The
Extreme End Of The Short Harpoon Is Fixed In The Point Of A
Bamboo About Ten Feet Long, Around Which The Rope Is Twisted,
While The Buoy End Is Carried In The Left Hand.
The old Abou Do being resolved upon work, had divested himself of
his tope or toga before starting, according
To the general custom
of the aggageers, who usually wear a simple piece of leather
wound round the loins when hunting, but, I believe in respect for
our party, they had provided themselves with a garment resembling
bathing drawers, such as are worn in France, Germany, and other
civilized countries; but the old Abou Do, like the English, had
resisted any such innovation, and he accordingly appeared with
nothing on but his harpoon; and a more superb old Neptune I never
beheld. He carried this weapon in his hand, as the trident with
which the old sea-god ruled the monsters of the deep; and as the
tall Arab patriarch of threescore years and ten, with his long
grey locks flowing over his brawny shoulders, stepped as lightly
as a goat from rock to rock along the rough margin of the river,
I followed him in admiration.
The country was very beautiful; we were within twenty miles of
lofty mountains, while at a distance of about thirty-five or
forty miles were the high peaks of the Abyssinian Alps. The
entire land was richly wooded, although open, and adapted for
hunting upon horseback. Through this wild and lovely country the
river Settite flowed in an ever-changing course. At times the bed
was several hundred yards wide, with the stream, contracted at
this season, flowing gently over rounded pebbles; the water was
as clear as glass; in other places huge masses of rock impeded
the flow of water, and caused dangerous rapids; then, as the
river passed through a range of hills, perpendicular cliffs of
sandstone and of basalt walled it within a narrow channel,
through which it rushed with great impetuosity; issuing from
these straits it calmed its fury in a deep and broad pool, from
which it again commenced a gentle course over sands and pebbles.
At that season the river would have been perfection for salmon,
being a series of rapids, shallows, deep and rocky gorges, and
quiet silent pools of unknown depth; in the latter places of
security the hippopotami retreated after their nocturnal rambles
upon terra firma. The banks of this beautiful river were
generally thickly clothed with bright green nabbuk trees, that
formed a shelter for INNUMERABLE guinea-fowl, and the black
francolin partridge. Herds of antelopes of many varieties were
forced to the river to drink, as the only water within many miles;
but these never remained long among the thick nabbuk, as the lions
and leopards inhabited that covert expressly to spring upon the
unwary animal whose thirst prompted a too heedless advance.
Wherever there was a sand bank in the river, a crocodile basked
in the morning sunshine:
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