Although it was so early when we reached the church of Abbo, Walderheros proposed breakfasting. I accordingly dismounted, and after a gaze upwards at the largest tree I had seen since I left England, took my seat beneath its widely-extended branches, upon one of a number of small boulders which had rolled from the rocks above. A quantity of long strips of grilled mutton, was produced, and some teff bread, a large manuscript-like roll of which Walderheros carried tied up in his mekanet or girdle. This useful part of an Abyssinian dress is only worn by the men when engaged out of doors. It is one long piece of cotton cloth, about one cubit, or from the point of the elbow to the ends of the fingers, broad, and fifteen, twenty, or sometimes even thirty cubits long. A girdle similar to this was worn by the Jews. Sometimes in Abyssinia it is taken from the loins of a prisoner to secure his hands, exactly as it is said to have been done in Judea. After breakfast we proceeded along the base of the large hill upon which Ankobar stands, the road winding around its south and west aspects. We then fell into the usual high road on the west of the town, which proceeds along the steep face of the valley, midway between its crest and the level of the stream below. We crossed, by gentle undulations of the road, several short projecting spurs, all of which seemed to be the productive farms of industrious individuals. Thatched residences of mud and sticks, with yellow stacks of grain, were perched upon their extremities, overlooking the sudden cliff-like termination of these subordinate ridges, cut by the action of the constantly running water of the Airahra. Fording this river, we commenced the fatiguing ascent of the Tchakkah, and after little less than an hour’s trot were breathing ourselves at the “resting stone,” Koom Dingi. After a short halt, we continued our journey over the moor-like solitary fields that, unbroken by hedge, stone fence, or ditch, appeared in endless succession before us. But the reader must understand that, although the general appearance of the country is so flat, he is only reminded of it by the long level lines that bound the view on each side, for, generally speaking, the road lies in broad shallow water-worn channels, which, like hollow ways with banks ten or twelve feet high, have intersected in all directions this formerly undeviating level country. I always fancied that at one time it must have been the bottom of a deeply rolling sea, and what adds considerably to this impression is, the almost total absence of trees, and the bald, gray, stony, appearance of the stratum of light coloured porphyritic trachyte which overlies the whole country, and which looks as if it had only been raised from the waters a short time before. This super stratum of rock is very easily decomposed, and forms a fertile soil for the cultivation of wheat and barley, but its general appearance, unless covered with the crops, is quite the reverse.