1844.] Agricultural and Land produce of Shoa. 257 



13. The amazing fertility of these vales is beyond all conception, 

 every species of crop attaining the most gigantic proportions ; the rich 

 soil, and the nurturing shelter, the abundant supply of water, 

 and the ardent rays of the sun, all combining to crown the hopes of 

 the husbandman ; and these situations would have stood prominent as 

 perfect in the creation, had nature blessed them with a climate cor- 

 responding in character to their lovely appearance. 



" But putrefaction into life ferments, and breeds destructive my- 

 riads," and like the apples of the Asphaltus, the inviting beauty of 

 the exterior forms but a gossamer covering to the seeds of death 

 which lurk within. 



14. On the sides of the mountains, the vegetation seems to be 

 somewhat inferior in luxuriance, and may be accounted for from the 

 reason, that the angle at which the sun's rays strike the ground, and 

 consequently their power of imparting caloric, varies with the ex- 

 posure of the soil relatively to the luminary. The eastern face of the 

 mountains rising almost perpendicularly, can only for half the day 

 receive the rays running even parallel to its surface, their effect must 

 therefore be trifling, and for many hours in the warmest part of the 

 afternoon, the surface is entirely obscured in shadow. 



15. The aspect of the country is as varied as the climate. On the 

 elevated plateau, a succession of gentle undulations of pasture and 

 arable lands, intersected by green swampy meadows with bare banked 

 rills streaming through the centre, rise in endless continuation to the 

 view; not a tree disturbs the wide prospect, although the individual 

 farm-steadings proclaim a country which has long enjoyed the bless- 

 ings of peace. The craggy mountains rise in the centre in magni- 

 ficent ranges, and are divided by a thousand chasms, in whose depths 

 run clear gushing water, and tangled bushes and evergreen shrubs 

 diversify the cliffs, many of which are covered with magnificent 

 woods. In every nook and coigne of vantage, are to be seen and scent- 

 ed the eglantine and the jessamine, and an inexhaustible store of 

 sweet-smelling flowers; the strips of intervening slope, the most de- 

 sirable sites for residence, are clothed in luxuriant crop and herbage, 

 fed by the oozing streams of the mountain ; and the rich and smiling 

 vallies repose at the foot of the range, hid in all the exuberance of 

 foliage from the gigantic ticus, whose stem is upwards of forty feet in 



