The people here are not black, but of a dark complexion bordering very much upon yellow. They have their head bare; their feet covered with sandals; a goat’s skin upon their shoulders; a cotton cloth about their middle; their hair short and curled like that of a negroe’s in the west part of Africa; but this is done by art, not by nature, each man having a wooden stick with which he lays hold of the lock and twists it round a screw, till it curls in the form he desires[4]. The men carry in their hands two lances and a large shield of bull’s hide. A crooked knife, the blade in the lower part about three inches broad, but diminishing to a point about sixteen inches long, is stuck at their right side, in a girdle of coarse cotton cloth, with which their middle is swathed, going round them six times. All sorts of cattle are here in great plenty; cows and bulls of exquisite beauty, especially the former; they are, for the most part, completely white, with large dewlaps hanging down to their knees; their heads, horns, and hoofs perfectly well-turned; the horns wide like our Lincolnshire kine; and their hair like silk. Their sheep are large, and all black. I never saw one of any other colour in the province of Tigré. Their heads are large; their ears remarkably short and small; instead of the wool they have hair, as all the sheep within the tropics have, but this is remarkable for its lustre and softness, without any bristly quality, such as those in Beja, or the country of Sennaar; but they are neither so fat, nor is their flesh so good, as that of the sheep in the warmer country. The goats here, too, are of the largest size; but they are not very rough, nor is their hair long. The plain on the top of the mountain Taranta was, in many places, sown with wheat, which was then ready to be cut down, though the harvest was not yet begun. The grain was clean, and of a good colour, but inferior in size to that of Egypt. It did not, however, grow thick, nor was the stalk above fourteen inches high. The water is very bad on the top of Taranta, being only what remains of the rain in the hollows of the rocks, and in pits prepared for it. Being very tired, we pitched our tent on the top of the mountain. The night was remarkably cold, at least appeared so to us, whose pores were opened by the excessive heat of Masuah; for at mid-day the thermometer stood 61°, and at six in the evening 59°; the barometer, at the same time, 18½ inches French. The dew began to fall strongly, and so continued till an hour after sun-set, though the sky was perfectly clear, and the smallest stars discernible.