384 REACH METTAH. 



fifty. The Tajourah people lost but one man; 

 whilst of all the others who fought under Lohitu, 

 not as particular tribes, but as amateurs, about 

 twenty were killed, making a total of three 

 hundred and forty-one, and considering the manner 

 in which battles are fought among these people, I 

 can easily conceive how so few, comparatively, of 

 the victorious party were slain. 



One interesting ethnological fact may be gleaned 

 from this relation; that is, the presence of the 

 Issah Soumaulee on this occasion, which is another 

 evidence to prove, the intimate relationship of the 

 Dankalli with that people. 



Conversing upon the subject of this fight, we 

 kept marching on for nearly five hours, but as we 

 were in the rear of the Kafilah, and obliged to 

 restrict ourselves to the slow pace of the camels, 

 I do not think we accomplished more than ten 

 miles during that time. We halted at a place 

 called Mettah, or Maida, and the appearance of the 

 country suggested, the appropriateness of the 

 name, which I was given to understand, signified 

 the same as the English word meadow. 



Our march had been all the morning along a 

 narrow plain, confined by low level ridges of black 

 lava, about a mile distant from each other. 

 Through the centre, but in a very serpentine course, 

 a shallow channel had been cut through the fine 

 alluvial soil, by an occasional stream, which flows 

 towards the north and east. When we passed 



