sparkled, and columns of burning sand, which at quick intervals towered high into the atmosphere, became so illumined as to appear like tall pillars of fire.  Crowds of horses, mules, and camels, tormented to madness by the poisonous gad-fly, flocked to share the only bush; and, disputing with their heels the slender shelter it afforded, compelled several of the party to seek refuge in caves formed below by fallen masses of volcanic rock, heated to the temperature of a potter’s kiln, and fairly baking up the marrow in the bones.”  The heat in this place, with the thermometer under the shade of cloaks and umbrellas, was at 126 deg..  It is only surprising how any of the party survived.  Certainly if Abyssinia is to be approached only by this road, the prospect of an intercourse with it from the east, appears among the most improbable things of this world.

One of the advantages of continental travel has been long since said to be, its teaching us how many comfortable things we enjoy at home; and it appears that no Englishman can comprehend the value of that despised fluid, fresh water, until he has left the precincts of his own fortunate land:  but it is in Africa, and peculiarly on this Abyssinian high-road, that the value of a draught of spring water is to be especially estimated.  “Since leaving the shores of India,” says Major Harris, “the party had gradually been in training towards a disregard of dirty water.  On board a ship of any description, the fluid is seldom very clear or very plentiful.  At Cape Aden, there was little perceptible difference between the sea water and the land water.  At Tajura, the beverage obtainable was far from being improved in quality by the taint of the new skins in which it was transferred from the only well; and now, in the very heart of the scorching Tehama, where a copious draught of pure water seemed absolutely indispensable every five minutes, the mixture was the very acme of abomination.  Fresh hides stript from the he-goat, besmeared inside as well as out with old tallow and strong bark tan, filled from an impure well at Sagallo, tossed and tumbled during two days and nights under a distilling heat,” formed a drink which we should conclude to be little short of poison.  However, the human throat learns to accommodate itself to every thing in time, and the time came when even this abomination was longed for.

But the worst was not yet come.  It was midnight when the party commenced the steep ascent of the south-eastern boundary of the lake, a ridge of volcanic rocks.  “The north-east wind had scarcely diminished its parching fierceness, and in hot suffocating gusts swept over the glittering expanse of water and salt, where the moon shone brightly; each deadly puff succeeded by the stillness that foretells a tropical hurricane.  The prospect around was wild—­beetling, basaltic cones, and jagged slabs of shattered lava.”