lage called Halai, the first we had seen since our leaving Masuah. It is chiefly inhabited by poor servants and shepherds keeping the flocks of men of substance living in the town of Dixan.
The people here are not black, but of a dark complexion bordering very much upon yellow. They have their head bare; their feet covered with sandals; a goat's skin upon their shoulders; a cotton cloth about their middle; their hair short and curled like that of a negroe's in the west part of Africa; but this is done by art, not by nature, each man having a wooden stick with which he lays hold of the lock and twists it round a screw, till it curls in the form he desires[1]. The men carry in their hands two lances and a large shield of bull's hide. A crooked knife, the blade in the lower part about three inches broad, but diminishing to a point about sixteen inches long, is stuck at their right side, in a girdle of coarse cotton cloth, with which their middle is swathed, going round them six times.
All sorts of cattle are here in great plenty; cows and bulls of exquisite beauty, especially the former; they are, for the most part, completely white, with large dewlaps hanging down to their knees; their heads, horns, and hoofs perfectly well-turned; the horns wide like our Lincolnshire kine; and their hair like silk. Their sheep are large, and all black. I never saw one of any other colour in the province of Tigré. Their heads are large; their ears remarka-bly
- ↑ I apprehend this is the same instrument used by the ancients, and censured by the prophets, which, in our translation, is rendered crisping-pins. Isa. chap. iii. ver. 22.
