Passaic City record., 1892-02-27
SHORES OF THE RED SEA.
A MIGHTY WALL OF BARE BURN.
ING SANDSTONE.

lNG SANQSIONEs
Beyond This Grim Rampant is a
Beautiful and Fertile Region
Abyssinia and Its Dreaded King.
YHERE are few drearier land
scapes on the face of the earth,
writes David Ker, in the Brook
lyn Citizen, than the mighty wall
of bare, burning sandstone that stretches
unbroken for scores of miles together
along the western side of the Red Sea,
like an embodiment of that destroying
heat and hopeless desolation which the
very name of Africa never fails to sug-
gest. Greatly would any raw traveller
be surprised to learn that behind this
grim rampant lies one of the most beau
tfful and fertile regions in the world,
and one of the most romantic likewise
Christian for ages past, yet utterly savage,
picturesquely blending ancient civiliza-
tion and modern barbarism--a perfect
African!Mc ntenegro, frst.introduced to the
notice of Europe century ago by the
daring explorers of Abysslnia.
The gateway of this strange region is
quite as curious as itself. Sweeping
northward along the African shore you
descry far in the distance, on the edge
of strip of level beach. which forms as
it were the doorstep of the Abyssinia
highlands, row of flat, white objects,
suggestive of game of dominoes left
unfinished By two mountain giants. As
you approach, these nondescript objects
gradually shape themselves into bril-
liantly white houses, built entirely of
coral, beyond which futter jauntily over
the smooth, sunlit waters of a small
land-locked bay the smart scarlet of the
British union jack and the green, white
and red of the Italian merchant ensign.
An English cargo boat from Liverpool
and an Italian steamer from Naples have
Just come in, and the latter has brought
mot few passengers who have come to
stay, for this is the famous port of Mas
sowah, coveted for ages by the fierce
mountaineers who look down upon it
from those shadowy heights above us,
Iceded by Turkey to the late Khedive of
Egypt in 1856, now occupied by Italy
without any cession or formality at all.
To reach Massowah itself is now an
easy matter, thanks to the monthly line
of Italian steamers from Naples; but to
penetrate thence to Tigre the adjacent
province of Abyssinia) is not quite SO
slmple as formerly, the Italian invasion
and the severe fighting that followed it
having embittered the native mountain
clans against all foreigners alike. How
ever, the thing may be done with proper
management, though the journey itself
is by no means holiday trip. Over the
dusty, scorching plain of the lowlands
nothing can carry you safely but camel,
and the camel's ordinary motion Gas any
man who has ever ridden one will readily
admit) is very much like being perched
on the top Of particularly high omni-
bus, which keeps upsetting every two
minutes.
When the mountains are reached at
last, and you exchange your wo-humped
engine of torture for one of the hardy
and untiring native horses, matters i'm
prove considerably, though nervous
man might object to ride at full gallop
along the edge of 300-foot precipice,
or to pass outside laden packhorse on
ledge path barely two yards wide. The
heat is terrible.
Higher, ever higher, over an endless
serious of bold ridges that seem to surge
up around you like rolling waves till the
weary level of the fat, sandy plain and
the bare, scorching, crumbling rocks and
the film of intense heat that quivers
along the horizon are all left behind;
and you begin to see outspread
around you green, sunny valleys and
clustering trees and glittering waterfalls
and rock-cut villages, perched like
eagles nests on precipices accessible only
by single path, which one man might
defend against an army. If you are
bound for the Kings court you will find
plenty to look at, even before you get
there, and when you do get there you
will find more to look at still.
The native dress of the King and his
mobiles is at once simple and striking,
consisting of long white frock or man
tie, embroidered with five broad stripes
of bright crimson, which are supposed
to-typify the five wounds of our Lord,
for these strange people (Nestorian Chris
tians ever since the thirteenth century,
are extremely devout in their own pecu
liar way, and even the dreaded King
r r A