As I had a very natural desire to see French Somali Land, I went over in a day's sail in a native boat from Zeila to Jibuti. This seaport is not more than ten years old, has about eight thousand inhabitants, loyal natives, and is already rather neatly built-a low-roofed, white, tropical French town with a good harbor. Ships of the M. M. line stop about twice a month, and, more than all, as to its future importance, it is the starting point of a railway which French capital has pushed to the interior. A year ago the work was completed for a distance of forty miles, with considerable preparatory grading for some distance ahead. The workmen must be guarded at all times by soldiers, who are for the most part from the west coast of Africa. There is an occasional outbreak; a few Italian or Arab laborers are killed by a rush at night; yet through it all the patient stockholders in Paris are backing up the efforts of their representatives, who are building a railway that may be small, indeed, in commercial value, but, on the other hand, may have a very large political significance. At least it may be said that this railway enterprise does very much to offset what would otherwise be the preponderating influence of Great Britain upon the future Abyssinian question, due to the large British possessions which almost surround Menelek's domain.

I found in Jibuti that arms were sold in very large numbers, and indeed all caravans which I saw starting for the interior during three or four days' stay bore boxes marked "cartouches." Nearly all imports to Abyssinia other than arms go by way of Zeila.

Having finally chaffered myself into the ownership of a third mule, I started back to Zeila, across the desert, accompanied by a follower who had walked across a night or two before. There was really no great danger, since the whole coast is under the power either of the French or English, but a white man with

out arms is not thoroughly understood by the natives, and the killing of any man in any manner reflects great credit upon the slayer. Indeed, it was feared. that a weaponless white man might be considered as a derelict which could not be put to better use than by a kind of innocent slaughter, quite without personal animus. However that may be, I got across the desert, a distance of forty miles, in about eight hours of very hot riding, relieved by a very splendid mirage effect on approaching Zeila, whose low dingy houses became a glittering row of splendid white palaces.

Finally sixteen camels, with proper loads, were gathered, a well-defined bargain was made for their hire, and we drifted out upon the desert, camping only eight miles from Zeila the first evening. Here the sweet silence of the desert fell upon us, broken only by the chatter of men and grunt of camels; then the night finds its true voice, the complaining cry

of the hyena.

of the hyena. Subsequently in the long march one day was very much like another, so far as the movement of the caravan was concerned. Little difference was made even by changing transport to mules, for with either animal the average journey, when not carrying food, must be in the neighborhood of twelve miles a day.

The African camel starts out on such a journey with no stored-up fat, and he must have a few hours a day in which to nibble at the thorn bushes, which are found almost everywhere in this east shore desert. The mule cannot subsist on thorn bush; hence he is not used in this region, but in the grassy country he must have a few hours for grazing, so that substantially the day's march averages not more than five hours.

When it comes to mountain-climbing the camel is very inefficient, and is rarely used. The little barefooted mule, native to Abyssinia, is the only and very excellent means of transportation. He carries about 120 pounds weight, and con

tinues to carry it when his back and side have become lacerated to a most sickening degree. These mules are bought at the average price in our money of $25, and horses for about half that sum. They can be more readily had for purchase when one has reached the Abyssinian country than camels can be had in Somali Land.

At Harar the donkeys and camels are dropped and the mule, whose services. thereafter are almost universal throughout Abyssinia, comes into use. For the journey to Addis Abeba a mule caravan of twenty-five mules can be gotten together in the course of a week at Harar, if one is very industrious, but it would be impossible, apparently, to get any one man to contract for twenty-five mule loads. There were in my small caravan of twenty animals six independent owners. Fortunately they all have pretty nearly the same habits and this constitutes the only bond between them.

Having become after the first ten days' march from Harar quite desperate on account of daily disputes as to where we should camp, I insisted upon the appointment of one spokesman with whom I might deal every evening in determining the following day's march. All solemnly agreed to stand by such decision as their chosen spokesman and myself might reach, and they held to the agreement for just two days. I learned, however, that they were not altogether a vicious lot; they were merely stubborn children, so far as conduct was concerned, and, moreover, in respect to the marches which the mules could stand, were much wiser than I.

My agreement was that I should be landed in Addis Abeba in twenty-five days from the start at Harar, and after all my vexations they carried out that part of the contract. Two-thirds of the contract price was paid at the beginning of the journey, the remainder in Addis Abeba. They all expect something in the way of backsheesh, and those who had

been most troublesome were, of course, most importunate.

In pushing beyond Addis Abeba it was impossible to get a hired caravan, as there is no such regular means of conveyance. I was able, however, after a twelve days' stop, to purchase seventeen mules; but this was by happy chance, due to the fact that Colonel Harrington, the British diplomatic agent, had thirteen of these mules already in hand, left in his care by some English traveler who had passed through eight or ten months before. Here also, hoping to find the horse a little more variable in his paces than the mule, I bought two, one for my assistant and one for myself. It was a relief as compared with the slow dog trot of the mule; but in the exceedingly rough marching which had to be accomplished on reaching the Blue Nile, the horses soon played out. One of them had to be shot, and the other was turned into the caravan and bore about half a load.

The camel men from Zeila and the Somali, whom I had engaged as personal attendants, were all Mohammedans.

The mule men from Harar to Addis Abeba were Abyssinians, but of mixed faith, there still being a considerable Mohammedan element in southern Abyssinia, due to a great invasion which took place two or three hundred years ago under a leader who was doubtless of Arabian family and whose first followers were the Mohammedanized Somali. Many Galla, who constitute one of the most widely distributed people in northeast Africa, were also converted and many have been permitted by their present rulers, the Abyssinians, to retain their faith.

From Addis Abeba on to the Sudan my followers were of Abyssinian Christian creed, with only four or five Mohammedans, these being the Somali who accompanied me from the coast throughout the journey. out the journey. Although they could not eat of the same food, there was not

a great deal of friction between the two tribes. On several occasions, when I was lucky enough to shoot a deer, a Somali and an Abyssinian would enter a good-natured foot race, each with drawn knife, the winner being able to give the finishing cut-throat blow to the animal and thus obtain for his companions fresh meat which the others would not deign to touch.

The mule caravan was used to carry me through all the known and unknown country from Addis Abeba northwesterly to Famaka, on the Blue Nile, where at last a white face was seen againthat of one of those solitary young English officers who may be found in so many faraway spots doing the empire's hardest work. At Famaka the caravan was dismissed, the men returned to Abyssinia, and the rest of the journey to Khartum performed in a native boat, which was rowed and pushed down the river 450 miles in thirteen days.

The country which I traversed may be divided, so far as physical characteristics are concerned, into three parts:

First, the Somali desert lands, extending from the coast to the neighborhood of Gildessa. In this region water is to be had only by digging holes in the sand, some of which remain in a tolerably permanent condition, so that it may not be necessary for each caravan to freshly scoop the day's supply. In other places the natives have learned from experience that in the dry river beds water can be found from one to six feet below the surface, and the position of the camp is determined accordingly. The men refused to use the spade and shovel which I had carefully provided, and scooped a hole with their hands, and in the course of five or ten minutes the bottom of the hole would fill with trickling water, quite brown with sand but otherwise good.

In this region a hot night follows a hotter day; yet there is a sort of cleanliness due to the lack of moisture, and

one feels less than might be supposed the absence of water for bathing purposes. Indeed, on several occasions I learned by experience that Mohammed was speaking merely the ordinary practice of his desert-dwelling people when he prescribed the use of sand as a substitute for water in the execution of those ablutions which his creed orders as a part of religious duty. The desert is not entirely of sand. Sometimes it is rather sandy than sand, and in such cases it is generally widely covered with large and small volcanic stones. It is a land of desolation, but a land of peace, and few who have seen it but would gladly go there again for rest.

The next region, the great Abyssinian plateau, shows rather barrenly in spots, but for the most part is a tolerably wellwatered and pleasing country. There are wide, rolling prairies, which show brown toward the end of the dry season, but are green during the rainy season and the earlier part of the dry. Splendid trees are found on some of the mountain sides and elsewhere in isolated groups, but, generally speaking, there is a sad dearth of forest growth.

After the exceedingly arduous work of climbing up the sides of this great escarpment, one may travel for many days over easy country. It is this great plateau which the Abyssinian have held against all comers for so many centuries, and now that they have the rifle it will be a bloody task for men who would dislodge their power over it

This great region is cut deeply in two by the Blue Nile, whose waters run in a chasm five thousand feet below the plains, where I first crossed it, and about the same level at the two other points where I was able to descend to it. It was this upper Nile region and the region lying at the foot of the westernmost escarpment along the Blue Nile which had not heretofore been visited by white men. The descents were made chiefly on foot and were very difficult.

The third region is that into which one descends in the neighborhood of Wombera, and where one finds, after a very few days' march from the foot of the mountains, the beginning of the characteristic Nile scenery. The country is flat, covered for the most part where neglected, with the mimosa, which here grows to a considerable height, although it is a very near relative of the stunted thorn bush, familiar on the Somali plains. The palm, however, and a number of other good wide-spreading trees of the fig family appear to relieve the ugliness of tree-life. I shall not be able now to describe in any detail the splendid physical features which impress one on passing over the great plateau and in crossing the Nile, the Tchencha, the Bolassa, and other inflowing streams.

It will be sufficient to say that the western part of Abyssinia upon which I am now able to report to the civilized intelligence is a beautiful region, quite as attractive as any of the already known portions of the Abyssinian plateau.

As to the peoples met with, they were the Somali, already familiar to travelers; Abyssinians, about whom much has been said and of whom I shall give some of my impressions; the subservient Galla, the Agaa, the Shankali, the Sudanese, and the Shinasha, a small but interesting tribe, unknown, I believe, until this journey was made.

The great part which the Sudanese have played in the drama of modern Egyptian history is already known.

The Somali is not likely to attract the world's attention in any great degree, as he is now quietly subject to a British protectorate in the country back from the Berbera and Zeila coast and to a French protectorate in the small region around Jibuti. There are, perhaps, not more than half a million, and many of these are becoming more or less civilized by reason of the influence of the coast towns.

What struck me particularly in British

Somali Land was the fact that three Englishmen constituted the whole white force engaged in the business of this protectorate. There are some East Indian assistants and a few East Indian troops, thirty-five or forty in all. There are some Greek, Armenian, and East Indian merchants in Berbera and Zeila. The control seems to be largely a moral one, so far as direct influence is concerned, based on a clever handling of the tribal chiefs, who are kept in the coast towns as "justices of the peace," but in reality as hostages.

MENELEK.

Of the Abyssinians, Menelek is the greatest, not because he is the king, but he is the king because he is the greatest. He is emperor of the Abyssinians by virtue of having conquered a great many difficulties, most of which yielded only to the sword or rifle. He is not of that pure Semitic stock which some thousands of years ago seems to have come over first and to have later received reinforcements, from time to time, across the Red Sea from Arabia, and even from Judea. His fatlier was of a kingly family that professes to trace its ancestry to a union between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Our accepted authorities in respect to Sclomon do not mention this particular amour, but that may have been merely overlooked by time.

Menelek's mother was a woman of low origin, and it may be that this crossancestry, while depriving him of the pure, finely chiseled facial type which many of his nobles have, and giving him the negroid face instead, may have added something of vigor, since we know that to be too pure-blooded means sometimes to be thin blooded. One may fairly say that, while having the advantage of noble paternity, Menelek has fairly fought his way to power.

He is eagerly curious to see all new things that Europeans have painfully

brought up to his court, five hundred miles by caravan; yet, of course, he cannot make use understandingly of more than a few. I remember when first presented to him, as he sat in a doorway of the largest room in his residence, a rather confused mass of presents; Sèvres vases from the French Government, phonograph boxes, sextants, and such objects were piled up behind him. received me by appointment, through Colonel Harrington, who with his assistant, Mr. Baird, had given me the hospitality of their compound The black, kindly face indicated patience as well as strength, and his manner was that of quiet dignity.

He

Following the well-established custom, I had with me a few gifts to present to His Majesty, who had sent me goats, bread, and tej. Two large volumes, with illustrations of scenes of our own country, of its cities, mountains, waterfalls, etc., I offered in the hope of making known the land of the free. Through the very excellent interpretation of a young Abyssinian attached to the British agency, I endeavored to explain the geographical relations of the United States to the rest of the world, but I am quite sure that I did not make a brilliant success. The difference in time between New York, which I mentioned as being our biggest city, and Addis Abeba seemed to interest His Majesty very much, but not understandingly.

Menelek seemed to have some appreciation of the magnitude of the Brooklyn Bridge and of the Capitol, yet the absence in his own language of any defined measure of distance left me doubtful as to whether, in spite of his unceasing efforts to understand things European, he is really able to mentally interpret such great dimensions. He has never seen a house larger than his own, unless possibly the neglected ruins of a considerable building erected by the Portuguese about 300 years ago in Gondar, once Abyssinia's capital.

As the Abyssinian is unable to make anything save the round hut, the royal residence was built by East Indian carpenters of rails wottled together and more or less heavily covered with mud, the roof being straw and mud thatch. This palace or Gébi might pass for a fairly comfortable country house,shabby for want of paint. Nor has Menelek ever seen a boat, save the sections of one of poor Marchand's little flotilla lying covered up in front of the Gébi hundreds of miles from any navigable water, telling in its mute, sad way of Fashoda, that well-known story of bravery and blundering.

What I most relied upon as clinching in the royal mind a tolerably defined idea of our country were the pictures of some of our cotton-manufacturing establishments in New England. This I described as the place where were manufactured practically all the cotton goods which constitute the clothing of all of his most advanced subjects. I had noted with surprise and pleasure in Aden, Zeila, and Harar that American cotton goods were the only cotton goods in evidence.

Referring to a map, I further explained that another English-speaking country lies to our north, and that this country was a part of Great Britain's empire. So far as my object of instruction was concerned, I think in this point I overdid it. This reference to Canada, with my statement that all the people in my country spoke English, coupled with the fact that I came in a certain sense under the wing of Colonel Harrington and accompanied by his interpreter, evidently left a blurred impression of my relation to the American eagle. At any rate, when finally written permission was given to me to go into the unknown country to the northwest, I was described as Mr. Crosby, the Englishman.

The Emperor was clad in modest, even severe, garb, the chief vestment being