162 SAGGADARAH. 



of my Hy Soumaulee escort towards me, who, 

 instead of coming with a stealthy sneaking pace, as 

 they had frequently done before, to observe what 

 arrangements of defence I had made for the night, 

 now came boldly, but very civilly, one after the 

 other, to the entrance of my retreat, and u negas- 

 seed" me almost to sleep. The usual salutation of 

 the evening being a long repetition of the word 

 " negassee" signifying, I concluded, as much as 

 our " good night." 



April 12th. — Left Krabtu at sunrise, and three 

 hours after, we reached the halting-place of Sagga- 

 darah, situated in the wide bed of a small stream 

 called Korree. Its banks were composed of low 

 hills of different coloured, irregularly stratified rock, 

 that if not volcanic, had been greatly altered from 

 their original character of deposited formations, by 

 the agency of fire. The whole valley abounded 

 with vegetation; wide-spreading sweetly-scented 

 mimosas, and clumps of luxuriantly growing doom- 

 palm, made travelling beneath their shade delight- 

 fully agreeable. An immense number of a small 

 kind of dove, with the slightest tinge of red, 

 scarcely a blush, blended with their usual silvery 

 grey plumage, kept darting from bush to bush, as 

 we disturbed them anew, every few yards we 

 advanced, whilst the little antelope of Salt, and a 

 large kind of partridge, were not unfrequently seen 

 running beneath the thin underwood. Hanging 

 nests of fresh green grass, were suspended like 



