At Kedaref We Were Lucky Enough To Arrive On A Market-Day, Consequently Had No Difficulty In Exchanging Camels.

That very evening we were en route again, still towards the south, but this time making almost an angle with our former route, marching towards the rising sun.

Between Sabderat and Kassala, between that town and the Gash, we had for the first time seen some cultivation; but it was nothing compared to the immense vista of cultivated fields, beginning a day's journey from Sheik Abu Sin, and extending, almost without interruption, throughout the provinces of Kedaref and Galabat. Villages appeared in all directions, crowning every rounded hillock. As we advanced, these eminences increased in size until they gave place to hills and mountains, which ultimately blend with the uninterrupted chain of high peaks forming the Abyssinian table-land, now again, after so many days, rising before us.

We arrived at Metemma on the afternoon of the 21st of November. In the absence of Sheik Jumma, the potentate of these regions, we were received by his alter ego, who put one of the Imperial residences - a wretched barn - at the disposal of the "great men from England." If we deduct the seven days we were obliged to halt en route, on account of the difficulty we had in obtaining camels, we performed the whole journey between Massowah and Metemma, a distance of about 440 miles, in thirty days. Our journey on the whole was extremely dreary and fatiguing. Apart from a few pretty spots, such as from Ain to Haboob, the valleys of the Anseba and Atbara, and from Kedaref to Galabat, we crossed only endless savannahs, saw not a human being, not a hut, only now and then a few antelopes, or the tracks of elephants, and heard no sound but the roar of wild beasts.

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