VISIT TO OZORO ASQUALL. 251 
about twelve miles on our right. Very extravagant descriptions 
liave been given respecting the shapes of the mountains of Tigre. 
Mr. Bruce ventures to assert even, that some of them are flat 
arid thin, and square, in the shape of a hearth stone or slab, 
that scarce would seem to have been suflicient to resist the winds ; 
some are like pyramids ; others like obelisks or prisms ; and some, 
the 7nost extraordinary of all the rest, pyramids pitched upon 
^heir points with their base uppermost/'* The reader will readily 
believe me, when I state, that I did not see a single one which 
answered to the latter part of the description ; with respect to 
their true forms, a more correct notion may be obtained from the 
annexed sketch, and other views which I have before published, 
than from any verbal account that I can attempt to furnish. 
We had not proceeded far on our journey when Mr. Pearce, 
Ayto De bib and myself separated by some accident from our 
company, when it was determined that we should make a short 
excursion, out of our way, to pay a visit to the Ozoro Asquall, 
the lady in command of the district. She was one of the daughters 
of Ayto Manasseh, who had been given in marriage by her 
friends, when very young, to Fit-Aurari Zogo, a gallant chief- 
tain whom I had seen at the celebration of the Maskal in 1805. 
After his death, which happened in 1808, she had proved a kind 
protector to Mr. Pearce, until she had again been forced into a 
marriage by the Ras with one of the chiefs of Temben, with 
whom she had since seldom resided ; rather choosing to remain 
on her own estates, which, it may be here observed, ladies of rank 
always retalin after marriage, together with their maiden names^, 
* Vol. IV. p. 317. ■ : P 
1^ k 
