"As if by the touch of the magician's wand, the scene now passes, in an instant, from parched wastes to the geen, and lovely islands of Abyssinia, presenting one scene of rich and thriving cultivation. The baggage having at length been consigned to the shoulders of six hundred grumbling Moslem porters--for here the camel, from the steepness of the hills, was useless--and forming a line, which extended upwards of a mile, the embassy, on the morning of the 17th, comnenced the ascent of the Abyssinian Alps; the flutes again played, the wild warriors of the escort again chanted their songs. It was a cool and lovely morning, and an invigorating breeze played over the mountains' side, on which, now less than ten degrees from the equator, flourished the vegetation of northern climes. The rough and stony road wound on, by a steep ascent, over hill and dale, now skirting some precipitous ascent, now dipping into the basin of some verdant hollow, where it suddenly emerged into a succession of shady lanes, bounded by flowering hedgerows." All this is so like England, and so unlike Africa, that we should suspect the major's memory to have been as active at least as his observation. But the work contains so much internal evidence of accuracy, independently of the confidence attached to the character of the intelligent writer himself, that we must believe the heart of Ethiopa to possess secnes that would be worthy of the heart of our own fresh and flower-bearing island. The scene which follows is quite Arcadian. "The wild rose, the fern, the lantana, and the honeysuckle, smiled round a succession of highly cultivated terraces, and on every eminence, stood a cluster of conically thatched houses, environed by green hedges, and partially embowered amid dark trees As the troop passed on, the peasant abandoned his occupation to gaze at the novel procession; while merry groups of hooded women, decked in scarlet and crimson left their avocations in the hut to welcome the king's guests with a shrill _ziroleet_, which ran from every hand. Birds warbled among the groves. At various turns of the road the prospect was rugged, wild, and beautiful. The first Christian village was soon revealed on the summit of a height. Three principal ranges of hills were next crossed in succession. Lastly, the view opened upon the wooded site of Ankober occupying a central position in a horseshoe crescent of mountains, still high above which enclose a magnificent amphitheatre of ten miles in diameter. This is clothed throughout with a splendid vigorous, and varied vegetation."