256 Agricultural and Land produce of Shoa. [No. 148. 



suddenness, of which the inhabitants of temperate climes can form 

 little conception. Passing in an instant from the burning plains of 

 the Adaiel to a rich landscape in which flocks and towns and vil- 

 lages abound, the strange sight is afforded of regularly marked fields, 

 mounting in terraces from the very base of the Abyssinian mountains, 

 throughout a steep ascent of five thousand feet which leads the tra- 

 veller to an unlimited table land, where the eye is perfectly satiated 

 with the endless succession of waving crop and rich green meadow. 



10. And although the soil on the mountain side requires artificial 

 support to preserve the earth from being washed away, and in many 

 places reposes in an angle where it seems hardly possible for the 

 plough to pass, yet wheat and barley delight in a dry stony ground, and 

 with a fair proportion of the te former" and the " latter" rains, will 

 yield an abundant return to those who feel their industry called forth, 

 to emulate the prosperity of their more happily located neighbours. 



11. Situated in the middle of the torrid zone, and surrounded by 

 trackless regions, or by tribes whose cruelty and bigotry are more 

 dangerous to the intruder than the poisonous blast and the burning 

 desert, secluded Abyssinia has remained almost a sealed book to the 

 arts and sciences of the civilized world ; and composed of groups and 

 ranges of very high mountains overlooking wide plains and deep 

 vallies, and being under the complete influence of the tropical rains, 

 the difference of the climate in her relative parts is of the most varied 

 description. 



12. The high table land which is clothed with moderate vegetation, 

 destitute of wood and freely ventilated, is at all times cool and heal- 

 thy, and often extremely cold ; whilst the low wooded vallies are 

 close, unwholesome, and insufferably hot. During the cold season 

 the thermometer on the summit of the range stands about 30°, and 

 a thin coating of ice covers the pools, and the country appears white 

 under a mantle of hoar and frost ; whilst in the vallies, the quicksilver 

 mounts to 90°, and the total absence of breeze renders the heat still 

 further oppressive. At the termination of the rains, fever with all 

 her attendant horrors spreads her pestilential wing over those beauti- 

 ful locations, and during the month of September, even the wild birds 

 forsake for a time the poisoned atmosphere, and betake themselves 

 to the more genial climate of the upper regions. 



