consciousness of having deserved it, but more frequently from their ignorance of the fact, that the peculiarity of their situation, and the character of their system in consequence, predisposes them to an extensive ulceration, should the continuity of the skin be separated by the slightest bruise. The ill effects which arise from this, the unfortunate sufferers, unable to account for it in any other manner, refer to a complaint, whose best known symptoms are of a similar character; and without any idea of disgrace attaching to them for what has arisen most innocently, they jump to the conclusion that they have become contaminated by an unfortunate contact with some affected individual. This is one reason, also, of the very various remedies popularly employed; for many of the cases, as I have observed, not having the least taint of syphilis, when a rapid recovery takes place by the use of any simple cathartic, a reputation is immediately gained for it, as being a certain cure for the presumed obstinate disease for which it has been taken, and which it has so readily subdued. Many vegetables in this manner are considered to be most efficacious in this disease, without the least claim to it, farther, than being gentle aperients and generally, in consequence, having a beneficial influence upon the human frame. On many such mistaken cases, the effect of blue pill was most wonderful, and it was a general observation with the medical officers of the Embassy, the remarkable efficiency of this remedy upon the Abyssinian human system, when, if its cause had been examined into, it would have been found that its simple alterative effects, producing a healthy reaction, was all that was required to establish a healing process very rapidly in the numerous cases of common ulcers, that were prescribed for under the impression that they proceeded from one sole cause: that a universal syphilitic taint characterized the whole population of Shoa. The Abyssinians, immoral as they appear to be, are much more simple than depraved. It is the virtuous confidence of people afflicted with the _reputed_ complaint, conscious of having no improper cause to attribute it to, and still, in their ignorance, believing it to be syphilis, which has given support to the general opinion among them of its extremely contagious character, and which has occasioned that apparent shamelessness with which this disreputable and distressing disease is spoken of by all classes and conditions.