which in three days was completed; and, as was predicted by the quiet
English spectators, in three hours fell down on the very first fresh
produced by the annual rains.

Weaving excepted, the people manufactured nothing; but British commerce
has long been known, though evidently of the coarsest kind. At length, on
his majesty's being told that five thousand looms would bring him more
wealth than ten thousand soldiers, he gradually consented to form a
commercial treaty. The crown had hitherto appropriated the property of
strangers dying in the country. The purchase or display of costly goods by
the subject had been interdicted, and a maxim exhibiting the whole
jealousy of savage life had been established, that the stranger who once
entered was never to depart from Abyssinia. By the articles of the
commercial treaty, all those barbarous prohibitions have been abolished.

As the monarch returned the deed, he made a short speech sufficiently able
and appropriate: "You have loaded me with costly presents, the rainment
that I wear, the throne on which I sit, the curiosities in my
store-houses, and the muskets which hang round my great hall--all are from
your country. What have I to give in return for such wealth? My kingdom is
as nothing."

The hereditary provinces at this day subject to the King of Shoa, are
comprised in a rectangular domain of 150 by 90 miles; an area traversed by
five systems of mountains, of which the culminating point divides the
basin of the Nile from that of the Hawash. The Christian population of
Shoa and Efat are estimated at a million; and the Moslem and Pagan
population at a million and a half. The royal revenues are said to amount
to 80,000 or 90,000 German crowns, arising chiefly from import duties in
slaves, merchandise, and salt. As the annual expenses of the state do not
exceed 10,000 dollars; it is presumed that the king, during his thirty
years' reign, has amassed much treasure, which is regularly deposited
under ground.

We recommend the enquirers into the truth of Herodotus, to examine the
curious illustrations stated in these volumes; and, among the rest, the
kingdom of pigmies. The geographer will find ample interest in tracing the
course of the Gochob, a sort of central Nile; and the naturalist, botanist,
and entomologist, will find abundant information in the very interesting
and complete appendices on those subjects. The history of the Christian
missions of early ages is an excell