Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/170

 But seventy years'passed between Poncet's short visit and that of the Scotch- man Bruce, with whom begins the era of modern exploration. Since his time the country has been traversed by many European travellers, naturalists, traders, adventurers, soldiers, and missionaries, and European military expeditions have even been made into the heart of Abyssinia. Commercial relations are rapidly increasing, and many of the plateau districts have already been pointed out by explorers as a future field of emigration for Europeans. But it might be doubted whether the two races would continue to live on friendly terms, without the conflicts and wars of extermination generally preceeding the fusion of different peoples.

Certain parts of Ethiopia are already much better known than any other African region lying beyond the colonies and maritime regions under European influence. Since Bruce's visit, the country has been thoroughly studied by explorers, such as Salt, Riippel, Rochet, Ferret, and Galinier; Beke, Sapeto, Krapf, Combes, and Tamisier; Lejean, Munzinger, Raffray, Rohlfs, and Heuglin, who have brought back maps, charts and observations of every description. Moreover Antoine d'Abbadie, during his twelve years' stay in Ethiopia, made a geodetic survey of the country, by a rapid but accurate method, hardly inferior in precision to the lengthy and delicate system of triangulation usually adopted in Europe. On d'Abbadie's map the Red Sea coast is connected with the mountains of the plateau as far as Kaffa by a continuous series of triangles, fixing the latitude and longitude of about nine hundred points. The map is covered with a close network of geodetic lines and routes, the names of many localities being inserted with considerable accuracy. Detailed surveys were also taken by the British staff officers during the expedition of 1868 from Adulis Bay to the highland fortress of Magdala.

Most European explorers who have visited the Ethiopian uplands have penetrated from the east, where these highlands present the most imposing aspect. Above the samhar or mudun, a naked plain separating the coast from the plateau, the outer terraces of the escarpment are seen piled up in domes and pyramids, barren rocks or verdant slopes, whose sharp hazy crests seem to merge in a single irregular range. At the mouth of the ravines which cleave the rocky masses with their parallel furrows, the argillaceous plains are succeeded by rolled stones and boulders, with here and there a solitary tree, or patches of scrub or herbage visible in the cavities occasionally flooded by the tropical rains. Still higher up rise rocky or wooded slopes and steep precipices, round which wind narrow and dangerous paths. When the traveller at last reaches the summit he does not find himself on a ridge, as he might have expected, but on almost level pasturelands interspersed with tall juniper-trees. At a height of from 7,000 to 9,000 feet the edge of the plateau stands out in relief, on one side overlooking the grey