The Wilderness of Giddem.

Before daylight of the following morning, Ayto Tsánna gave the word to saddle, and the tedious descent of the south-eastern face of the steep Manya hill having been accomplished on foot, we gained the border of the wilderness as the sun rose, and took post on a small eminence to await the report of the scouts who were out in every direction among the tangled grass. The valley, environed by mountains, and extending eight or ten miles in one uninterrupted flat, was intersected throughout its extreme breadth by the four streams already named, their thickly-wooded banks harbouring antelope, and a great variety of birds of the most brilliant plumage. These detached jungles, in many points uniting, formed a continuous belt of dark foliage, and in others receding as the miry swamps became niggard of the requisite moisture, afforded limited vistas to the eye, although still accessible with difficulty either to man or horse.

A speedy summons arrived from the governor, who, with a large party of retainers, and two matchlock-men forming his body-guard, was seated on the banks of Jow-wahá. An elephant had been descried at the distance of some miles, and an uproar had in consequence commenced, sufficient to alarm the most fearless and sedate quarry in existence. After a protracted and tumultuous consultation, the hunt was commenced according to the Abyssinian method—equestrians and pedestrians without number shouting and hallooing to each other as they threaded the paths trampled by the huge quadrupeds through a tangled swamp of canes, so locked and interlaced that no human eye could penetrate one foot on either side, whilst crowds of Galla horsemen galloped on either flank, to complete the impossibility of success.

This turmoil continued under a burning sun until past two o’clock, when, having reached the extremity of the waste which divides the country of the Gibdósa Ada?el, the appearance of several horsemen hovering in the distance induced the governor to decamp with precipitation to the centre of the wilderness, without having seen aught save a few recent tracks imprinted on the burnt grass, and a charred log of wood which was long maintained to be an elephant. Here the tributary Gillé and Soopa, who had been called out under their respective chiefs, Abbo and Boroo (Boroo signifies “my yellow horse”), came pouring in from all directions—a wild and savage race, whom the Christians declared to be the most hardened, cruel, and insubordinate wretches in the whole world, men who would take a life for the possession of the veriest trifle. More than trebling the numerical strength of the Amhára, their appearance so alarmed the veteran “Wobo,” that he forthwith placed himself under the protection of his guests; and apprehending a termination to the day similar to the issue of Chevy Chase, requested that rifles might be discharged for the purpose of intimidation, whilst he ordered his immediate attendants to raise the shrill war-cry to collect his scattered retainers. The Moslems meanwhile contented themselves with gazing at the unwonted appearance of the white strangers, and clumps of Christian spears soon restored the chief to his self-possession, and relieved the forebodings of his dismayed followers, whose extraordinary politeness to the auxiliaries was beyond all things diverting; the most tender inquiries relative to health and wellbeing only eliciting a scowling glance, accompanied by a surly dogged reply.

It being in the interim reported that a man had been destroyed by a female elephant, at whose calf he had ventured to hurl his spear, Ayto Tsánna took the opportunity of freeing himself of his unpleasant Galla vassals, by directing them to hem the skirts of the forest, whilst he requested us “to enter the thicket, and destroy the enraged beast, whom no one else would approa............