of denudation. We now slowly 

 ascended the opposite bank of the valley, and 

 passing through the little Christian village upon its 

 summit, called Aitess, we then again descended to 

 the level of another stream, along whose miry 

 banks, crossing and re-crossing it several times in 

 its tortuous course, we at length reached, where, in 

 a narrow cascade, the water falls suddenly the 

 distance of two hundred feet, with the usual 

 rushing din of an impetuous torrent. Here the 

 bald face of a rock, across which not the trace of a 

 road could be perceived, projected a smooth surface 

 of compact stone, from beneath a super stratum 

 of a loose schistose formation of several hundred 

 feet high, whilst below us appeared an almost per- 

 pendicular wall, with just such a sliding inclination 

 as suggested an idea of the bridge said to be situated 

 by some Orientalists between heaven and earth, for 

 there required scarcely the impetus of a wish, to 

 have slipped from life to death during the walk 

 across. The earthquake that ushered in the rains 

 had occasioned this obliteration of the road, for the 

 effects of some thousands of tons of the overlying 



