ANTALOW. 
133 
bably followers of the camp (for they were not soldiers), savage 
enough to produce unquestionable evidence that boys, not men, 
had been the victims of their fury. At this I expressed to the Ras 
my abhorrence so strongly, that, actuated by the same feelings, he 
refused them those marks of his approbation which he had invari- 
ably shewn to others. The inferior warriors were clad in skins, 
chiefly those of sheep, some of which w ere bordered with blue and 
red of different shades. Intermixed with the foot soldiers, who were 
mostly armed with spears and shields, the matchlock men came in 
most irregularorder to the number of at least fifteen hundred, whose 
gestures were, if possible, more ludicrous than those of the spearmen, 
imitating, as it appeared to me, men hunting wild beasts among 
the bushes ; the conclusion of their frolic was firing their musquets 
as nearly as possible to the legs of their opponents, then drawing their 
knives, and making a blow to finish the murderous execution of 
their matchlocks. There were in this way many single mock fights 
between spearmen and musqueteers, but it was always managed 
that the latter should prove victorious. This extraordinary review 
was concluded by the marching in on one side of the Ras's band, 
mounted on mules, and beating the heavy drums, and on the 
other of men bearing the ornaments of the church walking in pro- 
cession. 
" This day greatly biassed our opinion in favour of the horse- 
manship of the Abyssinians : I think them in this respect fully 
equal to the Arabs, and, considering the stirrups that they use, 
which are merely small rings of iron into which they put the two 
larger toes, this is no slight praise. In the use of the spear they are 
particularly expert, and they have a peculiar method of vibrating 
