12 
MUZAMBAH. 
us, on the same road that we were travelling, but on turning round 
an angle of the mountain on our left the whole was explained ; for 
we there found a large concourse of people assembled from all the 
neighbouring villages to barter the produce of their different hills. 
It being a new and interesting sight to us, we rode up and took a 
circuit round the market. Among other wares we observed in it 
iron, wrought and unwrought, for ploughshares and other purposes, 
cattle of all kinds, horses, skins, cotton, ghee, and butter ; the 
latter in round balls, and as white as in England; also baskets of 
chillies, and of a red pod found on the neighbouring hills which the 
inhabitants eat when ripe. This market is held weekly. The women 
whom we saw here were generally tall and well shaped, and many 
of them handsome. Notwithstanding the number of persons that had 
already assembled, which could not be less than three hundred, 
we afterwards met on our road as many straggling parties, with 
merchandise, as would probably double the throng. 
The plain through which we were travelling was about two 
miles in breadth, and the road passed close to the abrupt descent 
of the mountains on the left, between various isolated rocks, among 
which was one in the form of a tower, of vast bulk and height. We 
passed on our left the village of Guragubbo, and on our right that 
of Muzembah. About three miles farther the soil became of a more 
sandy nature, which produced several species of Ixia. 
The Baharnegash soon after overtook us, and rode on before us, 
till we ascended an eminence at the bottom of a semicircular ridge 
of mountains, over which there is but one pass by which it is 
possible to ascend ; here we waited for nearly an hour before 
all our mules arrived. In steepness and ruggedness this hill 
