98 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
advantages of a triple harvest, which requires neither 
manure nor any expensive processes, the farmer in 
Abyssinia is always very poor.” 
At Fremona, not far from Adowa, are the ruins of a 
Jesuit convent, resembling rather a fort than the abode 
of men of peace. Two days’ journey farther on, one 
comes to the ruins of Axum, the ancient capital of 
Abyssinia. “ In one square,” says Bruce “ which I 
apprehend to have been the centre of the town, there 
are forty obelisks, none of which have any hiero¬ 
glyphics on them. The two first have fallen down, but 
a third a little smaller than them is still standing. 
They are all hewn from one block of granite, and on 
the top of that which is standing there is a patera, 
exceedingly well engraved in the Greek style. 
“ After passing the convent of Abba Pantaleon, called 
in Abyssinia Mantillas, and the small obelisk on a rock 
above, we follow a path cut in a mountain of very red 
marble, having on the left a marble wall forming a 
parapet about five feet high. At intervals solid pe¬ 
destals rise from this wall, bearing every token of 
having served to support CQlossal statues of Sirius, the 
barking Anubis, or the Dog star. One hundred and 
thirty-three of these pedestals with the marks just 
mentioned are still in their places, but only two figures 
of the dog were recognisable when I was there ; these, 
however, though much mutilated, were evidently 
Egyptian. 
“ There are also pedestals supporting the figures of 
the Sphinx. Two magnificent flights of steps, several 
hundred feet long, all of granite, exceedingly well 
finished, and still in their places, are the only remains 
of a magnificent temple. In an angle of this platform 
where the temple stood, is the present small church of 
Axum. This church is a mean, small building, very ill 
kept and full of pigeons’ dung.” It was near Axum 
that Bruce saw three soldiers cut from a living cow a 
steak for their mid-day meal. 
In his account of their method of cutting the steak 
Bruce says : “ The skin which had covered the flesh that 
