The Next Day, The 8th, We Only Saw His Majesty At A Distance, Seated On A Stone In Front Of His Tents, And Talking Quietly To Those Around Him.

In the afternoon he ascended to the top of Selassie, and on his return sent us word that he

Had seen nothing; but that our people could not be far off, as a woman had come to inform him that, the evening before, horses and mules had been taken down to the Bechelo to be watered.

As we came down from the Amba the day before, we had met on the road all the prisoners crawling along, many of them in hand and foot chains, having in that condition been obliged to walk down the irregular and steep descent. Their appearance was enough to inspire pity in the most callous heart; many had no other covering than a small piece of rag round the loins, and were living skeletons, covered with some loathsome skin disease. Chiefs, soldiers or beggars, all wore an anxious expression: they had but too much reason to fear that they had not been dragged out of the prison where they had spent years of misery for any good purpose. However, on that morning Theodore gave orders for about seventy-five to be released, all either former servants of his, or chiefs whom he had imprisoned, without cause, during his fits of madness, so frequent of late.

Soon after his return from Selassie, his merciful mood being over, Theodore sent orders to have seven prisoners executed; amongst them the wife and child of Comfou (the storekeeper who had run away in September) - poor innocent beings on whom the despot vented his rage for the desertion of the husband:

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