Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/182

( 174 ) CHAPTER VI.

BEFORE I enter upon my journey up the country, I shall endeavour to convey to the reader an idea of the party accompanying me, forming probably the largest that has ever left the coast since the time of the Portuguese expeditions in the seventeenth century. It consisted of four Englishmen, who attended me, Mr. Smiths a surgeon, Mr. Pearce, Mr. Coffin, and a servant named Thomas Ingram; three Arabs, Hadjee Belal, Hyder, and Said, and about one hundred Abyssinian followers, among whom were Debib, Hadjee Hamood, Chelika Havea who had charge of the mules and superintendance of the people, the old priest and about sixty bearers belonging to the Ras; most of the latter being wild desperate young men, who had been accustomed to attend him in his various expeditions. The rest consisted of Mr. Pearce's and Debib's servants, and a few people of the country whom we had hired; besides the chiefs of Hazorta tribe; Hummar Omar and Solimaun, about a dozen of the Nayib's rascally camel-drivers. Of