The angel of Death, brooding over these regions in noisome exhalations, guards the interior of that country from the aggressions of the European, and has hitherto baffled his attempts to form settlements on the banks of this magnificent river. Many portions of North Guinea are so fertile that they might vie with the valley of the Nile in cereal riches, besides various other productions; and though the temperature is very high, the climate is not very unhealthy. No European has yet seen the high mountains of Komri, generally known as the Mountains of the Moon, which are said to cross the continent along the northern edge of the great plateau, between the two projections or promontories of Abyssinia and Senegambia. This chain divides the semi-civilized states of Soudan, Bornou, and Begharmi from the barbarous nations on the table-land. It extends south of Abyssinia at one end, at the other it joins the high land of Senegambia, and is continued in the Kong range, which runs 1200 miles behind Dahomy and the Gold Coast, and ends in the promontory of Sierra Leone. The vast alpine promontory of Abyssinia or Ethiopia, 700 miles wide, projects from the table-land for 300 miles into the low lands of North Africa. It dips to a low swampy region on the north, to the plains of Senaar and Kordofan on the west, and on the east sinks abruptly to the coast at a short distance from the Red Sea. It is there from 800 to 900 feet high, but declines to the westward, so that in the 15th parallel of N. latitude the eastern slope of the table-land towards the Red Sea is nearly twenty times greater than the counter-slope towards the Nile; the edge of the latter, however, is from 3000 to 4000 feet above the plains.[38] The character of Abyssinia is in that respect like the Deccan, or Southern India, where the Ghauts rise abruptly near the coast of Malabar, and the surface falls gradually towards that of Coromandel. The table-land of Abyssinia is a succession of undulating plains, broken by higher insulated mountain-masses, which in Samien, Godjam, and in Kaffa more to the south, attain an absolute altitude of from 11,000 to 15,000 feet. The plains are intersected by numerous streams which form the Nile and its tributaries on the one hand, and the Hawásh and its affluents, which flow into the Indian Ocean, on the other. The edge of the table-land towards the Nile is steep; the streams run to the low lands through valleys from 3000 to 4000 feet deep, so that a traveller in ascending them might imagine that he is crossing a mountain-range, whereas, on coming to the top, he finds himself on a high plain. This elevated country has lakes, swamps, verdant meadows, and cultivated land, producing various grains, and occasionally coffee. The plain of the Dembia, the granary of the country, enjoys perpetual spring. Dr. Beke, to whom we are indebted for so much valuable information with regard to this part of Africa, travelled to within less than ten degrees