Though situated within the torrid zone, Abyssinia is, in general, temperate and healthy. Its climate varies, indeed, with the surface and aspect of the country. In the high and mountainous regions, the coolness of the air, and the serenity of the sky, give health and sprightliness to the inhabitants ; while those confined to the valleys, or dwelling in the vicinity of marshes Or sandy deserts, lan guish uncler the pernicious influence of excessive heat, or a moist, stagnant suffocating atmosphere. Indeed, the climate seems to be influenced by situation and soil, al most as much as by the latitude. On the summit of La malmon, Mr Bruce observed the thermometer stand at 32', in the depth of winter, the wind north-west, clear and cold, attended with hoar-frost, which vanished into dew about a quarter of an hour after sunrise. He saw hail lie for three hours on the mountains of .Amid-Amid. But snow is never seen even on the loftiest mountains ; nor has it found a name in the language of Abyssinia. There is a curious passage, however, in one of the na tive historians, in which a fall of snow is very explicitly described; but described as a phenomenon unknown be fore, and for which no appropriate term had as vet been invented. Speaking of the village of Zinzenam, whose name signifies rain upon rah:, he thus proceeds : "This village has its name from an extraordinary circumstance that once happened in these parts. (Zinzenarn lies in the level country of Foggora.) A shower of rain fell, which was not properly of the nature of rain, as it did not run upor. the ground, but remained very light, having scarce the weight of Feathers, of a beautiful white colour like flour : it fell in showers, and darkened the air more than rain, and hiker to mist. It cove aed the face of the whole country for several days. retaining its whiteness the whole time ; then w cut away like dew, without leas ing- any smell, or nnwholc sonic effect, behind it." The following Table, extracted from the register kept by Mr Bruce at Gondar, from February 1770 to May 1771, may serve to give sonic idea of the general state of the barometer and thermometer during that pe riod. We select flout the register of each month the altitude most frequent at noon, and then, to show their full range, shall give the lowest and highest altitude of both, during the time when the register was kept.
In March and April of the year 1770, the thermome ter frequently stood at SO°, sometimes considerably above it, and once in April rose to 91°, the wind blowing W. N. \V. The range of the barometer and thermometer wa 5, The mountains of Taranta form the boundary between the opposite seasons. On the cast side towards the Red Sea, the rainy season is from October to April ; on the western, or Abyssinian side, cloudy, wet, and cold wea ther, prevails from May to October. This may serve to reconcile an apparent disagreement in the accounts of Alvarez and Bruce. According to Alvarez, the winter in Abyssinia consists of three rainy months, Ft bruary, Mardi, and April ; while Ali' Bruce, on the contrary, assigns all these months to summer, and dates the com mencement of winter from the close of April, or the be ginning of May. Alvarez probably describes the sea t.on on the east of Taranta ; while .1111. Bruce, with more accuracy. confines his description to the seasons peculiar to Abyssinia. From the second week of September, there is an interval of tlry, but sickly weather, till the 20th of October. when the rains begin again to fall, and con tinue constant, but moderate, till the beginning of With the last of these rains all epidemic diseases disappear.
The sarietv of elevation, which so much diversifies 'he climate of this extensive country, produces an equal ly perceptible difference in its soil. Many of the loftier mountains are rude masses of rock, either totally bare, or so scantily covered with earth, as to produce nothing ut stunted shrubs, or coarse bent grass. But the bar
, rim( of the hills is amply compensated by the rich iertility of the valleys. There, a deep and kindly soil, fostered by the rays of a vertical sun, rewards the labours of the hushaiidman with three harvests in the year. The first seed-time is in July and August, in the middle of the rainy season, when they sow wheat, tocusso, barley, and tell'. Towards the end of November, they begin to reap, first their bailey, then their wheat, and last of all the tell'. In room of these, barley is immediately sown f)1: the same ground. without any manure, and is cut down in February. For a third clop, they sometimes sow tell', but more Irequcntly a kind of 'etch, or pea, called shimbra ; these they reap before the first rains, which begin to fall in the month of April. In general, the level parts of Abyssinia, particularly if watered by any peren nial stream, are, beyond description, luxuriant and beauti ful. Nor do even the hills present an uniform aspect of sterility. Some of them, in the vicinity of the principal towns, are cultivated almost to their summits ; the sides of others are clothed with Forests of stately trees,adorned at once NV ith the richest fruit. and w ith flow ers ore xquisite beauty and delicious fragrance ; and, in passing through this mountainous counti y, the traveller is often surprised on gaining the height of even its 0 ildcst ridges, to meet with cheerful villages and f ultivated plain.
Abyssinia presents a rich field of natural history. There are, indeed, few or none of its animals which are not to be found in other parts of Africa ; but it produces many curious plants, sonic of which, if not peculiar to itself, have not vet been described by those who have travelled or resided in any other country. In his selec tion of the plants of Abyssinia, Mr Bruce has chiefly at tended to those, which, has ing once been regarded by the ancients as subjects of consequence, and copiously treated of in their writings, have now, through various accidents, become either of doubtful existence, or un certain description. His attention is next directed to those which arc employed in manufactures and medicine, or used as food in tlie countries where they arc found. He then describes those plants, or varieties of plants, which, whether in genus or in species, arc unknown. His limited knowledge of botany, however, obliged him to speak of these sparingly, and w ith hesitation. The plants which he has thought worthy of a particular des cription, arc the 1011owing : The papyrus, called by the Greeks biblos ; the balessan. balsam, or balm; the sassa, supposed by Mr Bruce to be the opocalpasum tree of Galen ; the erg-en, or mimosa, of which Mr Bruce has described two varieties, the ergett y dimmo, and the er g-ett el krone ; the ensete, a herbaceous plant, which constitutes the chief vegetable food of the Abyssinians; the kolquall; the rack ; the gir-gir, or geshe el Aube, a species of grass unknown to botanists till discovered by NB' Bruce ; the kantuffa : the gaguedi ; the wanscy ; the farek, or bauhinia acuminat.a ; the kuara, called by botan ists corallodendron; the walkuffa ; the wooginos, or brucea antidysenterica, a sovereign remedy against the dysente ry ; the cusso, or bankesia Abyssiuiea ; the nuk, or nuge from which the Abyssinians extract their vegetable oil the tell', a kind of grain, from which is made the bread commonly used by the natives; and the tocusso, a black grain which grows in the borders of the Rolla. or hot country, and of which a very black bread is made, eaten only by the poor. From both the tell and tocusso bread, there is prepared a sourish liquor, called bouza, which, like our small beer, is used as the common drink of the country.