COMFORT AND " EGGED ALE." 309 



spent at Myoloncs. My teakettle, half filled with 

 the ale, was soon heating over the fire, whilst eggs, 

 and honey, and butter, in another vessel, were being 

 mixed together for the manufactory of a certain 

 beverage that Wallata Gabriel protested was to be 

 a cure for my fever, whilst Walderheros, to expel 

 the " saroitsh" that I understood had already taken 

 possession of his hips and shoulders, drew from its 

 hiding place his clumsy pipe. In the folds of his 

 mekanet he soon found some tobacco, and breaking 

 the hard cake in which it is dried into smaller 

 pieces, charged the slightly excavated stone bowl, 

 upon the top of which a glowing piece of charcoal 

 was placed, and consolation and comfort in vast 

 clouds soon spread through the close apartment. 



The " moack," or egged ale, Wallata Gabriel 

 now prepared for me, was a drink fit for the enter- 

 tainment of the gods when, in the good old times, 

 they made Abyssinia an annual visit, and from whom 

 the knowledge of it must have been first derived. 

 It consisted of two or three drinking-horn sful of 

 strong tallah, as many eggs, and two large spoonsful 

 of honey for each horn of beer. A little butter 

 was added, when the mixture was boiling over the 

 fire ; that which, however, gave to it its pleasantest 

 flavour was a small portion of a warm spice called 

 korareema, a large kind of coriander, one inch 

 and a-half long, which is brought from Gurague, 

 and the spice country to the south. They are 

 brought into Shoa by priests travelling to Gonclah, 



