During That Rainy Season (1867) Theodore's Difficulties Were Very Great:

Indeed, the punishment of his evil deeds was falling heavily upon him, and to his proud nature it must have been a daily and constant agony.

The rebels were now so little afraid of Theodore that every night they made attacks on his camp, and were always on the watch to seize stragglers, or camp-followers. They had at last become such a terror to the soldiers that, to protect them, and at the same time check, to a certain extent, desertion, Theodore had a large stockade built around the foot of the hill on which his camp was pitched. A war of extermination on both sides now took place; Theodore showing no pity to the peasants whom he succeeded in capturing, and they, on their side, torturing and murdering any one who belonged to the Emperor's camp. A detailed account of the atrocities committed by Theodore during the last month of his stay in Begemder would be too horrible to narrate: suffice it to say that he burnt alive, or sentenced to some cruel death, in that short space of time, more than 3,000 persons! His rage at times was so blind that, unable to satisfy his revenge by punishing those who daily insulted and scorned him, he vented his anger on the few remaining faithful companions who shared his fate: chiefs who had fought by his side for years, friends whom he knew from his childhood, old respectable men who had protected him in former days, all had to suffer more or less for their faithfulness, and fell innocent victims to his mad fits of violence.

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