Cotton is brought to Aliu Amba, chiefly from the country around Farree, and appears to flourish best at an elevation of between three or four thousand feet above the level of the sea. This is in latitude 10° north. Some small plantations may be found, even so high up the scarp of the Abyssinian table-land as six thousand feet, but these are not productive, and yield very indifferent cotton. The young plants require to be from three to four years old, before they bear available crops of pods. During this time, the cotton nurseries are cultivated with jowarhee, though I should think not upon any sound principle of husbandry, for the ripening of the tall grain must interfere with the full development of the lowly shrub, which is seldom more than three or four feet high. A cotton plantation reminded me very much of the appearance of the vineyard in the south of Europe, although the little snowball-like tufts of the burst pods, sprinkle the dark green foliage with numerous white spots. My last ahmulahs having been expended, I had to send Walderheros to market again with a dollar, whilst I directed my attention, as all other visitors had departed, to the party now busily employed cleaning cotton, for as soon as the supply was brought from the market, Wallata Gabriel and her sisters, had set about preparing it for spinning. Flat stones, something larger than bricks, with a smooth upper surface, were placed upon the ground, my three factory girls kneeling down before them, each with an iron rod in her hands, about twelve inches long, and three quarters of an inch thick in the middle, and tapering to the extremities. This instrument is called a _medamager_; and with it a small quantity of seeded tufts of cotton, being laid upon the near end of the stone, is rolled out; the seeds, by the pressure being forced before the medamager, until they fall over the farther extremity of the stone. By this simple, but very effectual process a large portion of the cotton was soon in a state fit to be farther cleaned from dust and other extraneous matter, and which is the next part of the process it has to be submitted to before it is in a fit condition to be spun into thread.