732 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
Arter they have ‘finifhed their bloody banquet, they 
carry the head, clofe wrapt from fight in the hide, into the 
cavern, which they fay reaches below the fountains, and’ 
there, by a common light, without torches, or a number of 
candles, as denoting a folemnity, they perform their wor- 
fhip, the particulars of which I never could learn; it is apiece 
of free-mafonry, which every body knows, and no body 
ventures to reveal. Atacertain time of the night they leave 
the cave, but at what time, or by what rule, I could not 
learn ; neither would they tell me what became of the 
head, whether it was, ate, or buried, or how confumed. The 
_ Abyflinians have a ftory, probably created by themfelves,. 
that the devil appears to them, and with him they eat the 
head, {wearing obedience to him wpon certain conditions, 
that of fending rain, and a good feafon for their bees and 
cattle: however this may be, it is certain that they pray to 
the fpirit refiding in the river, whom they call the Everlaft- 
ing God, Light of the World, Eye of the World, God of 
Peace, their Saviour, and Father of the Univerfe.. 
Our landlord, the Shum, made no fcruple of reciting his: 
prayers for feafonable rain, for plenty of grafs, for the pre- 
fervation of ferpents, at leaft of one kind of this reptile ;. — 
healfo deprecated thufider in thefe prayers, which he pro- 
nounced very pathetically with a kind of tone or fong; he 
called the river “ Moft High God, Saviour of the World ;’” 
of the other words I could not well judge, but by the in- 
terpretation of Woldo, Thofe titles, however, of divinity 
which he gave the river, I could perfe&ly comprehend 
without an interpreter, and for thefe only I am a voucher. 
¥ ASKED 
