352 GEOGRAPHICAL LESSON. 



Walderhcros placed the low Abyssinian chair for 

 his accommodation, and then, as was generally the 

 case when Ibrahim came to see me, a long con- 

 versation commenced respecting the town of Hur- 

 rah, of which he was a native, although he had not 

 been to that city for the last eight or nine years. 

 As usual, we had a map sketched upon the floor 

 before us, which, however, on this occasion was not 

 a very complicated one, merely the southern portion 

 of the Hawash, where it encircles Shoa, and which 

 formed the conclusion of the course of that river, the 

 northern portion of which, as far as the ford of Mul- 

 kakuyu, I had already received information of from 

 my Dankalli friends, Ohmed Medina and Ohmedu. 



The principal features of the geography of the 

 country included in the sketch map, were the three 

 principal streams entering the Hawash from the 

 scarp of* the Abyssinian table-land, all of which 

 flowed nearly to the south ; but the most remark- 

 able and interesting one was the great indentation in 

 the outline of the high country, which in this situa- 

 tion seemed to be approaching to a separation into 

 two parts by the denudation of the sources of the 

 Hawash on the east, and a corresponding degrada- 

 tion on the west, occasioned by the action of the 

 waters of the Assabi, or Abiah, the red Nile falling 

 from the elevated plains of its earlier tributaries to 

 join the Bahr ul Abiad at Kartoom, where its 

 height above the level of the sea does not, T believe, 

 exceed three thousand feet. 



