Returned to Chelicut, Mr. S. received, what himself and all the country regarded as a distinguished honour, a visit at his own house from the Ras, in a perfectly friendly and familiar way. The consideration of the intrinsic quality of the person, rendered this a very different thing from a mere court compliment. This old man was no state puppet, to be conveyed about in idle parade, for the formalities of etiquette, or feasts of epicurism. The person of this old man was the residence of a strong, and active, and beneficent intelligence; a person the conveyance of which, one day, to the grave, will be a melancholy event for his subjects. This infirm old man rested his hand on Mr. Salt's shoulder while they walked into the house; and, live as long as he may, he may be very sure that no compliment,-shall we call it?-equal to this, awaits him during the remainder of his life.

The visitor inspected inquisitively some drawings of our buildings, carriages, and ships.

Nothing,' says our Author, afforded me greater pleasure on this and other occasions, than my being able to confirm the accounts which Mr. Pearce had before given, respecting the superiority of the English in the mechanical arts. The Ras was particularly shrewd in his questions on these subjects, and often, when I explained any thing more than usually extraordinary, turned round to Mr. Pearce, and said "You used to tell me this before; but I did not then know how to believe you."'

An interesting portion of the volume is formed by the account given to our Author by this same Pearce, of his own adventures, and of the events in the country during the interval between Mr. S.'s two visits. It is interesting even as a personal history, for the man is evidently of no ordinary character. appears to be sagacious, persevering, independent, and daring to He、 excess. He had not, it seems, resided in the country long before a malignant management rendered him an object of suspicion to the Ras. After a year's residence, he boldly quarrelled with his master about his deficient allowances, employing very rough terms of reproach. At length he quitted the court, on a rambling and hazardous adventure in quest of better fortunes in the employment of some other chief,-determined to make some part of his adopted country fulfil the expectations with which he had staid in it. He wandered to the south and west, among the Galla, the Agows, and other tribes, and passed over the lofty summit of Amba-Hai, amid a heavy fall of snow. tremendously difficult of ascent,' robbery, combined with illness, upon his recovery from which, His progress was arrested by a having learned that the Ras, for whom he had still a regard in

spite of his unfavourable treatment, was threatened with a very formidable attack from the Galla, he instantly determined to return to share the danger. This generous bravery was estimated as it deserved. In spite of dissuasions, he immediately and boldly demanded an audience; he was admitted; and the Ras, turning to a chief who was sitting beside him, said,

"Look at this man! he came to me a stranger a few years ago, and not being satisfied with my treatment, left me, in great anger; but now that I am deserted by some of my friends, and pressed upon by my enemies, he is come back to fight by my side." He then, with tears in his eyes, told Mr. Pearce to sit down, ordered a cloth of the best quality to be immediately thrown over his shoulders, and gave him a mule, and a handsome allowance of corn for his support.'

A week after this, the Ras commenced his march at the head of 30,000 men, among whom might be reckoned one thousand horsemen, and upwards of eight thousand soldiers with matchlocks; the largest army raised for many years in the country. It was the very least that was demanded by the 'occasion, which was one of the most formidable invasions of the Galla ever undertaken against Abyssinia.'

Gojee, the chieftain who headed this incursion, was reputed the greatest jagonah (or warrior) of his age; possessing all the skill in battle for which Ras Michael was famed, and even exceeding him in ferocity. This chief was descended in a direct line from the Guanguol, mentioned by Mr. Bruce. His force was computed on the present occasion to be upwards of forty-thousand Galla.'

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The barbarian army retreated during several days successively as the Ras advanced; in whose march, it is a circumstance to be noted, that he halted the whole of Sunday, according to 'a general custom prevailing among the Abyssinians, to avoid, if possible, marching on that day.' The last retreat of the Galla, made to avoid a battle on the Friday, owing to a superstitious feeling against fighting on that day, ended in a determined stand on the plains of Maizella. A flag of truce sent for the last time by the Ras, offering terms of accommodation, was returned with the utmost scorn and insult, and a furious menace to cleave the messenger from head to foot if he came again.' The conflict appears to have been violent and short. The centre of the Abyssinian army, where the Ras commanded in person, shrunk under the impetuous assault, accompanied with horrible yells, of the Galla. His own prompt intrepidity effected a speedy reversal.

"He called out for his favourite horse, but the chiefs, who were anxious to keep him out of personal danger, held it back; on which,

without a moment's hesitation, he urged his mule forward, and gat. loped to the front; his white turban and red sheep-skin, streaming wildly behind him, rendering him at once a conspicuous object to his troops. The energy of his action produced an instantaneous effect upon the Abyssinians; a terrible cry spread throughout the ranks, "the Badinsáh," "the Badinsáh," and, at the same moment they charged with such impetuous fury, that Gojee's horsemen were suddenly arrested in the midst of their career. Repeated vollies of musquetry now poured in upon them from the flanks, at which the horses of the Galla began to take alarm, and, in a few minutes they were thrown into absolute confusion.'

From this they could not recover; the rout and flight became general; and trophies indicating the death of nearly two thousand of the enemy were collected, according to the barbarous. practice described by Bruce, and of which there is mention in the Jewish history. It is an unaccountable circumstance, that this victory cost the Abyssinians hardly forty men. The country of the Galla was invaded and ravaged, and the ferocious chieftain, completely humiliated, was admitted to terms, under guarantee of his better behaviour given by another principal Galla chief; in the negotiation with whom the Ras gave another remarkable proof of his contempt of danger, and of the power which a strong mind has to over-awe even the pride of armed barbarians.

Among the peculiarities of this Abyssinian warfare, Mr. Pearce mentioned one very remarkable fact, which by its perfect correspondence to one of those descriptions in Bruce which contributed to destroy all confidence in his veracity, is available to a certain limited extent in his vindication. This fact, on the evidence of Pearce's own eyes, is no other than the cutting of pieces of flesh from a living cow, by soldiers who then proceeded to drive the animal forward on their march. The testimony, now no longer questionable, to the existence of such a practice, will be the more gratifying to the adorers of human nature, the more precisely and explicitly it is enounced; we will therefore produce it in the terms of the deposition,

On the 7th of February he (Pearce) went out with a party of the Lasta soldiers on one of their marauding expeditions, and in the course of the day they got possession of several head of cattle, with which, towards evening, they made the best of their way back to the camp. They had then fasted for many hours, and still a considerable distar ce remained for them to travel. Under these circumstances, a soldier attached to the party proposed "cutting out the shulada" from one of the cows they were driving before them, to satisfy the cravings of their hunger. This "term" Mr. Pearce did not at first understand, but he was not long left in doubt upon the subject; for VOL. III, N. S. 2 H

the others having assented, they laid hold of the animal by the horns, threw it down, and proceeded without further ceremony to the operation. This consisted in cutting out two pieces of flesh from the buttock, near the tail, which together, Mr. P. supposed, might weigh about a pound: the pieces so cut out being called "shulada," and composing, as far as I could ascertain, part of the two "glutei maximi," or "larger muscles of the thigh." As soon as they had taken these away, they sewed up the wounds, plaistered them over with cow dung, and drove the animal forward, while they divided among their party the still reeking steaks. They wanted Mr. Pearce to partake of this meat, raw as it came from the cow; but he was too much disgusted with the scene to comply with their offer; though he declared that he was so hungry at the time, that he could without remorse have eaten raw flesh, had the animal been killed in the ordinary way; a practice which, I may here observe, he never could before be induced to adopt, notwithstanding its being general throughout the country. The animal, after this barbarous operation, walked somewhat lame, but nevertheless managed to reach the camp without any apparent injury, and, immediately after their arrival, it was killed by the Worari (the denomination of the soldiers of the marauding parties) and consumed for their supper.’

This practice of cutting out the shulada in cases of extreme ne. cessity, is said very rarely to occur; but the fact of its being occasionally adopted, was certainly placed beyond all doubt, by the testimony of many persons, who declared that they had likewise witnessed it, particularly among the Lasta troops. I certainly should not have dwelt so long, or so minutely, on this disgusting transaction, had I not deemed it especially due to the character of Mr. Bruce, to give a faithful account of this particular occurrence, since I have found myself under the necessity of noticing, on several other occasions, his unfortunate deviations from truth.' p. 295.

As one of these deviations, he adverts again to Bruce's representation of its being a general practice at their festivals, to keep the animals they slaughter, alive during the time they are preying on their flesh; no such practice,' says Mr. S. having ever been witnessed by myself, or having ever been heard of by Mr. Pearce, and the Ras, Kasimaj Yasons, Dofter Esther, and many other very respectable men, who had spent the greater part of their lives at Gondar, having solemnly as'sured me that no such inhuman practice had ever come under their observation.' Bruce's most filthy description of the Galla chief, Guanguol, Mr. S. was assured by Dofter (i. e. Doctor) Esther, who knew that chief well, must be a piece of wanton extravagance or absolute fiction.

Our Author gives a brief account of the Galla, a people consisting of at least twenty independent tribes, with their respective rulers, but the same language. The degree of barbarism

among some of these tribes may be guessed from the custom, among two of them at least, of drinking the warm blood of animals. Their progress into Abyssinia is judged to have been from a great distance in the south. Their manners are somewhat improving as they mingle with the Abyssinians. From Pagans, numbers of them are become Mahomedans. Many cir cumstances in the state and customs of the Abyssinians, powerfully reminded Mr. Salt of the Old Testament representations of the Jewish people; and their situation relatively to the Galla, gave back a lively image of the antipathy, warfare, and nearly balanced strength of the Jews and Philistines.

Among various other curious particulars in Pearce's account, is a brief notice of a hunt, or rather massacre of elephants, in which we confess we were little pleased to see the Ras so much delighted to employ his troops, on their return through a wild forest country after quelling a rebellion.

On one occasion, Mr. Pearce mentioned, that a whole herd of these tremendous animals were found feeding in a valley; and the troops having, by the Ras's orders, completely encircled them, no less than sixty-three trunks of these beasts were brought in and laid at the Ras's feet, who sat on a rising ground, which commanded the whole scene, directing his soldiers in the pursuit. During the progress of this dangerous amusement, a considerable number of people were killed, owing to a sudden rush made by these animals through a defile, where a large party had been assembled to stop their ad

vance.'

The concluding part of Pearce's contribution to this volume, is an account of a most vexatious, perilous and ably conducted enterprise, into which he had been drawn by the urgency of the English agent from Mocha, in spite of his own decided conviction of its being little less than a desperate undertaking. It was that of giving effect to a project of a trading experiment in Abyssinia, by conveying a quantity of rather costly merchandize by a direct route from Amphila-bay, through the country overrun by those villanous Arabs. Through a series of the most harrassing plagues, and after the narrowest possible escape from being murdered, he accomplished the enterprise, to the astonishment of the Ras and all the Abyssinians,

Mr. S. left this intelligent and high-spirited man in great favour and reputation in the country, married to an amiable young woman, the daughter of a Greek, successfully assiduous In acquiring such a command of the languages of the country as should best qualify him to be of service and of consequence, and not less fitted than devotedly zealous to promote the advantage equally of the English and Abyssinians, in any inter, course which may hereafter take place. Another Englishman,