country. Several new species appeared, with five, nine, eleven petals, and plenty of the agam with four, these being all white. We found also large bushes of yellow, and orange and yellow jessamin, besides fine trees of kummel, and the boha, both of the largest size, beautifully covered with fruit and flowers, which we never before had seen.
We now descended into a plain called Selech lecha, the village of that name being two miles east of us. The country here has an air of gaiety and chearfulness superior to any thing we had ever yet seen. Poncet[1] was right when he compared it to the most beauteous part of Provence. We crossed the plain through hedge-rows of flowering shrubs, among which the honeysuckle now made a principal figure, which is of one species only, the same known in England; but the flower is larger and perfectly white, not coloured on the outside as our honeysuckle is. Fine trees of all sizes were everywhere interspersed; and the vine, with small black grapes of very good flavour, hung in many places in festoons, joining tree to tree, as if they had been artificially twined and intended for arbours.
After having passed this plain, we again entered a close country through defiles between mountains, thick covered with wood and bushes. We pitched our tent by the waterside judiciously enough as travellers, being quite surrounded with bushes, which prevented us from being seen in any direction.
- ↑ Poncet's voyage to Ethiopia, p. 99.
