serious effect on the moral qualities of the race. Though not officially recognised, polygamy is commonly practised by the rich who can afford to maintain wives and families in different places; divorce is the easiest possible thing, and it appears to be no bar to the future friendly intercourse between the parties concerned. Probably the decay of Abyssinia and the physique of the race may, in a great measure, be due to this promiscuous state of intercourse which goes on amongst them. Italian

officers told me, with regard to their native troops, that the Abyssinian youths were far more intelligent and active up to the age of thirty-five, and after that they soon became decrepit and useless; whereas the Mussulmans, though slower of development, were capable of active service much longer. We ourselves noticed that grey hairs were far rarer amongst the Abyssinians than amongst the Mohammedans. The Italian doctors say that the amount of diseases of a syphilitic nature is appalling amongst the Christian population.

The difference of house and church architecture in this part of Abyssinia to that of the south is very marked. Hamasen, the province in which Asmara is placed, once formed a portion of the territory of the Bahr-negous, or King of the Sea-a monarch who admitted the supremacy of the Emperor of Abyssinia, but who was practically independent. He had his residence in the district of Okule Kusai at Digsa, a place which we afterwards visited. His men were the finest in Abyssinia; they were governed by

their own laws and paid their own taxes, and in their inaccessible mountains lived a life of great independence. This probably will account for the difference in architecture to be found in Hamasen. Instead of the round huts, or toukuls, common everywhere else in Abyssinia, we here find long low houses burrowing into the ground; poles are first stuck in the ground, with rafters of quolquol trees on the top; mud is plastered on to this, and holes made in which broken jars are inserted to act as chimneys. The walls are merely additional comforts, just stones inserted between the poles, and nothing to do with the original construction of the house. Sometimes these houses go in to a great length, having inner chambers for storehouses, through which you can penetrate into the house of a neighbour, and come out at another door on the other side of the town. Some travellers have seen in the dwellers in these abodes the lineal descendants of the Troglodytes-a theory for which I see no just support. Nevertheless, they are just like rabbit warrens, only not half as clean.

Dirt and filth of every description reign supreme in an Abyssinian household. Everything one touches is begrimed with dust, vermin of every sort abounds, and nothing would save the population from being swept away by fearful epidemics were it not that the air which they breathe is so pure and healthgiving.

In the deepest recesses of shade and gloom the women live, shut off by a mud wall from the large

entrance room, where hang the shields, spears, and horse-trappings, indicative of male life. Here, squatted on the ground, the women cook, baking their bread on an iron platter over a few embers, in the magogo or small circular oven. Around them rise the great mud receptacles in which they keep their grain, very similar to those in use in Mashona

land. The beehive, made of cow-dung, is inserted in the wall, and in the corner is the quaint Abyssinian grindstone, at which the servant grinds and grinds for many hours of the day.

Outside in the courtyard is the loom for weaving, with a hole dug in the ground for the feet which work it. Here most of the household clothing is made, and excellent work they turn out too; nothing is warmer

than the Abyssinian shamma. Worn like the toga of old Roman days, with the end cast over the left shoulder, and hanging in graceful folds to back and front, the right arm is thus covered whilst the left is free. It is always white, the toga pura of Rome, with a red stripe down it, added, so say the Christian legends of Abyssinia, to represent the blood which flowed from the body of Christ. Grand men pull it right up to the tip of their noses, hiding the mouth to show their grandeur. When a still bigger man comes, they lower this; and when they present themselves before a prince, the whole of the left shoulder must be bare, and the shamma girt round the waist. Such is Abyssinian etiquette.

Instead of the round churches so common further south, we find here that square churches of stone, and roofed like the houses, are the most common. The church of Asmara is a particularly interesting specimen of this class of architecture, and, as I have said. before, the descent into it is a strong proof, if nothing else was wanting, of its antiquity; the sacred precincts are entered by a porch or hospitium, where the poor wayfarer can obtain a shakedown for the night. By the side of this is the priest's den, where he lives amidst his treasures, his books, his crosses, and his church paraphernalia, like a hermit in his cell; he showed us his gospels and his illuminated books, but would part with nothing. This we found almost invariably the case in Abyssinia; the priests would not part with anything belonging to the church for love or money. Whether genuine piety, or fear of discovery,

was the motive power for this we never quite made

out.

The yard of an Abyssinian church is the lucus or sacred grove of the pagan temple. It is a circular inclosure, planted with shrubs and reeds of all sorts, forming a shady covering when not exposed to the winds, amidst which the priests can sit during the mid

day heats to read their books, and amidst which they bury their dead. At the opposite end of the churchyard to the priest lives, in a miserable hut, a withered old nun, who has been twice to Jerusalem, and is holy past all comprehension. She is clad in a filthy garment, the original colour of which is uncertain, though it might possibly have been navy blue. She is covered all over with crosses and treasures from