Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/118

 strangers resident at Mocha I met with a respectable old man, named Hadjee Abdelkauder, an inhabitant of Hurrur, then acting as commercial agent to the Sultaun of that country. This man was one of the best informed and most liberal-minded Mahomedans I have ever been acquainted with, though he did not appear to be particularly fitted for the situation he held, owing to his possessing a strange carelessness with respect to pecuniary concerns, very uncommon among his countrymen. He had read a great deal for an Arab. His powers of comprehension and personal activity were very extraordinary for his years, (which I conceive must have bordered on seventy) and there was besides a certain vivacity and drollery in his manner that rendered his conversation singularly agreeable. I once began a sketch of his features, but before it could be completed he found out my intention, and ran away, laughing and shaking his head, saying "he was too old and too ugly;" nor could he ever again be induced to sit quiet when he saw a pencil in my hand. At the time he became known to me he was suffering severely from ulcerations in his legs, a disease which very frequently occurs in this climate; but, by the daily use of a caustic application, which in the Red Sea is found to be extremely beneficial, he received so much relief that his gratitude became unbounded.

From this man, and another person named Hadjee Belal, who had also acted as a commercial agent to the Sultaun of Hurrur, and who afterwards attended me on my journey to Abyssinia, I learnt so many curious particulars respecting the natives of the former country, as well as of the Galla and other tribes in its neighbourhood, that I resolved, from repeated assurances of its practicability, to send a person into that part of Africa by the way of Zeyla. It was my intention that he should direct his way through Hurrur into Efat, and thence proceed, if it could be effected, to join me in the neighbourhood of Gondar or Antalo, as circumstances might direct, while I determined, if possible, to return by the same route.

I was enabled to execute the former part of this scheme without putting the government to any additional