“Up to this point (the Lega-Gala country) we had been traversing a land which had to a certain extent been explored by Schuver, and his work had, on the whole, been found to be very accurate in detail, though in the southern portions of his map a considerable error in latitude had appeared.... Schuver was much liked and respected throughout the country, and a great impression had been produced by his dog, which must have been a big Newfoundland. (He is still always spoken of by the Galas as Abu Sari, ‘the Father of the Dog.’)” [Illustration: BERTA NEGROES.] On the middle of the Blue Nile, north of the country of Fazokl, the aboriginal inhabitants are purely Negro--Berta and Barun. These Negro races were probably first mentioned by Cailliaud, the French explorer, and Ferdinand Werne, the German, who travelled on the Blue Nile between 1829 and 1843. Major Gwynn describes them as “a very black race, large, well made, but slothful and stupid to a degree. Going up to their villages in the hills, one finds them stretched out, sunning themselves on the rocks, looking for all the world like great black snails. Funny little black pigs and stringy fowls share the huts on equal terms.” An interesting journey was made by Mr. Oscar T. Crosby across southern Abyssinia and down the Blue Nile in 1900. In an article by Mr. Crosby in the “Geographical Journal” of July, 1900, an interesting description is given of the deep gorge of the Blue Nile in the Gomar country of Gojam. The level of the river at this point is 4,725 feet above sea-level. The edge of the plateau above the river is 9,650 feet, and this plateau descends nearly five thousand feet in a series of abrupt steps or “benches.”