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In these pools, some of which may be a mile in length, are congregated all the inhabitants of the river, who as the stream disappears are forced to close quarters in these narrow asylums; thus, crocodiles, hippopotami, fish, and large turtle are crowded in extraordinary numbers, until the commencement of the rains in Abyssinia once more sets them at liberty by sending down a fresh volume to the river.
The whole country was in a state of unrest. The Khedive had carried on an unsuccessful war against the Christian King of Abyssinia, and the Mohammedan states of Kordofan and Darfur were in revolt against Egypt. There half-savage Beduin tribes were scattered about over the deserts, and there some of the worst slave-dealers had their haunts.
Any supposition seems to me more probable than that the seeds of plants should have been blown from the mountains of Abyssinia or other central mountains of Africa to the mountains of Madagascar.
Its powers of scent were fully equal to those of a bloodhound, whilst its abnormally long forearms possessed incredible strength ... a Cynocephalyte such as this, contracts phthisis even in the more northern provinces of Abyssinia...."
The surface resembled a beautiful park, composed of a succession of undulations, interspersed with thornless trees, and watered by streamlets at intervals of five or eight miles, while the magnificent Alps of Abyssinia bounded the view to the south; but there was no enjoyment in this country on horseback.
In February, 1865, a Copt, Abdul Melak, presented himself at the consulate of Jeddah, pretending to have just arrived from Abyssinia with a message from the Abouna to the Consul-General, purporting that if he could bring from H.M.'s Consul-General in Egypt a written declaration to the effect that, should the Emperor allow the Europeans in chains to depart, no steps would be taken to punish the offence, he, the Abouna, would engage himself to obtain their liberation, and become their security.
In the Island of Zanzibar there is a very small species of antelope; and another found in Abyssinia, and called also the Madoqua, is said to be the smallest of all horned animals being not so large as an English hare! In North Africa in the Sahara Desert exists a large species, called by the Arabs the Wild Ox. It is one of the clumsiest in shape of the whole tribe.
Armenia and Abyssinia were infected by the speech or learning of the Greeks; and their Barbaric tongues, which have been revived in the studies of modern Europe, were unintelligible to the inhabitants of the Roman empire.
And having perceived all three to participate in the common superstition, derived from Babylon and the East, traceable in history to its human source, existing still in Turkey and Abyssinia, the superstition which mistakes mania, epilepsy, and other forms of disease, for possession by devils; should I have shown love of truth, or obstinacy in error, had I refused to judge freely of these three writers, as of any others who tell similar marvels? or was it my duty to resolve, at any rate and against evidence, to acquit them of the charge of superstition and misrepresentation?
The most recent of these was the long war between the Boer and British armies, the final success being a costly and not very profitable triumph of the British arms. Of other hostile relations may be mentioned the invasion of Abyssinia by a British army in 1867, the suppression of the revolt of Arabi Pasha in 1879, and the series of events arising from the Mahdist outbreak in 1880.
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