Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/185

 Beyond the Abyssinian plateaux in the vicinity of the Red Sea rise such pro- montories and isolated headlands as the Gadara, or Qedem, formerly an insular rock, but which now forms a promontory between the Gulf of Massawuh and Adulis Bay, terminating in an abrupt incline. This granite mass, although visible from Mussawah, has not yet been accurately measured, the estimates of travellers varying from 2,700 to 3,300 feet; but d'Abbadie has geodetically determined its highest point at over 5,000 feet. The Buri headhind, bounding Adulis Bay on the east, also terminates in the imposing volcanic cone of Awen, the Hurtow Peak of the English maps, which, although apparently extinct, is said by the natives still to emit steam and sulphureous vapours. Copious hot springs flow from its sides, while thousands of jets at a temperature of 168° F. bubble up amidst the surf on the beach.

South of the Buri peninsula are other irregular hills composed of volcanic rocks completely separated from the mountains of Abyssinia proper. But a still active volcano, known to the Afars under the name of Artali, or Ortoaleh, that is, "Smoky Mountain," rises at the extremity of a spur of the Abyssinian plateaux, south-west of Hantila (Ilumfuleh) Bay, attesting the existence of underground energy, of which so few examples still occur on the African coast. It is described by Hildebrandt, the only explorer who has approached its crater, as a cone of blackish lava seamed with crevasses, and ejecting dense volumes of whitish vapour. In its vicinity stands another now quiescent sulphureous mountain, from the deposits in its crater known as Kibrealeh, or "Sulphur Mountain;" whilst farther north, near the salt plains, are the isolated solfataras of Delol, or Dallol, whence the Abyssinian highlanders obtain the sulphur with which they manufacture their gunpowder. Finally, to th6 east, near the small harbour of Edd, a chaotic mass of solfataras and craters gives the district the appearance of a storm-tossed sea. Seafarers speak of lavas ejected within "a day's march" of Edd, especially in 1861, but their origin is unknown, unless they proceed from the already mentioned Mount Ortoaleh, which lies, however, not at a day's journey, but fully sixty miles inland. These volcanoes are greatly feared by the natives, who believe them to be the abode of evil spirits ; under the guidance of their wizards they sacrifice a cow to them, but directly the animal is placed on the flaming pyre they nm away, lest evil should befall them if they saw the spirits devouring their prey. Although Ortoaleh is not situated on the sea-coast, it rises above the district of Rahad, a lacustrine plain which was formerly a marine inlet. This depression, which Munzinger called Ansali, from an isolated mound rising in its midst, stretched over a superficial area of about 1,000 square miles at a mean level of some 200 feet below the Red Sea. This plain, a miniature "ghor" similar to that flooded by the Jordan and the Dead Sea, is almost entirely surrounded by a sinuous belt of