Triumphal Entry to the Capital.

“Reculer pour mieux sauter,” is a maxim strictly in accordance with His Majesty’s notions of strategy. Twenty days had elapsed since the return of the expedition, when the arrival before the palace of six thousand head of cattle proclaimed the success of a second sweeping foray directed against the Ekka and Finfinni Galla. A Mohammadan merchant residing at Roqué, the market town and great slave-mart of Yerrur, was suspected of having with his own hand slain the son of Ayto Besuehnech, grand-nephew to the king—this youth having pressed on far in advance of his comrades in pursuit of the retreating pagans. To avenge his untimely death, a detachment, consisting of five thousand horse, was despatched under the command of Aytos Berkie, Chilo, and Dogmo, the government of which latter chief had previously been extended in acknowledgment of his recent services. They made a forced march through Bulga, and although foiled in their principal object by the precipitate flight of the rover whose life they sought, the whole of his family and followers were massacred, his effects plundered, and his house burnt to the ground.

The survivors of the Ekka and Finfinni tribes, believing the fatal storm to be expended, had already returned with the residue of their flocks and herds, and were actively engaged in restoring their dilapidated habitations, when the Amhára hordes again burst over their fair valley, slew six hundred souls, and captured all the remaining cattle, thus completing the chastisement of these devoted clans, who, notwithstanding the generous restoration of their enslaved families, had failed to make submission—and redeeming the royal pledge “to play the rebels another trick.”

The king had not honoured Ankóber with his presence since the arrival in Shoa of the British Embassy, but His Majesty now announced his intention of entering the capital in triumph. Thinly attended, and unscreened by the state umbrellas, he issued at sunrise on horseback through the sirkosh ber, the only addition to his usual costume being a plume of nine feathers stripped from the Rása, or egret, which were worn in the hair in token of his recent prowess at Boora Roofa. Putting his horse into a gallop, he never drew bridle until stopped by the Beréza, many parties under governors of the adjacent districts joining the royal cortège from various quarters, and swelling the retinue to two thousand equestrians, who continued at a furious pace to clatter over the stony ground.

Mosábeit, a village standing on a peninsula formed by the junction of the Toro Mesk water with the Beréza, imparts its name to this, the most direct road from Angollála to Ankóber. The river forded, the king mounted his mule, and diverging to the right, passed through a valley studded with hamlets, the inhabitants of which, male and female, came forth with many prostrations to the earth, whilst the women raised their voices together in the usual ringing heléltee.

On all occasions of rejoicing and ceremony, whether on the successful return of the monarch or of the warrior, or on the sight of a passing procession, the ladies of Abyssinia, with their characteristic love of noise, thus burst forth into a thrilling clamour of welcome, moving the tongue with more than ordinary volubility against the palate, and producing a continuous succession of tremulous notes. One watchful dame on the outskirts perceives the approach of the cavalcade, and forthwith gives out her wild screech of warning. In a moment the mountain side is covered with every female within hearing; the Hil! lil! lil! progresses fast and furious as they bend nearly double to assist in upraising the yelling chorus; tears stream from their eyes in the violence of the exertion, and far and near the hills resound with the gathered volume of their shrill throats.

The king halted for a moment at a pile of stones by the way-side, covered with rags, feathers, and flowers, to which every devout Christian adds his tribute whilst saluting it with his lips. It points to the white-roofed church of Saint Michael the Archangel, peeping through a dark clump of junipers at some distance from the road, and many were the fervent kisses of adoration bestowed by the triumphant warriors. A little beyond, a large black cross on the summit of a tumulus directs attention to the residence of Ayto Berri, quarter-master-general of the Amhára forces. Here His Majesty again diverged, in order to lead the cavalcade through the most thickly populated tract; and after resting for half an hour in the Ungua-mesk, one of the many royal meadows, now black with the Galla herds, he turned suddenly off to the Motátit road, according to his invariable custom, when proceeding to the capital after a successful foray.

The Arsiamba, styled at its point of intersection with the route usually pursued, Ya Wurjoch Madéria, the “resting-place of merchants,” is a singular cataract rolling over columnar basalt, of which the ribbed cliffs on either side are thronged by bees. But by far the most interesting object is a certain white pillar, overgrown with nettles, standing at the foot of the hills which bound the Ungua-mesk. It is designated “Graan’s stone,” and is famous from an existing tradition that the Moslem invader tied his war-horse to it on the occasion of his leading the Ada?el to the destruction of Debra Berhán.