On the 4th of February, at half past nine in the morning, we left Addergey: hunger pressing us, we were prepared to do it earlier, and for this we had been up since five in the morning; but our loss of a mule obliged us, when we packed up our tent, to arrange our baggage differently. While employed at making ready for our departure, which was just in the dawn of day, a hyæna, unseen by any of us, fastened upon one of Yasine’s asses, and had almost pulled his tail away. I was busied at gathering the tent-pins into a sack, and had placed my musket and bayonet ready against a tree, as it is at that hour, and the close of the evening, you are always to be on guard against banditti. A boy, who was servant to Yasine, saw the hyæna first, and flew to my musket. Yasine was disjoining the poles of the tent, and, having one half of the largest in his hand, he ran to the assistance of his ass, and in that moment the musket went off, luckily charged with only one ball, which gave Yasine a flesh wound between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. The boy instantly threw down the musket, which had terrified the hyæna and made him let go the ass; but he stood ready to fight Yasine, who, not amusing himself with the choice of weapons, gave him so rude a blow with the tent-pole upon his head, that it felled him to the ground; others, with pikes, put an end to his life. We were then obliged to turn our cares towards the wounded. Yasine’s wound was soon seen to be a trifle; besides, he was a man not easily alarmed on such occasions. But the poor ass was not so easily comforted. The stump remained, the tail hanging by a piece of it, which we were obliged to cut off. The next operation was actual cautery; but, as we had made no bread for breakfast, our fire had been early out. We, therefore, were obliged to tie the stump round with whip-cord, till we could get fire enough to heat an iron. What sufficiently marked the voracity of these beasts, the hyænas, was, that the bodies of their dead companions, which we hauled a long way from us, and left there, were almost entirely eaten by the survivors the next morning; and I then observed, for the first time, that the hyæna of this country was a different species from those I had seen in Europe, which had been brought from Asia or America. CHAP. VII. _Journey over Lamalmon to Gondar._