Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/205

 ; by means of immersing a thermometer, graduated for the purpose, in boiling water: if this should be a correct method, it will prove a very valuable discovery for travellers. While we continued at our station under the daro tree, I saw several species of birds which I had never before met with: one of these proved to be the Waalia of Mr. Bruce, (Columba Abyssinica of Dr. Latham;) its colour is a most beautiful yellow, shaded off into purple. I also shot a new and elegant species of Musicapa. At three o'clock we again started; and, after a considerable descent, came to the river Angueah, which runs through a bed of granite, and shapes its course in a north-west direction till it joins the Maleg. Beyond this we had several steep and rugged precipices to mount, when we arrived at the house of Ayto Nobilis, a young chief on whom the Ras had lately conferred this district, as a reward for military service. Here we passed a pleasant day in the enjoyment of the unconstrained freedom, attendant on Abyssinian hospitality. On the 9th of March we quitted the house of Ayto Nobilis in the afternoon, and proceeded across a fertile valley towards a range of hills lying to the south, leaving the mountains of Adowa about twelve miles on our right. Very extravagant descriptions have been given respecting the shapes of the mountains of Tigré. Mr. Bruce ventures to assert even, that "some of them are flat and thin, and square, in the shape of a hearth stone or slab, that scarce would seem to have been sufficient to resist the winds. Some are like pyramids. Others like obelisks or prisms; and some, the most extraordinary of all the rest, pyramids pitched upon their points with their base uppermost." The reader will readily believe me, when I state, that I did not see a single one which answered to the latter part of the description. With respect to their true forms, a more correct notion may be obtained from the views which I have before published, than from any verbal account that I can attempt to furnish.