Abyssinia has been Christian ever since the fourth century, but the missionaries are not happy about the country at all. Here nothing impedes the entrance of the missionary as an individual, but the people will not have him as an evangelist at any price. The "fanatical and debased" priests of the Abyssinian Church and the drastic punishments inflicted by the local authorities on those suspected of favouring other forms of Christianity are described as grave hindrances. There is a large population of "black Jews," who will have no dealings with Christianity in any form. Meanwhile Islam gains ground steadily, especially in the south along the trade routes. A German missionary, writing from Strasburg in 1910, describes the situation as alarming, because "whole tribes of Abyssinians who still bear Christian names have become Muhammedans in the last twenty years." There is one Protestant mission up at Addis Abeba, but it confines its attentions to the semi-pagan Gallas, having given up Christian Abyssinia as a bad job. Somaliland is a poor field for missionary enterprise, owing to the sparse, semi-nomadic population and the difficulties of getting about. In the French sphere there is connection by rail between Jibuti on the coast and Dera Dowa near the Abyssinian border; travelling musicians of the _café chantant_ type used to use it a good deal before the War, but there was not much doing in the missionary line. Italian Somaliland, east of the British sphere to Cape Guardafui, is left to look after itself, except for the occasional visit of an Italian man-of-war; but south of that great headland there are Italian settlements.