coast of the Red Sea. The sun here is indeed hot, but in the morning a cool breeze never fails, which increases as the sun rises high. In the shade it is always cool. The thermometer, in the shade, in the plain of St Michael, this day, was 76°, wind N.W.
Lamalmon, as I have said, is the pass through which the road of all caravans to Gondar lies. It is here they take an account of all baggage and merchandise, which they transmit to the Negadé Ras, or chief officer of the customs at Gondar, by a man whom they send to accompany the caravan. There is also a present, or awide, due to the private proprietor of the ground; and this is levied with great rigour and violence, and, for the most part, with injustice; so that this station, which, by the establimment of the customhouse, and nearness to the capital, should be in a particular manner attended to by government, is always the place where the first robberies and murders are committed in unsettled times. Though we had nothing with us which could be considered as subject to duty, we submitted every thing to the will of the robber of the place, and gave him his present. If he was not satisfied, he seemed to be so, which was all we wanted.
We had obtained leave to depart early in the morning of the 9th, but it was with great regret we were obliged to abandon our Mahometan friends into hands that seemed disposed to shew them no favour. The king was in Maitsha, or Damot, that is to say, far from Gondar, and various reports were spread abroad about the success of the campaign; and these people only waited for an unfavourable event tomake
