branches. Some hundreds, however, were carried into captivity, and several thousand cattle driven off to the royal pastures; for by far the greater proportion of the booty, on these occasions, is monopolized by the Monarch, just as King Neleus took the best share of the stock carried off from the Eleans in Nestor's first foray.

The success of the expedition, however, was incomplete, unless crowned by the glory of some personal achievement of the Monarch. For this purpose, a fugitive Galla was tracked into a tree, and information brought to Sahela Selassie that the caitiff awaited his disposal.

Impatient to wreathe his brow with new laurels, the monarch lost not a moment in sallying forth to destroy the unfortunate wretch, taking a most formidable array of single and double-barrelled guns and rifles of every calibre, together with an escort of five thousand cavalry. Receiving a long shot through the thigh at the royal hands, whilst imperfectly ensconced among the foliage, the victim, abandoning all hope of escape, wisely cast away his weapons and cried loudly for quarter; being admitted to which, he kissed the feet of his majesty, and thus escaped mutilation on the spot. In another hour the cavalcade returned in triumph, the wounded captive riding on a mule behind the exulting monarch, who, by virtue of his bold exploit, wore in the hair a large green branch of wild asparagus, whilst the greasy garment of his bleeding prisoner graced the proud neck of his war-steed.'-(Vol. ii. p. 204.) We are bound to add, to dismiss this disagreeable part of our recapitulation of the doings of the Embassy, that Major Harris and his companions persuaded the King to liberate all the captives taken alive in this expedition; which, if it could only be accomplished at the expense of joining it, seems a better justification of the proceedings than the opportunity of laying down, as scientifically as very limited time would permit, an extensive ' and most interesting tract of country hitherto undescribed.' But we cannot help feeling some doubt, whether the moral influence of the Embassy would not have been far greater if they had kept away altogether. To complete the summary of the direct good effected by British advice, during the stay of the mission in Abyssinia, it must be added that they prevailed on the King, at a later period, to rescind a capricious act of despotism, by which he had consigned a number of the free children of his bond people to slavery; and finally effected a much greater conquest over cruel prejudice, in procuring the liberation of the King's brothers and uncles from the imprisonment in which, according to the primeval maxim of Abyssinian statecraft, rendered classical by Rasselas,' they had been confined ever since his accession. Lastly, they concluded a Treaty of Commerce' with this important little Monarchy, which we sincerely hope may prove the

6

6

commencement of intercourse with the thousand kingdoms of eastern Africa, and make an opening for British influence to operate against the traffic in slaves. We have pleasure in adding, that, though Major Harris says little in these volumes of his own personal exertions, Messrs Isenberg and Krapf, the Missionaries who were in Shoa at the time, bear ample testimony to his ability and perseverance, and to the extent of the difficulties he had to contend with.

Into the important subject of the Slave-Trade our space will not allow us, at this time, to enter, though there are many interesting points regarding it on which we would willingly touch ;especially the fact that a great number of the slaves who are annually exchanged by the Moslem traders in the markets of Shoa, and of the coast of Adel, for salt, silver, and European or Indian goods, are reputed to be Christians-members of those scattered fragments of the ancient Ethiopic Church and Empire which still subsist, in the fabulous interior of the continent, far beyond the limits of modern Abyssinia, and the ken of travellers. The independent Christian district of Guragué seems to be a perfect paradise of slave-dealers, for the main occupation of the people consists in catching and selling one another. The kidnappers spirit away children (so say Messrs Isenberg and Krapf) while in bed with their parents. Sometimes they take whole families, by the following simple and ingenious device. They dig a deep trench at night before the door of a house, and then set fire to it; the inmates rush out, fall into the trench, and are captured. It must be added, that slavery in Eastern Africa is a very different thing, for the most part, from the hideous and unnatural institution which European crime has built up in the western hemisphere. Were it not for the cruel massacres and robberies which attend the procurement of slaves, mere servitude, as it exists in those regions, might be regarded as a very primitive usage, not altogether unsuited to the other parts of the existing social system. Naturalized in the house of his master, the slave is invariably 'treated with lenity-usually with indulgence-often with favour; and under a despotic sovereign, to whom servile instru'ments are uniformly the most agreeable, the caprices of fortune 'may prefer the exile to posts of confidence and emolument, and may even exalt him to the highest dignities.'

One word must be added in favour of the Abyssinian Christians, in general; namely, that, degraded as they are in many respects, their general character is scarcely to be judged of by the peculiar ferocity of their military usages. These seem to form a class of habits apart, nurtured by a sanguinary point of honour,

which must render them extremely difficult to eradicate. In other respects, these eaters of raw meat scarcely seem to exhibit that savageness which such a diet is supposed to nourish. Major Harris's sketches rather depict a coarse, sensual, cheating, but not inhuman or ill-tempered race; with social habits, and strong family affections. In Northern Abyssinia, where anarchy has barbarized the people, the case may be different; but Sahela Selassie's reign has been remarkable for mildness. Public executions are not only conducted with no unnecessary cruelty, but they are very unfrequent; and this not from laxity, for the King is a steady and punctual Justicer; but he who rejoices in shooting fugitive enemies roosting in trees, seems really to shrink with great reluctance from the idea of sentencing a subject.

Great, however, and not altogether unnatural, was the distrust entertained by the Amhara warriors of the courage of the Embassy, when it was found that, although partakers of the whole expedition, they had failed to bring back a single wreath of asparagus; and that one of the party, an artillery private, had been detected in the cowardly act of allowing a captured Galla to run for his life. It became imperative that some decided ⚫ step should be taken by which to wipe out the stain, and restore the tarnished lustre of the foreign name.' They sought, and obtained, permission to go and shoot an elephant, though not without much remonstrance on the part of his Majesty. The terror which the Amhara entertain of this animal, which they only encounter in the low forests beyond their proper territory, is extreme. In their code of honour, the destruction of an adult elephant is equivalent to the slaughter of forty Galla. 'My children,' said his Majesty, how can this be? Elephants are 'not to be slain with rifle balls. They will demolish you; and ' what account am I then to give? The gun is the medicine for 'the Galla in the tree, but it has no effect upon the zihoon.' On another occasion, he related to them his own and his army's defeat by a party of these untoward monsters. From the summit of a hill near Aimellele, I beheld through a telescope the 'lake and its tall trees; but the elephants came in numbers. I 'feared that my people would be destroyed. I ran, and they all ran with me !'

The elephant, however, was duly tracked, and shot with a twoounce ball in the head, planted in the only small fatal spot presented by the huge target;' and this chase, followed by another exploit against a buffalo, not only added greatly to the credit of the Embassy, but also conducted them through a considerable tract of the intermediate country between the table land and the desert, with which they had not previously made acquaintance. It seems

a fertile and picturesque tract, but every where most unhealthy; like the analogous belt of forest between the Himalaya and the plains of Hindostan.

Major Harris's volumes do not throw much new light on the condition of the ancient Ethiopic Church. As far as outward circumstances go, it must be pronounced highly flourishing in Shoa. The King, whether from policy or in sincerity, is most observant of the priesthood and of the religious ceremonial. He never moves abroad without a retinue of priests; and in his own royal interior, when he is not engaged with smiths and armourers, or enjoying himself, in his country fashion, with his favourite companions over raw beef collops and hydromel, he is generally to be found with his dwarf father confessor, and three or four of the order about him, who read him endless legends of lives of saints, or equally legendary chronicles of the kingdom. These, with a few works on theological controversies, complete the circle of Amhara Literature. 6 Prayers and potent liquors fill up his evening hours.' There is something from which the mind shrinks in contemplating the state of Christianity in Abyssinia; like the feeling with which one would regard a person, who had high claims on our reverence, fallen into a state of bestial degradation. All the high forms of early worship, to which imaginative piety attaches such deep significance over three-fourths of the Christian world, are there; together with many more, venerable at least from their extreme antiquity, which seem to have come direct from the fountain of early Jewish Christianity, ere the rites of the Temple had passed into tradition. The deeper mysteries of the faith are preserved. The Virgin is enthroned as the chief of all saints, queen of heaven and earth, and the great intercessor for the sins of mankind. Hundreds of canonized mortals, from the earliest martyrs of the Oriental churches down to periods of recent Abyssinian history, connect by their prayers the visible with the invisible Church. The apostolical succession is preserved with much greater historical distinctness than any European Church can boast, since all consecration and ordination is performed by a single individual-the Abuna or Patriarch, who resides at Gondar, and whose person and dignity have remained inviolable in every age of convulsion and anarchy. The Hierarchy is complete in its orders; the monastic institution is in the highest honour; the Etchegué, or head of the central monastery of Debra Libanos, ranking as the second spiritual chief of the empire. There is a minute ritual; a most complicated calendar; fasts of wonderful rigour; feasts of splendid solemnity; pilgrimages with the merit of washing away sin. Churches are probably more numerous than in any other Christian country. And yet under

all these forms, in which it would be worse than prejudice to deny that something of reality must abide, were it only the uncompromising reverence with which they are regarded, the outward face of society presents nothing but sottishness, sensuality, gross superstition, and a national character degraded, in many respects, below that of the neighbouring Pagans and Moslems. It is as if we were to see the most solemn observances mimicked, with shocking accuracy, by a tribe of apes, or scarcely human savages. It is a singular instance of the adaptation of the ecclesiastical regulations of a civilized age to a state of more than semi-barbarism-if the fact be as reported by Major Harris-that as no Abyssinian knows his own age, the only rule followed in the ordination of priests is, that it cannot be performed until the beard has begun to grow. Their Churches are the rudest of all possible edifices; but scrupulously divided, on the model of the Temple, into three portions, of which the innermost is the 'holy of holies,' entered by none but the High Priest. In the cathedral of St Michael, at Ankober, this is ornamented in rather a singular manner. The outer divisions are full of pictures of saints; but around the veil which divides off the most sacred parts, there hung in triumph four sporting pictures from the pencil of Alken, which had been presented to his majesty. They repre'sented the great Leicestershire steeple-chase; and Dick Christian, with his head in a ditch, occupied by far the most promi'nent niche in the boasted cathedral of St Michael!'

6

Readers of early ecclesiastical history are often puzzled to account for the fact, that the most captious and minutest differences of opinion as to the mysteries of theology have taken the strongest hold on popular feeling, in nations very little advanced above barbarism in point of outward refinement. Abyssinia affords a living testimony to the same effect. The question of the three Births of Christ' has been, even in recent times, the cause of bloody civil wars. According to MM. Combes and Tamisier, there are three parties at this day in the Abyssinian Church respecting it. The first hold that the Holy Spirit effected the reunion of the two natures in Christ, which is the popular doctrine in the province of Amhara; the second, chiefly prevalent in Tigré, maintains that the Holy Spirit was himself the divine nature which joined itself to the human in Christ; the third, that Christ was born God and man, and that his human nature alone received the Spirit, which is the orthodox sentiment in Shoa. The Frenchmen opine, that neither party has much to advance for its opinions. Quoiqu'il soit vrai de dire,' say they, with the inimitable modesty of their country,

6

que le

clergé de Gojam est moins ignorant que celui des autres pro