Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/193

 or ploceus aureus; Stecker has counted as many as eight hundred and seventy-two of these basket-nests on a single acacia.

According to the altitude of the country that they inhabit, the Abyssinians rear different domestic animals. Camels are used only on the lowlands, never being found beyond a height of 5,000 feet. The Abyssinian horse, bred throughout all the inhabited regions, is evidently of Arab stock, but smaller and stouter, of dog-like fidelity, and almost as strong and surefooted in climbing rocks as the mule. The donkey has also been introduced into the plateau, but it is weak and useless as a pack animal, possessing none of the qualities of the European variety.

Thanks to its immense and succulent pasture-lands, Abyssinia is an excellent cattle-breeding country, and some of its breeds, differing in stature, shape, length of horn and colour, almost rival the finest Europoan species. In many parts of the plateau are found the two kinds of sheep, the short and fat-tailed, besides an intermediate variety. The goat is also bred, its skin supplying the parchment on which most of the sacred books are written. There are neither pigs, pigeons, ducks, nor geese, but poultry is found in every village, and in some churches cocks are kept to announce the hour of morning prayer. Excepting the sheep-dog, which is large and courageous, the domestic dog is small and of indifferent qualities. The Abyssinians occupy themselves with apiculture in some districts, but the honey has poisonous properties whenever the bees obtain it from the flower of the branching euphorbia. A n analogous phenomenon has been observed for ages in the Caucasian and Pontine mountains. Elements of the most diverse origin have been blended in the present populations of Abyssinia. Immigrants from the Arabian peninsula, the* banks of the Nile, and the surrounding uplands arid lowlands, have here become intermingled in divers proportions with the aborigines. Amongst those still regarded as of native origin are the Agau, that is "The Free," still forming the fundamental element of the Abyssinian nation, and found chiefly in the provinces of Lasta on the Upper Takkazeh, and in Agaumeder, west of Lake Tana. According to some Egyptologists, the Agau are the descendants of the Uaua, the Nubian people spoken of on ancient monuments who were gradually driven towards the Upper Nile and neighbouring highlands. Many of their sacred ceremonies are said to betray traces of tho uninterrupted influence of the ancient Egyptian religion. The Agau hold feasts on the banks of the Blue Nile and Takkazeh in honour of these sacred rivers; they likewise worship the serpent, which plays so important a part in primitive Egyptian mythology, and which is even still adored by numerous nations of the old and new worlds. They speak a peculiar dialect, the hamiouja or hamra, which, however, is allied to the same stock as the amharina, the current speech of Abyssinia.