The second thing I shall observe is, that there is no ground for that prejudice, so common in the writers concerning this country, who say that these people are Nomades, perpetually roving about in tents. If they had ever so little reflected upon it, there is not a country in the world where this is less possible than in Abyssinia, a country abounding with mountains, where every flat piece of ground is, once a-day, during six months rain, cut through by a number of torrents, sweeping cattle, trees, and every thing irresistibly before them; where no field, unless it has some declivity, can be sown, nor even passed over by a traveller, without some danger of being swept away, during the hours of the day when the rain is most violent; in such a country it would be impossible for 30 or 40,000 men to encamp from place to place, and to subsist without some permanent retreat. Accordingly they have towns and villages perched upon the pinnacles of sharp hills and rocks, and which are never thought safe if commanded by any ground above them; in these they remain, as we do in cities, all the rainy season: Nor is there a private person (not a soldier) who hath a tent more than in Britain. In the fair season, the military encamp in all directions cross the country, either to levy taxes, or in search of their enemy; but nothing in this is particular to Abyssinia; in most parts of Africa and Asia they do the same. The third particular to be observed here is, that, in this prince’s reign, the king’s sons were not imprisoned in the mountain. For Saif Araad was present with his father at the defeat of Saleh king of Mara, and yet the mountain of Geshen was then set apart as a prison. For the Itchegué of Debra Libanos was banished there; from which I infer, that after the massacre of the royal family by Judith, on the mountain of Damo, and the flight of the prince Del Naad, to Shoa, the king’s children were not confined, nor yet till long after their restoration and return to Tigré, as will appear in the sequel. Amda Sion died of a natural death at Tegulat in Shoa, after a reign of 30 years, which were but a continued series of victories, no instance being recorded of his having been once defeated. [Illustration] SAIF ARAAD. From 1342 to 1370. _This Prince enjoys a peaceable Reign--Protects the Patriarch of Cophts at Cairo from the Persecution of the Soldan._ Saif Araad succeeded his father Amda Sion; and it should seem that, in his time, all was peaceable on the side of Adel, as nothing is mentioned relative to that war. Indeed, if the increase of trade and power in that corner of Abyssinia arose from the troubles and want of security which the merchants laboured under in Arabia, we cannot but suspect, from a parity of reasoning, that the violent manner in which war had been carried on by Amda Sion, must have occasioned a great many inhabitants to repass the Straits, and return to their own homes.