Presently our convoy, which in extended order covered nearly a mile and a half, debouched upon the valley of the river Geerar.[34] The bed, which is of bare rock, was dry when we passed through it. I saw here many basins neatly excavated in a curious fashion. They varied in size, but at the bottom of each was a stone. Evidently, this had first been lodged during the time of flood in some small hollow in the water-course. There, being constantly driven round by the eddying water, it had worn a deeper and deeper hole, at the bottom of which it rested in the dry season. We followed the course of the river up stream for about five miles. The valleys on either side are sharply cut ravines in the mountain-sides. They were covered with grass at that period of the year. We lunched in the shade of the river bank, and afterwards visited some hot springs which were near at hand. The first was a runnel of clear water guided from its source in the rock to a pool by a wooden gutter. I put my hand under this, and judged that the temperature was well over 150° F. At a little distance we found another spring which, welling from the ground, filled a basin about forty feet in circumference and one foot deep. Here, too, the temperature of the water was high, but not so high as to prevent bathing, and a roof of thatch had been built over the pool. We saw several Habashes, men, women, and children, who inhabited some rough, small thatched huts which had been put up close by. Some were old dwellings, some newly constructed. I could not ascertain whether these people resorted to the springs for a “cure” or merely formed a settlement established by keepers in charge of the place. Apparently all belonged to one family. I visited their camping-ground, but when I approached the women and children bolted into one of the huts. Perhaps they had not seen a European before and did not consider the first example prepossessing; or they may still have supposed—as most Abyssinians at one time did—that all persons who came from that continent were Turks. In the latter case I excuse their timidity. They watched me through the thatched walls of the hovel just as a rat sometimes watches a suspect from the entrance of its hole. The water, as far as I could judge, was pure. It was tasteless, and very “soft,” as I found by using it in my bath. No steam was visible at the springs, though before I left them—about four in the afternoon—the air was becoming cool. Some large trees grew near the pool, and I saw a big and fine monkey with a shaggy face and a growth of fluffy white hair on its tail leaping and squatting among the boughs. There are many hot springs in Abyssinia, and they are highly valued by the natives for the medicinal qualities attributed to them. Probably in some places the virtue of the waters is real, in others merely reputed.