APPENDIX. 31 



ftnian by the following method ; Take a handful of the 

 fmalleft pieces found at the bottom of the basket where the 

 myrrh was packed, and throw them into a plate, and jufc 

 cover them with water a little warm, the myrrh will re- 

 main for fome time without vifible alteration, for it dif- 

 folves flowly, but the gum will fwell to five times its origi- 

 nal fize,. and appear fo many white fpots amidil the myrrh* 



Emfras, as I have faid, is a large village fomething more 

 than twenty miles fouth from Gondar, fituated upon the 

 face of a hill of confiderable height above the lake Tzana, 

 of which, and all its iflands, it has a very diftincl: and plea- 

 fant view ; it is divided from the lake by a large plain, near 

 which is the ifland of Mitraha, one of the burying- places of 

 the kings. The inhabitants of the lower town, clofe on the 

 banks of the fmall river Arno, are all Mahometans, many 

 of them men of fubitanee, part of them the king's tent- 

 makers, who follow the camp, and pitch his tents in the 

 field; the others are merchants to the myrrh and frankin- 

 cenfe country, that is, from the eaft parallel of the kingdom 

 of Dancali to the point Cape Gardefan, or Promontorium 

 Aromatum ; they alfo bring, fait from the plains, on the 

 weft of the kingdom of Dancali, where foffile fait is dug; 

 it is on the S. E. border of the kingdom of Tigre Thefe 

 Mahometans trade alfo to the Galla, to the weftward of the 

 Nile; their principal commodity is myrrh and damaged car- 

 goes of blue burat cloth, which they unfold and clean, then 

 ftiffen them with gum, and fold them in form of a book as 

 when they were new. 



This gum, which is called SafTa, they at firfl broughD 

 from the myrrh country behind Azab, till ingenious and 



4, f faga-cious 



