Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/570

 54<> T.RAVEL;S TO DISCOVER

and his fon David, as a. defence for the rich countries .of the Agows,.Damot, Gojam, and Dembca, againft the defa- lations and inroads of the wild Galla their countrymen, from whom they had revolted ; they confirt of ninety-nine fami- lies ; and it is a common faying among them, .that the de- vil holds the hundreth part for his own family, as there is nowhere elfe to be found a family of men equal to any of the ninety-nine. It has been fometimes connected with Gojam, oftener with Damot and the Agows, who were at this time under the government of Fafil.. .

The houfes in Maitfha are of a very Angular conftruc- tion : the firft proprietor has a field, which he divides into three or four, as he pleafes, (fuppofe four) by two hedges made of the., thorny branches of the acacia-tree. In the corner, or interfection of, the, two hedges, he begins his low hut, and occupies as much of the angle as he pleafes. Three other brothers, perhaps, occupy each of the three other angles ; behind thefe their children place their houfe, and inclofe the end of their father's by another, which they make generally. Ihorter than the firft, becaufe broader. After they have raifed as many houfes as they pleafe, they furround the whole with a thick and almoft impenetrable abbatis, or thorny hedge, and all the family are under one roof,, ready to aifift each other on the firfl alarm ; for they have nothing to do but every man to look out at his own door, and they are clofe in a .body together, facing every point that danger can poffi- bly come from. They are, however, fpeedily deftroyed by a itronger enemy, as we eafrly found, for we had only to fet the dry hedge, and the canes that grew round it, on fire, which communicated at once to the houfes, chiefly confifV ing of dry ftraw. Such is their terror of the fmall-pox,

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