192 Wanderings in Eastern Africa. 
quiet, reposing, and fair. There is nothing of the 
wilderness, desert, or jungle about it ; everything 
wears an appearance of mild, poetic beauty, very ex- 
hilarating and enjoyable. In the evening, when the 
scene is bathed in the soft and changing light of 
the setting sun, these feelings especially possess you. 
This district was more thickly inhabited than any 
we had yet seen. The plain was dotted all over with 
small hamlets, containing, as a rule, five or six huts 
in a cluster. Each hamlet seemed to be occupied by 
only one family, comprehending, doubtless, in some 
cases, the representatives of three generations : father, 
son, and son's sons. We saw, perhaps, half a score of 
such hamlets occupying an area of about four square 
miles. Thus, allowing two persons to every hut, there 
would be living upon the space mentioned about 120 
souls. Say* that a population occupies the country at 
the same ratio, over a territory of one hundred square 
miles in extent, we should have in such a district just 
3,000 human beings, but this I am convinced would be 
far in excess of the true population. Think of our travel- 
ling over districts two and three days in extent with- 
out meeting with a single soul. From the very nature 
of things the Gallas must be a widely scattered 
people. Pastoral, they are nomadic, and need much 
land. The cattle having licked up the grass here 
must go elsewhere, and if they be numerous must 
remove again and again before they return to the 
first spot. 
The huts are very small and very loosely built. As 
architects the Gallas are certainly inferior to the birds. 
A few pliant branches are stuck into the ground, bent 
over, and tied together, so as to form a very shaky 
