the necessary men and two guides to conduct us across the swamps, and
that he urged us to start at once, at the same time announcing his
intention of accompanying us so as to protect us against treachery. I
was much touched by this act of kindness on the part of that wily old
barbarian towards two utterly defenceless strangers. A three--or in
his case, for he would have to return, six--days' journey through those
deadly swamps was no light undertaking for a man of his age, but he
consented to do it cheerfully in order to promote our safety. It shows
that even among those dreadful Amahagger--who are certainly with their
gloom and their devilish and ferocious rites by far the most terrible
savages that I ever heard of--there are people with kindly hearts. Of
course, self-interest may have had something to do with it. He may have
thought that _She_ would suddenly reappear and demand an account of us
at his hands, but still, allowing for all deductions, it was a great
deal more than we could expect under the circumstances, and I can only
say that I shall for as long as I live cherish a most affectionate
remembrance of my nominal parent, old Billali.

Accordingly, after swallowing some food, we started in the litters,
feeling, so far as our bodies went, wonderfully like our old selves
after our long rest and sleep. I must leave the condition of our minds
to the imagination.

Then came a terrible pull up the cliff. Sometimes the ascent was more
natural, more often it was a zig-zag roadway cut, no doubt, in the first
instance by the old inhabitants of Kor. The Amahagger say they drive
their spare cattle over it once a year to pasture outside; all I know is
that those cattle must be uncommonly active on their feet. Of course the
litters were useless here, so we had to walk.

By midday, however, we reached the great flat top of that mighty wall of
rock, and grand enough the view was from it, with the plain of Kor, in
the centre of which we could clearly make out the pillared ruins of the
Temple of Truth to the one side, and the boundless and melancholy marsh
on the other. This wall of rock, which had no doubt once formed the lip
of the crater, was about a mile and a half thick, and still covered with
clinker. Nothing grew there, and the only thing to relieve our eyes were
occasional pools of rain-water (for rain had lately fallen) wherever
there was a little hollow. Over the flat crest of this mighty rampart we
went, and the