Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/147

 we hired from the Dola of the place. The country over which we travelled on these occasions, consisted of an extensive plain, covered with brushwood, and bounded by a range of mountains, forming a kind of natural amphitheatre, at about fifteen miles distant in the interior, lying in a north-west and south-east dircetion, fronting the coast. To the northward of this range passes the road to Abyssinia, and beyond, in the same line, on a clear day, part of the still loftier chain of mountains extending from Senafé to Taranta, may be plainly distinguished.

As the rains had only just commenced, the vegetation appeared to be very scanty, and we consequently met with but little game, though, during the fertile season, large herds of deer are said to come down from the upper country, a circumstance not unlikely, from the number of horns which we found lying scattered among the hills. A small species of hare, greatly resembling, a rabbit, which delights in frequenting dry and desert situations, seemed to be common on the coast. Among the birds worthy of observation, a large and fine species of bustard, and several species of lapwing were most conspicuous, all of which, upon an examination of the contents of their stomachs, appeared to feed chiefly on locusts, with which the neighbourhood was at this time much infested. During our stay in this quarter, a large flight of these insects came over to one of the islands, and in a few days destroyed nearly half the vegetation upon it, not sparing even the bitter leaves of the rack-tree. These locusts are called Jerād in Yemen, and Anne in Dankali, and are commonly used as food by the wandering tribes of both these nations, who, after broiling them, separate the heads from the bodies, and devour the latter in the same manner as Europeans eat shrimps and prawns.

The main land, towards the sea, is every where skirted with a thick jungle, (if I may so express it) of the rack-tree, much frequented by a species of fox, called by the natives 'wobit,' which comes down regularly to the sea-side, on the fall of the tide, to seek for shell-fish and other marine substances, on which it principally feeds. This circumstance was early noticed by Pliny, who calls