Many Habashes assembled to see us start. They were tiresome, but quite friendly. I was much struck by the prevalence of eye disease among them; _trachoma_ is very common, and most of the cases which came under my notice were beyond hope of cure. A crowd gathered round me to gaze at my camera, which was an unknown marvel in this land; for Western Abyssinia has seldom been visited by Europeans, and I heard of none who had been in the district since Stecker had passed through it more than twenty years before. Even cigarettes were a novelty. I put one between my lips when I had shut up my camera, and offered another to a young man who was standing close to me. He did not know what it was, and hesitated about taking it. To gratify my curiosity, I pressed it on him, and he held it at arm’s length, and looked at it with wonder and suspicion. But when he saw me light mine and smoke issuing from my mouth, he dropped his cigarette as if it were a live shell with a fuse smouldering in it and ran. Crawley gave a cigarette one day to a Habash, who ate it, paper and all, and said he liked it. We reached the Gumara at half-past two, and pitched our camp beside the ford; it is an unpleasant place, in the line of a frequented highway. During the afternoon we passed the donkeys in review, and picked out the best for Dupuis’s expedition to Debra Tabor. We also made a selection of stores for the journey, which was expected to last five days in all. CHAPTER VIII On the way between our camp and the Gumara River we passed many villages. In one I saw a leper in an advanced stage of the disease. Thereupon I made inquiry, and was told that leprosy is very prevalent throughout Abyssinia. Almost all the maladies that work havoc among the people could be gradually checked by adequate medical control under European administration. On Saturday, January 17, I said good-bye to my two companions, who started for Debra Tabor at nine in the morning. It was the proper course to see Ras Gouksha, and thank him personally for allowing us to travel through his territory, and we desired to obtain from him a letter of introduction and recommendation to Tecla Haimanot, the King of Godjam, whose dominions lie on the other side of the lake. This potentate is named after the most popular, venerated—and apocryphal—saint in the well-filled Abyssinian calendar. I shall refer to his miraculous exploits and experiences in another chapter. They are unequalled by anything to be found in the Golden Legend, and one can only regret that the late “Thomas Ingoldsby” had never heard of him.