Before starting on any war expedition, the Abyssinians, like the ancient Romans, listen for the voice of certain birds, and according to whether their notes are heard on the right hand or on the left, so do they anticipate a prosperous or unfavourable journey. Many expeditions for the purposes of war or hunting are postponed at the moment, when, if undertaken, success seemed nearly certain, simply because a little bird called from the left-hand side at starting. Similarly, many a wife has been kept for several days anxiously expecting her husband because the bird chose to perch on the right hand, the right hand omen being propitious for setting out from home, and left for returning. The black and white falcon, called here _gaddy-gaddy_, is considered a bird of omen in some parts of Tigre. If this bird fly away at the approach of travellers, the sign is unfavourable, while on the contrary, if it remained perched and looking at them, they count upon a most prosperous journey. “Hunters on the Mareb,” says a recent traveller, “follow much the warning of a small bird as to the direction they should take, and I have known parties turn back from pursuing the fresh trail of a herd of buffaloes and take an opposite direction, merely because its chirp was heard on the wrong side. Once a party of about thirty Barea having been reported to be in the neighbourhood, a large force collected, perhaps a hundred and fifty men; but after arriving in sight of the enemy, the gallant army returned peaceably home, and considered such a course not only justifiable, but right, because when halting to reconnoitre, the omen had been heard on the side favourable to their adversaries. On another occasion I had started on a hunting and foraging expedition, with some fifteen tried and picked men. We had remained a fortnight in the frontier woods, and had seen nothing of the Barea; one day, however, a bird gave us an omen of success, and the night following we discovered their fires on a hill, scarce a mile distant from where we lay. Our party was in a moment on the _qui vive_, primings were looked to, edges of knives felt, and rubbed on a stone, and each one anticipated the glory he was to gain for himself in butchering a few of the enemy. Some were even so much excited that they began to strut about and count their deeds of valour in expectancy of what they would have to do on their return home, and to use a Yankee expression the whole felt themselves “half froze for hair,” or rather for the still more cruel trophies which Abyssinians take from their slaughtered enemies, But a night bird’s voice settled the whole business, and instead of waiting as had been our intention for a few hours before sunrise to strike the _coup_, we all sneaked off homeward like so many whipped dogs, for the vain-glory of the warriors had oozed out of their finger ends at this intimation of the beaked augur, that they would be safest in the bosoms of their family circles. In advancing,