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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I Will Give Credit To Theodore For Having Behaved Well On
That Occasion.
As soon as we were informed that the stores had
arrived at Metemma, Mr. Rassam wrote to the Emperor, asking his
permission to send servants and mules, in order to have them conveyed
to Magdala.
Theodore said that he would have them carried himself,
and moreover kept his word. He sent one of his officers to Wochnee,
with instructions to the various chiefs of districts to have our
things carried to Debra Tabor. I had long ago given everything up,
and was agreeably surprised when those few comforts reached us.
For some days, we treated ourselves to green peas, potted meats,
cigars, &c., and felt in better spirits; not so much on account
of the stores themselves, as for the attention our dangerous host
had shown us.
I remember that during the following months we felt more than at
any time the burden of such an existence. We had expected great
things, and nothing was effected: we could not have believed, on
our first arrival at Magdala, that another rainy season was in
reserve for us; we never would have credited the assertion that
long before that date all would not have been over, some way or the
other. What we disliked above all things was the uncertainty in
which we were now placed: we trembled at the idea of the cruelties
and tortures Theodore inflicted upon his victims; and each time a
royal messenger arrived, we could be seen going from one hut to the
other, exchanging anxious looks, and repeatedly asking our
fellow-sufferers, "In there any news?
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