THEIR FIRST VISITORS, 243 Bible. It was placed in three covers made of skin, and had handsome silver clasps. I tried to buy some of their manuscripts, but they would not sell anything. Outside the church were three large flat stones, made to serve the purpose of bells.

They were suspended by leather thongs from the bough of a tree, and, when struck by a stone, gave out a pleasant, bell-like sound.

Twelve or fourteen was the full complement of monks who lived on the top of Tchad Amba, but eight of their number had gone on some mission to King John. We were informed, that, during the Abyssinian war, a number of valuables were placed in the care of these monks for safe-keeping. Though they were very hospitable, I am sure they were not at all glad to see us ; they told us we were the first visitors they had ever had. The night was very cold, and we were obliged to light a fire inside the hut. The next morning my brother took his rifle, and shot a small species of goat which the natives called a sacJiar {calotragiis saltatrix). Its hair was very coarse, resembling that of a reindeer. We had never met with a specimen before : it is evidently an inhabitant of the higher mountains.

It turned out, that the man whose guidance might have cost us our lives was a mairuais sujet who had been expelled from the monastery some years before ; and, although he brazened it out, his late brethren were evidently not enraptured at seeing him again, more especially as, in offering to show us the way to the top, he had betrayed a sacred trust, having sworn never to divulge it. The mountain is accessible only from two points. The one usually taken leads over a ridge so narrow, that for more than a hundred yards the safest mode of progression is to sit straddle-legged, and work one's self along, one foot hanging literally over one valley, and the other over another, It is on one of