494 
DIXAN. 
received intelligence of our arrival. The Najib's charge to me for 
the conveyance of this letter, was, as I before mentioned, thirty 
dollars, of which the bearer declared that he was paid only two. 
Frequent showers fell during the day. The thermometer in our 
cave was 70°. 
August ^. — -I walked out in the morning with Captain Rudland ; 
collected afewj)lants, and killed a bird called by the natives Warre, 
of which I took a sketch. Our people were engaged in repacking 
the baggage preparatory to our departure. The day was fine without 
rain. The thermometer in our cave was 75°. 
The Baharnegash, attended by his brother and Guebra Michael, 
paid us a visit at a late hour in the evening, and, after some con- 
versation on common occurrences, began mentioning the names of 
several, supposed English, gentlemen, who had formerly passed this 
place ; these we imagined to have been Bruce and his attendants : 
they soon concluded their discourse by saying, that our countrymen 
had made the inhabitants of the place a present of one hundred 
dollars, and therefore tbey hoped that I would do the same. Upon 
my evading this, and referring the Baharnegash to the Ras, he went 
so far as to assert that he had a rightful claim to the money, and 
being an independent chief, would demand it in the Ras's presence. 
I replied, that to my certain knowledge no English gentlemen had 
ever given any such sum ; that one only had ever passed through 
this town before, and that he had given only forty dollars to the late 
Baharnegash, for which sum he had received in return a fine black 
horse: that we had already been at a very considerable expense, 
and as we were going up by desire of the Ras, and looked for no 
advantage ourselves from the journey, I should certainly not giv© 
