As well from the steepness of the rugged mountains of Abyssinia, which towered overhead, as from the pinching climate of their wintry summits, the camel becomes useless as a beast of burthen; and none being ever taken beyond the frontier, many of the Wulasma's retinue now gazed at the ungainly quadrupeds for the first time. The "ship of the desert" has been created for the especial benefit of sultry, arid, and waterless plains, such as those now crossed, where no other domesticated animal could long exist, but where, even under the most scorching radiation of heat, when the skin peels from the parched lips of the pilgrim, and the horizon beams as with the fires of an hundred volcanoes, the soft lustrous eye of the patient dromedary loses not a jot of its wonted brilliancy. But numbers had been dreadfully wrung during the tedious march, those especially which carried tent-poles and other unmanageable burdens; and amongst others, two of the finest had sung under the weight of the galloper-gun. No sooner was the load now removed, than a swarm of parasitic birds, with brilliant golden eyes, here for the first time seen, swarmed around the galled part, and having dived into the gaping wounds, without causing perceptible annoyance to the sufferer, became so engrossed in the removal of ticks and maggots with their crimson bills, that several were made prisoner with the hand. Boxes and bales as they arrived were deposited within a stone enclosure in the centre of the area; and the bloated Wulasma, again seated in regal dignity beneath an ancient acacia, which threw its slender shade over the heterogeneous pile, placing Ayto Wolda Hana upon his right hand, with the aid of the royal scribes and their ink-horns commenced an inventory _de novo_. Vigorous attempts to force open the cases were once more resisted, with complete success. Earnest expostulations tried in turn by the Moslem and the Christian, were alike unheeded; and amid noise, clamour, and confusion, such as could ill be described, the inquisitive functionaries were fain, as before, to content themselves with a list of packages in the gross. Rough conjectural estimates of the number of muskets contained in each matted roll were however clandestinely formed, by dint of squeezing and pinching; and these too were committed to writing, as though fears were entertained lest the king might now, in his own dominions, be defrauded of a portion of the investment transported in safety thither from a distant land.