Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The hereditary provinces at this day subject to the King of Shoa, are comprised in a rectangular domain of 150 by 90 miles; an area traversed by five systems of mountains, of which the culminating point divides the basin of the Nile from that of the Hawash. The Christian population of Shoa and Efat are estimated at a million; and the Moslem and Pagan population at a million and a half.
Africa, with the human race on the lowest grade, has the brute on the highest, and its true name is the great kingdom of savage nature. A two-ounce ball had been lodged in the forehead of hippopotamus on the evening of reaching the Hawash; but the animal having dived, the natives, in some jealousy of the skill of the British rifle, declared that it had not been mortally struck.
I, myself, was taken to a hut on the banks of the Hawash and shown a creature... whose predominant trait was an unreasoning malignity toward... and a ferocious tenderness for the society of its furry brethren.
In any part of Africa a river of tolerable magnitude is an object of the most anxious interest; and the approach to the Hawash, the boundary river of the kingdom of Shoa, was looked to with eager speculation. At length the height was reached from which was obtained "an exhilarating prospect over the dark, lone valley of the long looked-for Hawash.
Disarmed and shackled, Mirach remained a sullen but defiant prisoner with the caravan for the next two weeks' march, when the crossing of the Hawash River brought them well into Abyssinian territory and made it safe to rush him forward, in the charge of a small escort, to Adis Ababa.
At Wilensi, one Mohammed, a Shaykhash, gave me his itinerary of fifteen stages to the sources of the Abbay or Blue Nile: he confirmed the vulgar Somali report that the Hawash and the Webbe Shebayli both take rise in the same range of well wooded mountains which gives birth to the river of Egypt. The government of Harar is the Amir.
I, myself, was taken to a hut on the banks of the Hawash and shown a creature ... whose predominant trait was an unreasoning malignity toward ... and a ferocious tenderness for the society of its furry brethren.
A day of intense heat was as usual followed by a heavy fall of rain, which, owing to the unaccommodating arrangement of striking the tents at sunset, thoroughly drenched the whole party. The new difficulty was, how to cross the Hawash, "second of the rivers of Abyssinia, and rising in the very heart of Ethipoia, at an elevation of 8000 feet above the sea.
Another winter passed a dreary time for the mission in Ankober. Torrents rushed down the mountains, every footpath had been converted into a stream, and every valley into a morass. The season was peculiarly tempestuous; the heavy white clouds constantly hung on the mountain pinnacles, and the torrents swelled the Hawash to such an extent, that the land for many miles on both sides was inundated.
This caravan road across the Abyan is very old; its monotony is inexpressible, for the nine hours to Bir Mighar. At the sixth hour the road to Hawash goes off to the left. As we approached the well of Mighar the signs of population increased, and a few scrubby acacias grow near. There are two wells a mile apart; the farther, where we encamped, was once protected by a fort, now in ruins.
Word Of The Day