170 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

cloud, rose the hill of Kassela, under which was to be our abode for a considerable time. In brighter blue, as the sun rose liigher, was displayed its beautiful head, which towered in splendour over the rest of the hill's chain extending to the eastward. A most refreshing sight in this monotonous country ! We fancied we saw in these magnificent hills a second Switzerland ; and kept our longing eyes constantly fixed on their groups. It seemed to us as if we were now arriving at some wished for and promised land, and about to receive the reward for our long wanderings and sufferings in the deserts, for all our exertions and deprivations. Mountains have, on every man, a solemn effect, arouse curious longings and indescribable desires, call up an insensible brightening of mind, and an increase both of mental and physical powers. After long marches in barren countries, when the blue hills rise in the distance, the eye becomes as if chained on them, and man dreams that behind them lies the strange, new, and unseen, and that he will there behold and tread an unknown world.

After some hours we found ourselves at last quit of the monstrous durra fields, and a great plain with scanty herbage received the army, Avhich, expecting an attack from the infuriated Arabs, drew up in some order on it. The infantry marching in sections, in three divisions, formed the centre, the Turkish cavalry formed the right, the Mograbin horsemen and Schaigies the left wing ; in the advance, and forming the advance guard, were the Arab Sheiks Mohammed Defalla, Achmet Abu Sinn, Edris AVoodagib, &c. The plain was only here and there broken by ill-grown, distorted trees, the soil good and fertile, but bearing nothing, as the rain had not yet given the scorched ground the power of bringing forth. Many long, irregular, two feet high walls or mounds, with small ditches, intersected the ground, and showed that the Arabs irrigated the land, and used it for the growth of grain. Seemingly they change their cultivated fields every three or four years, and in this way have a certain rotation of crops. Many hares were started and galloped down by the horsemen, or slain by sticks. Those of these lands are smaller than ours, but have enormous lop ears ; the skin, like the flesh, is lighter in colour, nor has the latter the pleasant game flavour of ours; the same may be said of all their wild animals, nor has their flesh that aroma which prevails in the game