No One Has Ever Been Known, Except Perhaps Bell, To Have Dined Out Of The Same Basket At The Same

Time as Theodore; but when he desired specially to honour some of his guests, he either sent them some food

From his basket, or had others placed on the platform near him, or, what was a still higher honour, sent to the favoured one his own basket with the remains of his dinner.

Unfortunately Theodore had for several years before his death greatly taken to drink. Up to three or four o'clock he was generally sober and attended to the business of the day; but after his siesta he was invariably more or less intoxicated. In his dress he was generally very simple, wearing only the ordinary shama, [Footnote: A white cotton cloth, with a red border, woven in the country.] native-made trousers, and a European white shirt; no shoes, no covering to the head. His rather long hair - for an Abyssinian - was divided in three large plaits, and allowed to fall on his neck in three plaited tails. Of late he had greatly neglected his hair; for months it had not been plaited; and to show the grief he felt on account of the "badness" of his people, he would not allow it to be besmeared with the heavy coating of butter in which Abyssinians delight. On one occasion he apologized to us for the simplicity of his dress. He told us that, during the few years of peace that followed the conquest of the country, he used often to appear in public as a king should do; but since he had been by the bad disposition of his people obliged to wage constant war against them, he had adopted the soldier's raiments, as more becoming his altered fortune. However, after his fall became imminent, he on several occasions clad himself in gorgeous costumes, in shirts and mantles of rich brocaded silks, or of gold-embroidered velvet. He did so, I believe, to influence his people. They knew that he was poor, and though he hated pomp in his own attire, he desired to impress on his few remaining followers that though fallen he was still "the King."

During the lifetime of his first wife and for some years afterwards, Theodore not only led an exemplary life, but forbade the officers of his household and the chiefs more immediately around him to live in concubinage. One day in the beginning of 1860 Theodore perceived in a church a handsome young girl silently praying to her patron, the Virgin Mary. Struck with her beauty and modesty, he made inquiries about her, and was informed that she was the only daughter of Dejatch Oubie, the Prince of Tigre, his former rival, whom he had dethroned, and who was then his prisoner. He asked for her hand, and met with a polite refusal. The young girl desired to retire into a convent, and devote herself to the service of God. Theodore was not a man to be easily thwarted in his desires.

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