48 
MEMOIR OF BRUCE. 
the language of the turf would he called excellent 
sport, although the chase always ends in slaughter ; 
all the grown up persons, men and women, being 
killed, and the children carried off and sold for 
slaves to the Turks, who profess to admire the 
Ethiopians because in summer they have a cold 
skin ! 
The Galla are a shepherd race, and exceedingly 
numerous; then - complexion is brown or black, 
with long hair of the same colour. They are of a 
warlike disposition, and manage their horses with 
remarkable dexteiity. Their habits and appetites 
are filthy to a degree rare even in barbarians. Even 
what maybe termed the elegancies of their dress, 
is of a description that must appear somewhat offen- 
sive to our refined notions of personal decoration. 
Round their bodies, by way of ornament, they wind 
the entrails of oxen, which also serve as necklaces, 
and hang in clustering festoons down their breast 
or hack. Their whole person is besmeared with 
grease, which is poured so copiously on their heads, 
that it melts, and is continually dropping on the 
goat-skin that covers their shoulders. They devour 
their meat raw ; and when thirsty, they open a vein 
in the neck of a cow, and regale themselves with a 
draught of warm blood. They practise polygamy, 
and in their religion are partly Heathens and partly 
Mahometans. Bruce describes them as intelligent 
and active, but extremely dirty and ignorant. 
The king of Abyssinia, at the time when Bruce 
resided at Massuah, was named Tecla Haimanout, 
