318 CHELICUT. 
and was engaged in the service of the Ras Selasse. What care 
I about Selasse or Shum Ishmaiel/' replied the chief, I am a 
king myself, pay me my demand, or you shall not pass/' It was 
in vain for Mr. Pearce to oppose this exaction, and therefore after 
a long dispute upon the subject, the money was sent with a 
present of tobacco, without which there was no possibility of 
satisfying the rapacity of these extortioners. 
On the 27th the party again proceeded, but the villainy of 
Alii Manda had still another scheme to draw the last remaining 
dollar from his pocket. The clouds on the top of the hill por- 
tending a storm, AUi Manda insisted upon the necessity of halt- 
ing ; and, in spite of all Mr. Pearce's remonstrances, stopped 
the camels, and left them, intentionally, to take their fate in 
the very course of the stream. In consequence, when the 
gorf," or torrent came down, which it did with a tremendous 
roar from the mountains, two of these animals were swept away, 
before there was a possibility of removing them, the people 
saving themselves with difficulty by clambering up the rocks 
which bordered the stream. When the fury of the torrent 
had subsided, the party went in search of the camels, one of 
which was found jammed in between two rocks, and the other 
entangled, about a mile and a half lower down, among the 
boughs of a tree, and before both could be released, the evening 
came on, and compelled them to leave the bales, which had been 
cut away to extricate the camels, in the bed of the stream. 
In the morning, the water having resumed its natural course, 
a great portion of the articles was discovered on the dry bed of 
the torrent, and among others thebaic of velvets, though soaked 
