THE ABYSSINIAN ALPS. 469 



the strained sight was glad to find a bonnd to 

 farther vision in the nearly level line, encroaching 

 upon the sky, that characterizes the bluff termina- 

 tion to the east of the table land of Abyssinia. All 

 the time I was thus occupied, it never occurred to 

 me, that this long slope of about thirty miles, and 

 rising gradually from the elevation of two thousand 

 feet to that of nine thousand feet above the level of 

 the sea, that this gently-inclined plane covered 

 with thousands of little hills, and as many little 

 valleys, was the district of the so-called Abyssinian 

 Alps. Of course, I had quite a different idea of 

 such a character of country, which required, I 

 thought, the high, towering, romantic rocks of 

 mountain limestone, or of granite, that form the chief 

 features of the Alps of Switzerland, or the equally 

 wild scenery of the mountains of Sweden and 

 Norway. I expected that I had yet to travel a long, 

 long distance to obtain a view of those, which I 

 supposed to be stupendous hills, and never dreamt 

 that such a sacrifice of truth for effect could be 

 made, or such an erroneous judgment formed, as to 

 call these little eminences the Abyssinian Alps. It 

 is ridiculous so to name a succession of low, denuded 

 hills ; the top of almost every one of them being 

 the perching-place of a little hamlet or town, whilst 

 their sides are most beautifully cultivated to their 

 very summits, and exhibit, on the lower portions of 

 the inclined plane, fields of cotton, of teff, or of 

 maize ; whilst the ascent, on the journey to Shoa, 



