The season of this is just before the rains, while the poor savage is yet lodged under the trees preparing his food for the approaching winter, before he retires into his caves in the mountains, where he passes that inclement season in constant confinement, but as constant security; for these nations are all Troglodytes, and, by the Abyssinians, are called Shangalla. A However Oustas succeeded in attaching to him those of the nobility that partook of his sports, his good fortune in the capital was not equal to it. dangerous conspiracy was already forming at Gondar by those very people who had persuaded him to mount the throne, and whom he had left at home, from a persuasion that they only were to be trusted with the support of his interest and the government in his absence. Upon the first intelligence, the king, with a chosen body of troops, entered Gondar in the night, and surprised the conspirators while actually sitting in council. Ras Hezekias, his prime minister, and Heraclides, master of his household, and five others of the principal confederates, lost their ears and noses, and were thrown into prison, in such circumstances that they could not live. Benaia Basile, one of the principal traitors, and the most obnoxious to the king, escaped for a time, having had already intelligence of Oustas's coming. The king, having quieted every thing at Gondar, being at peace with all his neighbours, and having no other way to amuse his troops, and keep them employed, set out to join the remainder of his young nobility, whom he had left in the Kolla, to attack the Shangalla. The Shangalla were formerly a very numerous people, divided into distinct tribes, or, as it is called, different nations, living each separately in distinct territories, each under the government of the chief of its own name, and each family of that name under the jurisdiction of its own chief, or head. These Shangalla, during the fair half of the year, live under the shade of trees; the lowest branches of which they cut near the stem on the upper part, and then bend, or break them down, planting the ends of the branches in the earth. These branches they cover with the skins of wild beasts. After this they cut away all the small, or superfluous, branches in the inside, and so form a spacious pavilion, which, at a distance, appears like a tent, the tree serving for the pole in the middle of it, and the large top overshadowing it, so as to make a very picturesque appearance. Every tree then is a house, under which live a multitude of black inhabitants until the tropical rains begin. It is then they hunt the elephant, which they kill by many various devices, as they do the rhinoce ros, and the other large animals. Those who reside where water abounds, with the same industry kill the hippopotami, or river horses, which are exceedingly numerous in the pools of the stagnant rivers. Where this flat belt, or country, is broadest, the trees thickest, and the water in the largest pools, there the most powerful nations live, who have often defeated the royal army of Abyssinia, and constantly laid waste, and sometimes nearly conquered, the provinces of Tigre and Sire, the most warlike and most populous part in Abyssinia. The most considerable settlement of this nation is at Amba Tzaada, between the Mareb and Tacazze, but nearer, by one third, to the Mareb, and almost N. W. from Dobarwa. These people, who have a * Written literally in Ethiopic, Shankala; but pronounced Shangalla, with Kaf, as g and Lawi-doubled. E. variety of venison, kill it in the fair months, and hang it up, cut into thongs as thick as a man's thumb, like so many ropes, on the trees around them. The sun dries and hardens it to a consistence almost like leather, or the hardest fish sent from Newfoundland.— This is their provision for the winter months: They first beat it with a wooden mallet, then boil it, after which they roast it upon the embers; and it is hard enough after it has undergone all those operations. The Dobenah, the most powerful of all the Shangalla, who have a species of supremacy, or command, over all the rest of the nations, live altogether upon the elephant, or rhinoceros. In other countries, where there is less water, fewer trees, and more grass, the Shangalla feed chiefly upon more promiscuous kinds of food, as buffaloes, deer, boars, lions, and serpents. These are the nations nearer the Tacazze, Ras el Feel, and the plains of Sire in Abyssinia, the chief of which is called Baasa. And still farther west of the Tacazze, and the valley of Waldubba, is the tribe of these, who live chiefly upon the crocodile, hippopotamus, and other fish and, in the summer, upon locusts, which they boil first, and afterwards keep dry in baskets, most curiously made with split branches of trees, so closely woven together as to contain water almost as well as a wooden vessel. ; This nation borders nearly upon the Abyssinian hunting-ground; but, not venturing to extend themselves in the chase of wild beasts, they are confined to the neighbourhood of the Tacazze, and rivers falling into it, where they fish in safety. The banks of that river are deep, interrupted by steep precipices inaccessible to cavalry, and, from the thickness of the woods, full of thorny trees of innumerable species, almost as impervious to foot. These streams, possessed only by themselves, afford the Baasa the most excellent kinds of fish in the most prodigious plenty. In that part of the Shangalla country more to the eastward, about N. N. E. of Amba Tzaada, in the northern extremities of the woody part, where the river Mareb, leaving Dobarwa, flows through thick bushes till it loses itself in the sands, there is a nation of these blacks, who, being near the country of the Baharnagash, an officer whose province produces a number of horse, dare not, for that reason, venture 'to make an extensive use of the variety of wild beasts, which throng in the woods to the southward, for fear of being intercepted by their enemy, constantly upon the watch for them, part of his tribute being paid in black slaves. These, therefore, confine themselves to the southern part of their territory, near the Barabra. The extraordinary course of this river under the sand, allures to it multitudes of ostriches, which, too, are the food of the Shangalla, as is a beautiful lizard, never, that I know of, yet described. These are the food of the eastern Shangalla; and, I must here observe, that this country and people were much better known to the ancients than to us. The Egyptians traded with them, and caravans of these people were constantly in Alexandria in the reigns of the first Ptolemies. Most of the productions of these parts, and the people themselves, are mentioned in the remarkable procession made by Ptolemy Philadelphus on his accession to the throne of Egypt, as already observed; though a confusion often arises therein by this country being called by the name of India. Ptolemy, the geographer, classes these people exactly enough, and distinguishes them very accurately by their particular food, or dietetique regimen, though he errs, indeed, a little in the particular situation he gives to the different nations. His Rhizophagi, Elephantophagi, Acridophagi, Struthiophagi, and Agriophagi, are all the clans I have just described, existing under the same habits to this day. This soil, called by the Abyssinians, Mazaga, when wet by the tropical rains, and dissolving into mire, forces these savages to seek for winter-quarters. Their tents under the trees being no longer tenable, they retire with their respective foods, all dried in the sun, into caves dug into the heart of the mountains, which are not in this country basaltes, marble, or alabaster, as is all that ridge which runs down into Egypt along the side of the Red Sea, but are of a soft, gritty, sandy stone, easily excavated and formed into different apartments. Into these, made generally in the steepest part of the mountain, do these savages retire to shun the rains, living upon the flesh they have already prepared in the fair weather. I cannot leave off the account of the Shangalla without delivering them again out of their caves, because this return includes the history of an operation never heard of perhaps in Europe, and by which considerable light is thrown upon ancient history. No sooner does the sun pass the zenith, going southward, than the rains instantly cease; and the thick canopy of clouds, which had obscured the sky during their continuance, being removed, the sun appears in a beautiful sky of pale blue, dappled with small thin clouds, which soon after disappear, and leave the heavens of a most beautiful azure. A very few days of intense heat then dries the ground so perfectly, that it gapes in chasms; the grass, struck at the roots by the rays, supports itself no more, but droops, and becomes parched. To clear this away, the Shangalla set fire to it, which runs with incredible violence the whole breadth of Africa, passing under the trees, and |