upon the population of this province with
great contempt. They say that their tongues are long for lying, their arms
are long for stealing, and their legs are long for running away.

The mission now approached another region, perhaps the finest in Africa.
Every change in the climate and soil in Africa is in extremes, and
barreness and unbounded fertility lie side by side.

"As if by the touch of the magician's wand, the scene now passes, in
an instant, from parched wastes to the geen, and lovely islands of
Abyssinia, presenting one scene of rich and thriving cultivation. The
baggage having at length been consigned to the shoulders of six
hundred grumbling Moslem porters--for here the camel, from the
steepness of the hills, was useless--and forming a line, which
extended upwards of a mile, the embassy, on the morning of the 17th,
comnenced the ascent of the Abyssinian Alps; the flutes again played,
the wild warriors of the escort again chanted their songs. It was a
cool and lovely morning, and an invigorating breeze played over the
mountains' side, on which, now less than ten degrees from the equator,
flourished the vegetation of northern climes. The rough and stony
road wound on, by a steep ascent, over hill and dale, now skirting
some precipitous ascent, now dipping into the basin of some verdant
hollow, where it suddenly emerged into a succession of shady lanes,
bounded by flowering hedgerows."

All this is so like England, and so unlike Africa, that we should suspect
the major's memory to have been as active at least as his observation. But
the work contains so much internal evidence of accuracy, independently of
the confidence attached to the character of the intelligent writer himself,
that we must believe the heart of Ethiopa to possess secnes that would be
worthy of the heart of our own fresh and flower-bearing island. The scene
which follows is quite Arcadian.

"The wild rose, the fern, the lantana, and the honeysuckle, smiled
round a succession of highly cultivated terraces, and on every
eminence, stood a cluster of conically thatched houses, environed by
green hedges, and partially embowered amid dark trees As the troop
passed on, the peasant abandoned his occupation to gaze at the novel
procession; while merry groups of hooded women, decked in scarlet and
crimson left their avocations in the hut to welcome the king's guests
with a shrill _ziroleet_, which ra