pital. Coal has
already been found; cotton, of a quality unrivaled in the whole world, is
every where a weed, and might be cultivated to any extent. The coffee
which is sold in Arabia as the produce of Mocha, is chiefly of wild
African growth; and that species of the tea plant which is used by the
lower orders of the Chinese, flourishes so widely, and with so little care,
that the climate would doubtless be found well adapted for the
higher-flavoured and more delicate species. If, at a very moderate
calculation, a sum falling very little short of a hundred thousand pounds
sterling, can be annually invested in European goods, to supply the wants
of some of the poorer tribes adjacent to Abyssinia, what important results
might not be anticipated from well-directed efforts, adopting the natural
neans of communication in Africa?

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. There must have been some difficulty in
spending the time of this solitary confinement among the hills; but the
author was well employed in writing his volumes, and engineers were
employed in erecting a Gothic hall, to the great delight of his Abyssinian
majesty. He would allow them to do every thing except paint his
portrait--the national idea being, that whoever takes a likeness,
immediately becomes invested with power over the original. "You are
writing a book," he said. "I know this, because I never enquire what you
are doing that they do not tell me you are using a pen, or gazing at the
heavens. That is a good thing, and it pleases me. You will speak
favourably of myself; but you shall not insert my portrait, as you have
done that of the King of Zingero."

The English had new wonders for him; they shaped planks out of trees in a
fashion new to the Abyssinians, who waste a tree on every plank. "You
English are indeed a strange people," said the king, as he saw the first
plank formed in this economical style. "I do not understand your stories
of the roads dug under rivers, nor of the carriages that gallop without
horses; but you are a strong people, and employ wonderful inventions."

At length the Goth