all, as it was their custom, when visited by any stranger of distinction, to give him the privilege of sleeping with their sisters and daughters. Upon this he put a question to the savages in the Galla language, probably asking them whether it were not so; and they all answered, says Bruce, by the wildest howl I ever heard, and struck themselves upon the breast, apparently assenting.
Fasil, who was fond of hearing the sound of his own voice, now made another long speech, and then turned to the Galla, who now got upon their feet; and the whole party standing round in a circle, and raising the palms of their hands, Fasil and the seven chiefs repeated a prayer about a minute long, the latter apparently with great devotion. "Now," says Fasil, "go in peace; you are a Galla. This is a curse upon them and their children, their corn, grass, and cattle, if ever they lift their hands against you or yours, or do not defend you to the utmost, if attacked by others, or endeavour to defeat any design they may hear is intended against you." He then took the traveller to the door of the tent, where there stood a handsome gray horse bridled and saddled, and said, "Take this horse; but do not mount it yourself. Drive it before you, saddled and bridled as it is; no man of Meitsha will touch you when he sees that horse."
A guide was now given him by Fasil, and he took his leave. The horse was driven before him, and he proceeded towards the mysterious fountains of the Nile, surrounded on all sides by a people ignorant, brutal, and treacherous, and bearing a stronger resemblance in character than any other race of men to the profligate Mingrelians described by Chardin.
On the 3d of November he came in sight of a triple ridge of mountains, disposed one range behind another, nearly in form of three concentric circles, which he supposed to be the Mountains of the Moon, the "Montes Lunæ" of the ancients, near which the
