or we were instantly
surrounded by crowds of Amahagger, similar in every particular to those
with whom we were already familiar, who, though they spoke little,
pressed round us so closely as to obscure the view to a person lying
in a hammock. Then all of a sudden a number of armed men arranged in
companies, and marshalled by officers who held ivory wands in their
hands, came running swiftly towards us, having, so far as I could
make out, emerged from the face of the precipice like ants from their
burrows. These men as well as their officers were all robed in addition
to the usual leopard skin, and, as I gathered, formed the bodyguard of
_She_ herself.

Their leader advanced to Billali, saluted him by placing his ivory wand
transversely across his forehead, and then asked some question which
I could not catch, and Billali having answered him the whole regiment
turned and marched along the side of the cliff, our cavalcade of litters
following in their track. After going thus for about half a mile we
halted once more in front of the mouth of a tremendous cave, measuring
about sixty feet in height by eighty wide, and here Billali descended
finally, and requested Job and myself to do the same. Leo, of course,
was far too ill to do anything of the sort. I did so, and we entered the
great cave, into which the light of the setting sun penetrated for
some distance, while beyond the reach of the daylight it was faintly
illuminated with lamps which seemed to me to stretch away for an almost
immeasurable distance, like the gas lights of an empty London street.
The first thing I noticed was that the walls were covered with
sculptures in bas-relief, of a sort, pictorially speaking, similar to
those that I have described upon the vases;--love-scenes principally,
then hunting pictures, pictures of executions, and the torture of
criminals by the placing of a, presumably, red-hot pot upon the head,
showing whence our hosts had derived this pleasant practice. There
were very few battle-pieces, though many of duels, and men running and
wrestling, and from this fact I am led to believe that this people were
not much subject to attack by exterior foes, either on account of the
isolation of their position or because of their great strength. Between
the pictures were columns of stone characters of a formation absolutely
new to me; at any rate, they were neither Greek nor Egyptian, nor
Hebrew, nor Assyrian--that I am sure of. They looked more l