At half-past twelve o’clock, the end of the island; we sail S.S.E., and then S. by W. On the right shore a large durra-field, apparently the second crop on the very same stalks. The natives there, according to the custom of this country, have little stools to sit on, and a small gourd drinking-cup by their side. As before, part of them are unarmed, and have merely a long stick, with forks or horns at the top, in their hands. The covering of the head is various. Several have differently formed little wicker baskets on their heads, as a protection against the sun. They wear strings of the teeth of dogs or apes on various parts of the body, but mostly on the neck, as an ornament or talisman. They have bracelets, the points of which being covered with bits of fur, are curved outwards like little horns. Our envoy Alumbèh imitated all the motions and the voice of an ox, in order to make us understand the meaning of these bracelets. These, as well as the forks on their houses and sticks, appear to denote in some way a kind of symbolic veneration for the bull, whose horns I had previously seen adorned with animals’ tails; for the bull is bold, and the support of the family among the herds. One o’clock. A number of negroes are squatting on the island at the left, or rather are sitting on their stools, and wondering at us sailing so merrily to S.S.W. I count eleven villages; but I do not trust myself on deck, for we have 30° Reaumur. About evening the whole scene will appear more surprising and pleasing to me; for even my servants, looking in exultingly at the window, praise the beauty of the country. On all sides, therefore, plenty of mountains, stones, and rocks; the great buildings in the interior of Africa are no longer a fable to me! If the nation of Bari has had internal strength enough to pursue the road of cultivation for thousands of years, what has prevented it not only from rising from its natural state, but also from appropriating to itself the higher European cultivation? It has a stream, navigable, and bringing fertility, full of eatable animals; a magnificent land affording it everything: it has to sustain war with the gigantic monsters of the land and water, and to combat with its own kind; it possesses the best of all metals, iron, from which it understands how to form very handsome weapons sought for far and near; it knows how to cultivate its fields; and I saw several times how the young tobacco plants were moistened with water, and protected from the sun by a roof of shrubs. The men of nature it contains are tall, and enjoying all bodily advantages; yet—it has only arrived at this grade of cultivation. If the perfectibility of nature be so confined, this truly susceptible people only requires an external intellectual impetus to regenerate the mythic fame of the Ethiopians.