ince said to be,
its teaching us how many comfortable things we enjoy at home; and it
appears that no Englishman can comprehend the value of that despised fluid,
fresh water, until he has left the precincts of his own fortunate land:
but it is in Africa, and peculiarly on this Abyssinian high-road, that the
value of a draught of spring water is to be especially estimated. "Since
leaving the shores of India," says Major Harris, "the party had gradually
been in training towards a disregard of dirty water. On board a ship of
any description, the fluid is seldom very clear or very plentiful. At Cape
Aden, there was little perceptible difference between the sea water and
the land water. At Tajura, the beverage obtainable was far from being
improved in quality by the taint of the new skins in which it was
transferred from the only well; and now, in the very heart of the
scorching Tehama, where a copious draught of pure water seemed absolutely
indispensable every five minutes, the mixture was the very acme of
abomination. Fresh hides stript from the he-goat, besmeared inside as well
as out with old tallow and strong bark tan, filled from an impure well at
Sagallo, tossed and tumbled during two days and nights under a distilling
heat," formed a drink which we should conclude to be little short of
poison. However, the human throat learns to accommodate itself to every
thing in time, and the time came when even this abomination was longed for.

But the worst was not yet come. It was midnight when the party commenced
the steep ascent of the south-eastern boundary of the lake, a ridge of
volcanic rocks. "The north-east wind had scarcely diminished its parching
fierceness, and in hot suffocating gusts swept over the glittering expanse
of water and salt, where the moon shone brightly; each deadly puff
succeeded by the stillness that foretells a tropical hurricane. The
prospect around was wild--beetling, basaltic cones, and jagged slabs of
shattered lava."

The path itself was formidable, winding along the crest of the ridge over
sheets of broken lava, with scarcely more than sufficient width to admit
of the progress in single file. "The horrors of this dismal night set all
description at defiance." The hope of water, though at the distance of
sixteen miles, excited them for a while; but at length even this
excitement failed. And "owing to the heat, fasting, and privation, the
limbs of the weaker refused the task, and after the first