S2: TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
lage called Halai, the firft we had feen fince our leaving 
Mafuah. {tis chiefly inhabited by poor fervants and {hep- 
herds keeping the flocks of men of fubitance living in the. 
town of Dixan. | 
Tue people here are not black, but of adark complexions - 
bordering very much upon yellow. They have their head: 
bare; their feet. covered with fandals ; a-goat’s {kin wpom:- 
their fhoulders ;a cotton cloth about: their -middle ; their~ 
hair fhort.and curled like that of a negroe’s in the weit part 
of Africa; but this is done by art, not by nature, each man- 
having a wooden ftick. with which he lays hold of the. 
lock and twilts it round a fcrew, till it curls in the form he: 
defires*. The men carry in their hands two lances and a. 
‘ Jarge fhield of bull’s hide. A crooked knife, the blade in: 
the lower part about three.inches broad, but diminifhing ta . 
a point about fixteen inches long, is ftuck at their right fide, , 
in a girdle of coarfe cotton cloth, with which their middle . 
is {wathed, going round them fix times. . 
Aut forts of cattle are here in great plénty; cows. and bulls : 
of exquifite beauty, efpecially the former ; they are, for the. 
mooft part, completely white, with. large dewlaps hanging’: 
down to their knees; their heads, horns, and hoofs per-. 
fectly well-turned ;-the horns wide like our: Lincolnfhire » 
kine; and their hair like filk.. Their-fheep.are large, and: 
all black. I never faw one of any other colour in the pro-.. 
wunce.of Tigré. Their heads are large ; their ears remarka-. 
bly. 
— 
* 1 apprehend this is the fame inftrument ufed by the :ancients, and cenfured by the pro--- 
~phets, which, in cur tranflation, is rendered erifping-pins. . Ifa. chap. iii. ver. 22... 
