memoir or r.UiXE. 
53 
of constant alarm to him ; then they were joined 
by several Moors, from one of whom he purchased 
a black horse, which not only contributed to his 
ease and comfort, but more than once was the 
■means of saving his life. Mounting his steed, he 
paraded the animal in every direction, filing from 
iiis back at full gallop in the Arab fashion ; all of 
which had its own weight, by giving him in the 
minds of his rude attendants a superiority which 
induced them to obey and place confidence in his 
orders. 
The soil of the country was very unequal, some- 
times rich and overgrown with wild oats, so high as 
to cover men and horses; at other places, rocky, 
uneven, and covered with thick brushwood. They 
crossed two rivers, the Bazelat and Angueah, being 
the first running water they had seen since passing 
Tarenta. The whole district of Tigre, which they 
had now entered, is full of mountains, which are 
not so remarkable for their height as their curious 
and grotesque forms; some being flat and square, 
some resembling prisms or obelisks, and others like 
pyramids pitched on their vertex with the base 
uppermost One of these pinnacles, called Damo, 
served as a prison to the royal family of Abyssinia, 
in ancient times, during the massacres under a queen 
named Judith, scarcely less celebrated in Ethiopian 
history than the famous princess who visited Solo- 
mon at Jerusalem. 
The town of Adowa, at that time considered as 
the capital of Tigre, stood at the foot of the hill of 
