The monarch, elated with his knowledge, now determined to build a bridge, which in three days was completed; and, as was predicted by the quiet English spectators, in three hours fell down on the very first fresh produced by the annual rains.

Weaving excepted, the people manufactured nothing; but British commerce has long been known, though evidently of the coarsest kind.  At length, on his majesty’s being told that five thousand looms would bring him more wealth than ten thousand soldiers, he gradually consented to form a commercial treaty.  The crown had hitherto appropriated the property of strangers dying in the country.  The purchase or display of costly goods by the subject had been interdicted, and a maxim exhibiting the whole jealousy of savage life had been established, that the stranger who once entered was never to depart from Abyssinia.  By the articles of the commercial treaty, all those barbarous prohibitions have been abolished.

As the monarch returned the deed, he made a short speech sufficiently able and appropriate:  “You have loaded me with costly presents, the rainment that I wear, the throne on which I sit, the curiosities in my store-houses, and the muskets which hang round my great hall—­all are from your country.  What have I to give in return for such wealth?  My kingdom is as nothing.”

The hereditary provinces at this day subject to the King of Shoa, are comprised in a rectangular domain of 150 by 90 miles; an area traversed by five systems of mountains, of which the culminating point divides the basin of the Nile from that of the Hawash.  The Christian population of Shoa and Efat are estimated at a million; and the Moslem and Pagan population at a million and a half.  The royal revenues are said to amount to 80,000 or 90,000 German crowns, arising chiefly from import duties in slaves, merchandise, and salt.  As the annual expenses of the state do not exceed 10,000 dollars; it is presumed that the king, during his thirty years’ reign, has amassed much treasure, which is regularly deposited under ground.

We recommend the enquirers into the truth of Herodotus, to examine the curious illustrations stated in these volumes; and, among the rest, the kingdom of pigmies.  The geographer will find ample interest in tracing the course of the Gochob, a sort of central Nile; and the naturalist, botanist, and entomologist, will find abundant information in the very interesting and complete appendices on those subjects.  The history of the Christian missions of early ages is an excellent chapter, and the general statistics of religion.