people that attended us on the part of Welleta Michael, as our escort, considered this as an insult, and advised me by all means to turn to the left to another village immediately under the hill, on which the house of Welleta Michael, mother to Welleta Gabriel, their governor, was situated; as there we should find sufficient assistance to force these opponents to reason. We accordingly turned to the left; and, marching through thick bushes, came to the top of the hill above the village, in sight of the governor's house, just as about twenty men of the enemy's party reached the bottom of it.

The governor's servant told us, that now was the time if they advanced to fire upon them; in which case they would instantly disperse, or else they would cut us off from the village. But I could not enter into the force of this reasoning; because, if this village was strong enough to protect us, which was the cause of our turning to the left to seek it, these twenty men, putting themselves between us and the village, took the most dangerous step for themselves possible, as they must unavoidably be destroyed; and, if the village was not strong enough to protect us, to begin with bloodshed was the way to lose our lives before a superior enemy. I therefore called to the twenty men to stop where they were, and send only one of their company; and, upon their not paying any attention, I ordered Yasine to fire a large blunderbuss over their heads, so as not to touch them. Upon the report, they all fled, and a number of people flocked to us from other villages; for my part, I believe some who had appeared against us came afterwards and joined us. We soon seemed to have a little army, and, in about half an hour, a party came from the governor's house with twenty lances and shields, and six firelocks.

and, presently after, the whole, multitude dispersed. It was about ten o'clock when, under their escort, we arrived at the town of Siré, and pitched our tent in a strong situation, in a very deep gulley on the west extremity of the town.

CHAP. VI.

Journey from Sire to Addergey, and Transactions there.

THE province of Sire, properly so called, reaches from Axum to the Tacazze. The town of Sire, is situated on the brink of a very steep, narrow valley, and through this the road lies, which is almost impassable. In the midst of this valley runs a brook bordered with palm-trees, some of which are grown to a considerable size, but bear no fruit; they were the first we had seen in Abyssinia.

The town of Sire is larger than that of Axum; it is in the form of a half-moon fronting the plain, but its greatest breadth is at the west end; all the houses are of clay, and thatched; the roofs are in form of cones, as, indeed, are all in Abyssinia. Sire is famous for a manufacture of coarse cotton cloths, which pass for current money through all the province of Tigre, and are valued at a drachm, the tenth part of a wakea of gold, or near the value of an imperial dollar each; their breadth is a yard and quarter. Besides these, beads, needles, cohol, and incense at times only, are considered as money. The articles depend greatly on chance, which or whether any are current for the time or not; but the latter is often not idemanded; and, for the first, there are modes and fashions among these

barbarians, and all, except those of a certain colour and form, are useless. We have already spoken of the fashions, such as we have found them, at Kella, and we heard they were they same here at Sire. But these people were not of a humour to buy and sell with us. They were not perfectly satisfied that Michael was alive, and waited only a confirmation of the news of his defeat, to make their own terms with all strangers unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. On the other hand, we were in possession of superior force, and, knowing their inclinations, we treated them pretty much in the manner they would have done us.

On the 22d of January at night, I observed the passage of many stars over the meridian, and, after that, of the sun, on the 23d at noon; taking a medium of all observations, I determined the latitude of Sire to be 14° 4′ 35′′ north. The same evening, I observed an immersion of the first satellite of Jupiter, by which I concluded its longitude to be 38° 0' 15" east of the meridian of Greenwich.

Although Sire is situated in one of the finest countries in the world, like other places it has its inconveniences. Putrid fevers, of the very worst kind, are almost constant here; and there did then actually rage a species of these, that swept away a number of people daily. I did not think the behaviour of the inhabitants of this province to me was such, as required my exposing myself to the infection for the sake of relieving them; I therefore I left the fever and them to settle accounts together, without anywise interfering.

At Sire we heard the good news, that Ras Michael, on the 10th of this month, had come up with Fasil at Fagitta, and entirely dispersed his army, after killing 10,000 men. This account, though not confirmed by

any authority, struck all the mutinous part of this province with awe; and every man returned to his duty for fear of incurring the displeasure of this severe governor, which they well knew would instantly be fol lowed by more than an adequate portion of vengeance, especially against those that had not accompanied him to the field.

On the 24th, at seven o'clock in the morning, we struck our tent at Sire, and passed through a vast: plain. All this day we could discern no mountains, as far as the eye could reach, but only some few detached hills, standing separate on the plain, covered with high grass, which they were then burning, to produce new with the first rains. The country to the north is altogether flat, and perfectly open; and, though we could not discover one village this day, yet it seemed to be well inhabited, from the many people we saw on different parts of the plain, some at harvest, and some herding their cattle. The villages were probably concealed from us on the other side of the hills.

At four o'clock, we alighted at Maisbinni, at the bottom of a high, steep, bare cliff of red marble, bordering on purple, and very hard. Behind this is the small village of Maisbinni; and, on the south, another still higher hill, whose top runs in an even ridge, like a wall. At the bottom of this cliff, where our tent was pitched, the small rivulet Maisbinni rises, which, gentle and quiet as it then was, runs very violently in winter, first north from its source, and then, winding to the south-west, it falls in several cataracts, near a hundred feet high, into a narrow valley, through which it makes its way into the Tacazze. Maisbinni, for wild and rude beauties, may compare with any place we had ever seen.

This day was the first cloudy one we had met with, or observed this year. The sun was covered for se