A GRAND INVESTITURE, 111 ment to me, as the flesh of the wart-hog, though eatable when you can get nothing better, is not a thing to yearn after. On the 7th, the clay before we shifted our camp to Ma Ambasah, which was destined to be our farthest camp in an eastward direction, we had a visit from a peculiarly villanouslooking Base sheik, rejoicing in the name of Kudul. We were informed that he was the most powerful sheik in those parts, and that it would be politic to propitiate him with some more valuable gift than any we had heretofore bestowed. Accordingly, from a box that we designated "the present-box," because it was full of things we had brought to distribute among the natives, we unearthed a very handsome abba, or cloak, of blue silk, with a great deal of gold thread worked upon it, which we had bought in the Cairo bazaars, and invested him with it.

The ceremony took place in the presence of a great crowd of his people ; and, although perhaps not so important an investiture as that of the Garter with us in England, it was, nevertheless, a very grand and solemn affair. Round his head we twisted a gaudy silk kiifeeych of many colours, and wound a magenta Cimiberbiind round his waist. He was greatly delighted with his appearance as displayed in a looking-glass we gave him. It was most decidedly startling !

I fear our gorgeous gifts would very soon become shabby, or covered with grease from the amount of fat he was in the habit of putting on his head ; then, too, most likely he would become not only an object of admiration, but of envy, to his' Abyssinian neighbours ; and some of the more powerful chiefs among them would, doubtless, very soon deprive him of our gifts.

He informed us, that, when he first heard of our travelling in his country, he thought we must be Turks, come with Sheik Said Carcashi (the powerful Base sheik who is under the thumb