He Was Knocked Down By One Of Our Soldiers,
Who Had Cut His Throat But That The Fathers Prevented It:
He then
restored the cords, and was more tractable ever after.
In all my
dealings with the Moors, I have always discovered in them an ill-
natured cowardice, which makes them insupportably insolent if you
show them the least respect, and easily reduced to reasonable terms
when you treat them with a high hand.
After a march of some days we came to an opening between the
mountains, the only passage out of Dancali into Abyssinia. Heaven
seems to have made this place on purpose for the repose of weary
travellers, who here exchange the tortures of parching thirst,
burning sands, and a sultry climate, for the pleasures of shady
trees, the refreshment of a clear stream, and the luxury of a
cooling breeze. We arrived at this happy place about noon, and the
next day at evening left those fanning winds, and woods flourishing
with unfading verdure, for the dismal barrenness of the vast
uninhabitable plains, from which Abyssinia is supplied with salt.
These plains are surrounded with high mountains, continually covered
with thick clouds which the sun draws from the lakes that are here,
from which the water runs down into the plain, and is there
congealed into salt. Nothing can be more curious than to see the
channels and aqueducts that nature has formed in this hard rock, so
exact and of such admirable contrivance, that they seem to be the
work of men.
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