On the 24th, at seven o’clock in the morning, we struck our tent at Siré, and passed through a vast plain. All this day we could discern no mountains, as far as eye could reach, but only some few detached hills, standing separate on the plain, covered with high grass, which they were then burning, to produce new with the first rains. The country to the north is altogether flat, and perfectly open; and though we could not discover one village this day, yet it seemed to be well-inhabited, from the many people we saw on different parts of the plain, some at harvest, and some herding their cattle. The villages were probably concealed from us on the other side of the hills. At four o’clock, we alighted at Maisbinni at the bottom of a high, steep, bare cliff of red marble, bordering on purple, and very hard. Behind this is the small village of Maisbinni; and, on the south, another still higher hill, whose top runs in an even ridge like a wall. At the bottom of this cliff, where our tent was pitched, the small rivulet Maisbinni rises, which, gentle and quiet as it then was, runs very violently in winter, first north from its source, and then winding to S. W. it falls in several cataracts, near a hundred feet high, into a narrow valley, through which it makes its way into the Tacazzé. Maisbinni, for wild and rude beauties, may compare with any place we had ever seen. This day was the first cloudy one we had met with, or observed this year. The sun was covered for several hours, which announced our being near the large river Tacazzè. On the 25th, at seven in the morning, leaving Maisbinni, we continued on our road, shaded with trees of many different kinds. At half an hour after eight we passed the river, which at this place runs west; our road this day was thro’ the same plain as yesterday, but broken and full of holes. At ten o’clock we rested in a large plain called Dagashaha; a hill in form of a cone stood single about two miles north from us; a thin straggling wood was to the S. E.; and the water, rising in spungy, boggy, and dirty ground, was very indifferent; it lay to the west of us. Dagashaha is a bleak and disagreeable quarter; but the mountain itself, being seen far off, was of great use to us in adjusting our bearings; the rather that, taking our departure from Dagashaha, we came immediately in sight of the high mountain of Samen, where Lamalmon, one of that ridge, is by much the most conspicuous; and over this lies the passage, or high road, to Gondar. We likewise see the rugged, hilly country of Salent, adjoining to the foot of the mountains of Samen. We observed no villages this day from Maisbinni to Dagashaha; nor did we discern, in the face of the country, any signs of culture or marks of great population. We were, indeed, upon the frontiers of two provinces which had for many years been at war.