GALLA LAFUE. 97 



and sizes. We continued along its serpentine chan- 

 nel for nearly two hours ; and it would have been 

 useless to have endeavoured to find another road, 

 for the surface of the adjoining country on either 

 side was in a much worse condition; besides, the 

 thick thorny bushes presented insurmountable 

 obstacles in every direction save the watercourses 

 we followed. We at length arrived at a gorge, or 

 narrow pass, where it appeared as if the collected 

 waters of some large reservoir had at a former period 

 broken through a wall of lava, and thus escaped to 

 the neighbouring sea, spreading over the inter- 

 vening ground the debris of its forced passage. 

 This remarkable looking spot was called Galla 

 Lafue, from a tree of a very singular character, 

 which abounds in this neighbourhood. It is about 

 six feet high, its leaves thick, smooth, and fleshy, 

 covered with a silvery clown on the underside, and 

 of a pale green above. It bore a large purple and 

 white flower, the bark was of a light grey colour, 

 and abounded with a white acid juice. That 

 it was employed in any manner amongst the 

 Dankalli for medicine, I could not learn. It only 

 grows in the beds of temporary streams. I met 

 with it first at Dulhull, on the sea-shore, and have 

 seen it also in more elevated situations in Abyssinia. 

 The pass of Galla Lafue is not more than three 

 hundred yards long, and winds between high per- 

 pendicular and flat-topped rocks of black lava. Its 

 greatest width did not extend thirty yards. Gnawed 



VOL. I. H 



