282 CHARACTER OF THE ROAD. 



about one hundred yards long, I turned round to 

 look after Walderheros. I found he had not dared 

 to attempt it until he saw that I had reached the 

 end of the road, when he came cautiously along, 

 making no reply to my loud shout of caution that 

 he should take care of the bottle. He looked 

 perfectly satisfied, however, when he saw himself 

 landed upon sound ground again, after a little 

 spring over the two or three last feet of the 

 distance, impatient even then of peril impending. 

 Away we went, talking over the rash feat, and 

 determined not to come back that way again if we 

 could help it. A little reaction, too, consequent 

 upon the excitement had taken place, and I no 

 longer felt fatigued as I had done before, but 

 proceeded in much better spirits. The hill, or a 

 prolonged height of Lomee, was now crossed, 

 covered almost entirely with fields of the common 

 horse-bean, whose grey blossoms perfumed the 

 whole neighbourhood. Generally, the fields were 

 quite green with young grain but a few inches 

 high, and through these our road lay for nearly 

 an hour, when, by a gradual descent, we found 

 ourselves upon the edge of a coarse gravel bank, 

 that in this situation had been cut into a perpen- 

 dicular cliff, about thirty feet high, by the action 

 of the confined, impetuous river that rushed around 

 its base. The river is here called " Gindebal 

 wans," the tree-eating stream, and is singularly 

 characteristic, like most other Abyssinian names of 



