174 ABYSSINIA. 



cataplasm of clay. They then drove the animal before them, in order 

 to supply them and their companions with another meal. At their 

 feasts, according to the same traveller, they have a bull or cow, one or 

 more, according to the number of guests, which are tied at the door of 

 the house in which they are assembled. From these animals square 

 pieces of flesh are cut and served up on round cakes of unleavened 

 bread, made of teff. As no person of any fashion feeds himself, or 

 touches his own meat, the women take the steak, while the motion of 

 the fibres is distinctly seen, cut it into small pieces, well pepper them, 

 and Avrap them up in the teff-bread like so many cartridges. In this 

 form they are put into the mouths of the*guests, who, like birds fed by 

 their clam, are opening their mouths to receive the morsels that are 

 ready, as fast as they can be prepared for them. The females, after 

 having thus supplied the male guests, eat till they are satisfied, and 

 then ail drink together. The victim is still bleeding, writhing, and 

 rearing at the door. When the animal has bled to death, the cannibals 

 tear the remaining flesh from the thighs with their teeth, like dogs. 

 Such is Mr. Bruce's description of an Abyssinian feast. 



The offering of meat and drink in Abyssinia is an assurance of 

 safety to the person to whom it is offered. Many of the customs of 

 this country resemble those of the ancient Persians and Egyptians. 



Cities, chief towns.. ..Gondar, the metropolis of Abyssinia, is 

 situated upon a hill of considerable height, the top of it nearly plain, 

 on which the town is placed. It consists of about ten thousand 

 families in time of peace ; the houses are chiefly of clay, the roofs 

 thatched in tht; form of cones, which is always the construction within 

 the tropical rains. On the west of the town is the king's house, for- 

 merly a structure of considerable consequence. It was a square 

 building flanked with square towers. It was formerly four stories 

 high, and from the top of it had a magnificent view of all the country 

 southward to the lake Tzana. Great part of this house is now in 

 ruins, having been burnt at different times ; but there is still ample 

 lodging in the two lowest floors of it, the audience-chamber being 

 above one hundred and twenty feet long. 



The palace and all its contiguous buildings are surrounded by a 

 substantial stone wall thirty feet high, with battlements upon the 

 the outer wall, and a parapet roof between the outer and inner, by 

 which you can go along the whole, and look into the street. There 

 appear to have been never any embrasures for cannon, and the four 

 sides of the walls are above an English mile and a half in length. 

 Gondar, by a number of observations of the sun and stars, is in N. > 

 lat. 12 deg. 34 min. 30 sec. its longitude is 37 deg. 33 min. east from 

 Greenwich. 



Dixan is the first town in Abyssinia, on the side of Taranta. It 

 is built on the top of a hill perfectly in form of a sugar-loaf; a deep 

 valley surrounds it every where like a trench, and the road winds 

 spirally up the hill till it ends among the houses. It is true of Dixan, 

 as of most frontier towns, that the bad people of both contiguous 

 countries resort thither. The town consists of Moors and Christians, 

 and is very well peopled ; yet the only trade of either of these sects is 

 a very extraordinary one, that of selling children. The Christians 

 bring such as they have stolen in Abyssinia to Dixan as to a sure 

 deposit ; and the Moors receive them there, and carry them to a cer- 

 tain market at Masuah, whence they are sent over to Arabia or India. 

 The priests of the province of Tigre, especially those near the 



