After this, the skin which covered the wounded part was drawn together, and fastened by small skewers or pins. A cataplasm of clay was then placed over all, and the poor beast, having been forced to rise, was driven on as before. This mode of cutting beefsteaks from a living animal is no doubt extraordinary, but I can see nothing in it that should render it incredible, particularly to persons who make no difficulty in believing that men eat each other, or fasten their own bodies on swings, by hooks driven into the muscles of their backs, and thus suspended, whirl round in indescribable agony for the amusement of the bystanders. Yet this is indubitably done every day in Hindostan. The scorn with which Bruce met the incredulity of his critics was natural and just. But the skepticism of the public has now ceased. In fact, to avow it would be to plead guilty of a degree of ignorance of which few persons in the present day would care to be suspected. Proceeding on his journey, Bruce learned at Siré that Ras Michael had defeated the rebel Fasil, who had long made head against the royal troops, with the loss of ten thousand men; and this intelligence struck terror into the numerous disaffected persons who were found throughout the country. On the 26th they crossed the Tacazzè, one of the pleasantest rivers in the world, shaded with fine lofty trees, its banks covered with bushes, inferior in fragrance to no garden in the universe; its waters limpid, excellent, and full of fish, while the coverts on its banks abound with game. It was about two hundred yards broad, and about three feet deep; and in the middle of the ford they met a deserter from Ras Michael’s army, with his firelock on his shoulder, driving before him two miserable girls about ten years old, stark naked, and almost famished to death, the part of the booty which had fallen to his share after the battle. From this wretch, however, they could gain no intelligence. The country through which they now passed was covered with ruined villages, “the marks,” says Bruce, “of Michael’s cruelty or justice, for perhaps the inhabitants had deserved the chastisement they had met with.” The scenery on all sides was now highly picturesque and beautiful. At Addergey, where they encamped near the small river Mai-Lumi, or the “River of Limes,” in a small plain, they were surrounded by a thick wood in form of an amphitheatre, behind which arose a sweep of bare, rugged, and barren mountains. Midway in the cliff was a miserable village, which seemed rather to hang than to stand there, scarcely a yard of level ground being between it and the edge of the precipice. The wood was full of lemons and wild citrons, from which circumstance it derived its name. Before them, towards the west, the plain terminated in a tremendous precipice.