A Narrative Of Captivity In Abyssinia With Some Account Of The Late Emperor Theodore, His Country And People By Henry Blanc
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It was bad
enough to be in chains and in a hovel, but sickness into the bargain
would have driven me to despair. I sent my Abyssinian servants to
cut some wood, and made a small raised platform; it was rather
irregular and hard, but I preferred it to sleeping for so long on
the wet ground.
Well do I still remember that long, dreary, rainy season, and with
what impatience we looked for the Feast of the Cross, about the
25th of September; as the natives told us that the rains always
ceased about that time! I had brought with me from Gaffat an Amharic
grammar. "Faute de mieux," I struggled hard to study it, but the
mind was not fitted for such work; and, book in hand, I was in
spirit, thousands of miles away, thinking of home, dreaming awake
of beloved friends, of freedom and liberty. Towards the end of
August, shortly after the return of our ill-fated messenger, we
wrote again and sent another man: by this time we had abundant proof
that Samuel, - formerly our introducer, now our gaoler, - was completely
in our interests; and by his good arrangements the messenger started
without any one knowing of it, and managed to reach Massowah with
his letter.
I have spoken often of Samuel, and shall again and again have to
mention his name in my narrative. He was, from the beginning, mixed
up with the affairs of the Europeans, and I believe at one time he
was rather unfriendly towards them; but since our arrival and during
our captivity, he behaved exceedingly well.
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