The Highlands of EthiopiaHarris, William Cornwallis, Sir
History
The Highlands of Ethiopia
Harris, William Cornwallis, Sir
Ethiopia -- Description and travel
An excellent zig-zagged road, imperfectly paved, and raised in parts to
the height of twenty feet, extends from the base to the summit of Jebel
Shemshan, and, with some few of the disjointed watch-towers, has defied
the ravages of centuries. Three enormous pieces of brass ordnance,
pierced for a sixty-eight pound shot, and covered with Turkish
inscriptions, were the chief symbols of the former strength of this
eastern Gibraltar. These were transmitted to England, when their
capture, shortly after the present accession, avenged an insult offered
to her flag, and wreathed the first laurels around the brow of her
youthful Queen.
In general aspect the Cape is not dissimilar from the volcanic islands
in the Grecian Archipelago, and viewed from a distance it appears
separated altogether from the mainland. The long dead flat of sand by
which it is connected with the Arabian continent, rising on either beach
scarcely two feet above high water mark, induces the belief that the
promontory must on its first production in early ages have been
insulated. According to the evidence of the present generation the sea
is still receding, and the sand steadily accumulating, but the noble
western bay will not be affected for many centuries. Though the glory
of Aden may have fled, and her commerce become totally annihilated, her
ports will long remain as nature formed them, excellent, capacious, and
secure.
Important commercial advantages cannot fail to accrue from the
occupation of so secure an entrepot, which at any season of the year may
be entered and quitted with equal facility. The readiest access is
afforded to the rich provinces of Hadramaut and Yemen, famous for their
coffee, their frankincense, and the variety of their gums, and abounding
in honey and wax, of a quality which may vie with the produce of the
hives of the Mediterranean. A lucrative market to the manufactures of
India and Great Britain is also extended by the facilities attending
communication with the African coast, south of Bab el Mandeb, where the
high mountain ranges bordering upon the shore are clothed with trees
producing myrrh, frankincense, and precious gums, whilst the valleys in
the interior pour forth for export, sheep, ghee, drugs, dry hides, gold
dust, civet, ivory, rhinoceros horns, peltries, and ostrich feathers,
besides coffee of the choicest growth. A wide field is open for
mercantile speculation, and it is not a little pleasant to contemplate
the approaching improvement of Christian Abyssinia, and the civilisation
of portions of Africa even more benighted and remote, through the medium
of intercourse with British Arabia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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