124 A " TERRA incognita:' At our camp on Khor Ma Ambasah, we were, so to speak, wedged in between three tribes,— the Base, the Tigre Abys sinians, and the Dembelas ; and none of these would go there unless in considerable numbers. The people we had encountered had some boys and three or four women with them, as well as goats and three mules ; and it is not likely they would have taken such hnpedijneiita with them, had they started with hostile intent. They travelled a strong party, to be prepared for hostilities with their enemies the Base ; and their object in going where they did was probably to search for honey, which is plentiful in the baobab-trees, and for the fruit of the baobabtree itself ; and they were, moreover, most likely furnished with traps to catch antelopes. The country, being uninhabited, would be favourable for their purpose. Seeing white men, they doubtless took them for Turks, and thought they could not do better than try to possess themselves of their rifles. They are the most lawless and uncivilised of all the Abyssinian tribes, — only nominally paying taxes and owing allegiance to King John. Their country is almost terra incognita : the only European that I could ever hear of as having travelled there at all being the Italian traveller, the Marquis Antinori ; and he had explored only a small portion of it. The previous winter we had been on the northern boundary of their country, and had gone into the neutral territory ; but not so far as their villages, because we could never find any one of the neighbouring Arabs sufficiently intrepid to accompany us. On our return to England, however, we learned from Capt.

Gascoigne of the Blues," that he had penetrated to several of their villages, with one of their own people whom he had got hold of in some way or another. Although at first they wanted to keep him prisoner, his guide persuaded them to let him return. He found the villages much neater than those of the Arabs, and