unless in the utmost necessity. I fired two guns, and ordered my servants to fire two large ship-blunderbusses, which presently freed us from our troublesome guests. Two hyænas were killed, and a large lion being mortally wounded was dispatched by our men in the morning. They came no more near us; but we heard numbers of them howling at a distance till day-light, either from hunger or the smarts of the wounds they had received, perhaps from both; for each ship-blunderbuss had fifty small bullets, and the wood towards which they were directed, at the distance of about twenty yards, seemed to be crowded with these animals. The reason why the hyæna is more fierce here than in any part of Barbary, will be given in the natural history of that wild beast in the Appendix.
Though this, our first day's journey from Falaty and Ras el Feel, to Quaicha, was of eleven hours, the distance we had gone in that time was not more than ten miles; for our beasts were exceedingly loaded, so that it was with the utmost difficulty that either we or they could force ourselves through those thick woods, which scarcely admitted the rays of the sun. From this station, however, we were entertained with a most magnificent sight. The mountains at a distance towards the banks of the Tacazzé, all Debra Haria, and the mountains towards Kuara, were in a violent bright flame of fire.
The Arabs feed all their flocks upon the branches of trees; no beast in this country eats grass. When therefore the water is dried up, and they can no longer stay, they set fire to the woods, and to the dry grass below it. The flame runs under the trees, scorches the leaves and new wood,
