I do not think there is any one that hath hitherto written of this animal who ever saw the thousandth part of them that I have. They were a plague in Abyssinia in every situation, both in the city and in the field, and I think surpassed the sheep in number. Gondar was full of them from the time it turned dark till the dawn of day, seeking the different pieces of slaughtered carcases which this cruel and unclean people expose in the streets without burial, and who firmly believe that these animals are Falasha from the neighbouring mountains, transformed by magic, and come down to eat human flesh in the dark in safety. Many a time in the night, when the king had kept me late in the palace, and it was not my duty to lie there, in going across the square from the king’s house, not many hundred yards distant, I have been apprehensive they would bite me in the leg. They grunted in great numbers about me, though I was surrounded with several armed men, who seldom passed a night without wounding or slaughtering some of them. One night in Maitsha, being very intent on observation, I heard something pass behind me towards the bed, but upon looking round could perceive nothing. Having finished what I was then about, I went out of my tent, resolving directly to return, which I immediately did, when I perceived large blue eyes glaring at me in the dark. I called upon my servant with a light, and there was the hyæna standing nigh the head of the bed, with two or three large bunches of candles in his mouth. To have fired at him I was in danger of breaking my quadrant or other furniture, and he seemed, by keeping the candles steadily in his mouth, to wish for no other prey at that time. As his mouth was full, and he had no claws to tear with, I was not afraid of him, but with a pike struck him as near the heart as I could judge. It was not till then he shewed any sign of fierceness; but, upon feeling his wound, he let drop the candles, and endeavoured to run up the shaft of the spear to arrive at me, so that, in self defence, I was obliged to draw out a pistol from my girdle and shoot him, and nearly at the same time my servant cleft his skull with a battle-ax. In a word, the hyæna was the plague of our lives, the terror of our night-walks, the destruction of our mules and asses, which above all others are his favourite food. Many instances of this the reader will meet with throughout my Travels.