202 
M ASSO WA. 
a journey to Massowa ; and the two former immediately set out 
with Mr. Coffin on mules, by way of Amba Haramat (while the 
Hadjee, with about a hundred of the Ras's people, was to follow 
by easier stages through Adowa. The first party had reached 
Massowa on the day previous to my arrival/' 
This journal I received verbally from Mr. Coffin immediately 
on his return, assisted by short notes, which he had set down 
on paper as the circumstances occurred. The geographical in- 
formation deduced from the bearings and computed distances 
observed during this journey, which w ill be found in the map, is 
of considerable consequence, and being confirmed by a journey of 
Mr. Pearce through the same districts, may, I think, be depended 
upon as accurate. I have been since more fully satisfied of this, 
by a comparison of it with a route given by Jerome Lobo through 
the same country by a reference to which it will be seen, that 
two centuries have produced no great alteration in ■ the situa- 
tion of aiFairs, though by the subsequent chain of events the 
natives have been broken into distinct tribes, and their conse- 
quence much depressed. 
There also exists another and better account of this route 
in the Travels of the Jesuits by Tellez,t written by the patri- 
arch Alphonzo Mendez, with whom Jerome Lobo was in 
company. In this the serpents mentioned by Lobo to have 
annoyed them on their march, are omitted, which, indeed, I 
conceive may have altogether arisen from a mistake of Mon- 
sieur le Grand, who made his translation from a Portog:uese 
* Vide Voyage to Abyssinia by Jerome Lobo, English translation, p. 34, et seq. 
t Vide the Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, Book I. p. 22 i, et seq. 
