Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/209

 a heavy shower of rain at once closed the prospect from our view. This storm, was fortunately of short continuance only, and proved a suitable prelude to the inhospitable treatment which we soon afterwards experienced, in the neighbouring town of Mugga. The Shum of the district being absent, neither house, nor any other accommodations were offered us, and we were at length compelled to have recourse for shelter to some stacks of straw which stood in its vicinity. Mr. Pearce, indignant at this treatment, obtained my permission to go forward to Chelicut, to acquaint the Ras with the difficulties we had to encounter, and to prepare him for our approach. He had not been long gone, when the head-priest of the place came out and offered us a small house adjoining to the church, which we gladly accepted, and he afterwards was kind enough to provide us with a few cakes of bread. This, with a kid which we bought from one of the town's-people, and two jars of soué or bouza, that we got in exchange for its skin, constituted the whole of our provisions, and the night was passed away as well as the incessant annoyance from swarms of vermin, and the continual howling of hyænas, which seemed to be more than usually numerous in the neighbourhood, would permit. On Monday 11th, we quitted Mugga with great satisfaction, at the break of day, determining to make a long march forward to Gibba, a residence belonging to the Ras, where we had reason to expect more decent treatment. Though the people at the former place have a bad name, yet the district which they inhabit is one of the finest eastward of the Tacazze. The vale, through which the first part of the road conducted us, wore a beautiful aspect, and was interspersed with groves of trees, a circumstance rarely met with in Abyssinia. In about two hours we arrived at a point where another road turns off, towards the pass of Atbara. The route we had taken by Mugga saves this very difficult ascent, but, owing to the incivility of its inhabitants, is rarely frequented by cafilas. I could almost be led to suspect, that Mugga is the district to which Aeizana sent a tribe of the Boja, a set of barbarians whom he had subdued, a circumstance recorded in the inscription which I