des by huge
hot-looking mountains, that dip their basins into its very bowl, and on
the fourth by crude, half-formed rocks of lava, broken and divided by
chasms. No sound broke on the ear, not a ripple played on the water. The
molten surface of the lake lay like burnished steel, the fierce sky was
without a cloud, and the angry sun, like a ball of metal at a white heat,
rode in full blaze."

It is scarcely wonderful, that among a people devoted to superstition,
those terrible passes and sultry hollows should be marked as the haunts of
the powers of evil. Adyli, a deep mysterious cavern at the extremity of
one of those melancholy plains, is believed to be the especial abode of
gins and _afreets_, whose voices are heard in the night, and who carry off
the traveller to devour him without remorse. A late instance was mentioned
of a man who was compelled by the weariness of his camel to fall behind
the caravan, and who left no remnants behind him but his spear and shield.
Major Harris well describes this spot as one which, from its desolate
position, might be believed to be the last stage of the habitable world.
"A close mephitic stench, impeding respiration, arose from the saline
exhalations of the stagnant lake. A frightful glare from the white salt
and limestone hillocks threatened extinction to the vision, and a
sickening heaviness in the loaded atmosphere was enhanced rather than
alleviated by the fiery breath of the north-westerly wind, which blew
without interruption during the day. The air was inflamed, the sky
sparkled, and columns of burning sand, which at quick intervals towered
high into the atmosphere, became so illumined as to appear like tall
pillars of fire. Crowds of horses, mules, and camels, tormented to madness
by the poisonous gad-fly, flocked to share the only bush; and, disputing
with their heels the slender shelter it afforded, compelled several of the
party to seek refuge in caves formed below by fallen masses of volcanic
rock, heated to the temperature of a potter's kiln, and fairly baking up
the marrow in the bones." The heat in this place, with the thermometer
under the shade of cloaks and umbrellas, was at 126 deg.. It is only
surprising how any of the party survived. Certainly if Abyssinia is to be
approached only by this road, the prospect of an intercourse with it from
the east, appears among the most improbable things of this world.

One of the advantages of continental travel has been long s