the groves.  At various turns of the road the prospect was rugged, wild, and beautiful.  The first Christian village was soon revealed on the summit of a height.  Three principal ranges of hills were next crossed in succession.  Lastly, the view opened upon the wooded site of Ankober occupying a central position in a horseshoe crescent of mountains, still high above which enclose a magnificent amphitheatre of ten miles in diameter.  This is clothed throughout with a splendid vigorous, and varied vegetation.”

The embassy now halted, waiting for permission to enter the capital, and taking up their quarters in a town three thousand feet above Furri, on the frontier.  The escort of the troop fired a salute on entering, and, as they marched along, performed the war dance.  A veteran capered before the ranks with a drawn sword between his teeth, and the martial song was chorused by three hundred Christian throats.  The prospect from this elevated point naturally struck the travellers with astonishment and admiration.  The site of the town is only one of the thousand cones into which the mountain side is broken as it approaches the plain.  The prospect over the plain was boundless, and countless villages met the eye upon the mountain slope.  Wherever the plough could go, all was cultivated.  Wheat, barley, Indian corn, beans, peas, cotton, and oil plant, throve luxuriantly round every hamlet.  The regularly marked fields mounted in terraces to the height of three or four thousand feet, becoming, in their boundaries, more and more indistinct, until totally lost in the shadowy green side of Mamrat (the Mother of Grace.)

This mountain is a wonder, shrouded in clouds whilst all was sunshine below.  It is clothed with a dense forest, and ascends to an elevation of 13,000 feet above the sea.  Here are collected, for security, the treasures of the monarch which have been amassing since the re-establishment of the kingdom, one hundred and fifty years since.

After remaining some time in the market-place, the governor of the town appeared, and conducted the mission to the house of an old Moslem woman, where they were to lodge for the night.  The names of the three daughters, Major Harris observes, were worthy of the days of Prince Cherry and Fair Star.  They were Eve, Sweet Limes, and Sunbeam.  The ladies vacated the house with great good-humour; but it was low, intolerably filthy, and without bedding or food.  The unfortunate mission had thus to spend a night, probably unequaled by their sufferings in the open field.  Though so near the equator, they felt the cold severely; rain set in with great violence, pouring through the roof, and entering into the threshold.  A fire was indispensable, yet they were nearly suffocated with smoke; they were devoured with insects, and in this torment and fever tossed till dawn.  At the arrival of morning they received the disappointing message, that the king could not yet visit his capital, but that they might either seek him among the mountains, or wait for him where they were.