Feast of the Epiphany.

But by far the greatest holiday of the Abyssinian year is held on the Epiphany, styled Temkát, (i.e. Baptism) when the baptism of our Lord, by John, in the river Jordan, is commemorated with extraordinary pomp. He who neglects to undergo the annual purification enjoined on this day by the Ethiopic church, is considered to carry with him the burden of every sin committed during the preceding twelve months, and to be surely visited by sickness and misfortune, whereas those who perform the rite, are believed to have emerged thoroughly cleared and regenerated.

On the evening preceding this festival, the priests of all the churches in Ankóber and the environs, carrying the holy tábots under gaudy canopies, assembled in the open space, termed Aráda, immediately in front of the palace. Here, according to custom, they were received by the governor of the town, who, after falling prostrate on his face before the arks, escorted the procession to the river Airára—the clergy dancing and singing, whilst the female portion of the inhabitants lining the hill-side, indulged in the shrillest vociferation. A tent for each church had been erected on the bank; and a temporary dam being thrown across the stream, the night was spent in chanting appropriate hymns and psalms.

Long before dawn, the pent up waters having been blessed by the officiating priest, the entire population, the young, the old, the wealthy, and the indigent, gathered from many miles round, casting off their habiliments, flocked promiscuously into the pool—even babes who were unable to totter being thrown in by their naked mothers. Not the slightest modesty was evinced by either sex, all mingling together in a state of perfect nudity, and affecting, under the light of innumerable torches and flambeaux, which shed the broad glare of day over the disgraceful scene, to believe that a supernatural veil concealed each other’s shame.

The sacrament of Christ’s supper was then administered, accompanied by rites and ceremonies highly unbecoming the solemnity of this most sacred of Christian institutes. The multitude next proceeded to devour a pile of loaves, and to drain accumulated pitchers of beer, supplied by the neighbouring governors. Here too the most indecent excesses were committed. Declaring themselves to have swallowed a specific against intoxication, the clergy indulge to any extent they please, and each priest vying with his brother in the quantities he shall quaff, avers that if “the whole of the Lord’s bread and the Lord’s wine” be not consumed on the spot, a famine will arise throughout the land!

Festivities terminated, the officiating dignitaries, robed and mitred, preceded the holy arks and canopies in grand procession to the capital, singing hallelujahs. Holding in their left hands cymbals in imitation of David, and in the right the ecclesiastical staff, wherewith various absurd gesticulations are described, they danced and sang for some time in front of the palace gate. As usual, the performance displayed the most uncouth attitudes, and the least graceful figures. The beard and the crutch, and the aged face, and the sacred calling, were but ill in unison with the mountebank capers undertaken; and the actors rather resembled masks at the carnival than holy functionaries of the church.

“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests,” is a passage of Scripture which the clergy of Shoa interpret to their own advantage. “Who are the foxes,” they invariably inquire, “but the kings and the governors of the land, who seek only after worldly vanities? and who the birds but the priests and bishops, who in hymns and hallelujahs thus fly upwards, and build their nests in heaven?”

The clergy are distinguished from the laity by a beard, and by a monstrous white turban encumbering the head. This is designed to typify Moses covering his face on his descent from the Mount, when he had received the tables of the law. Their sacred persons are usually shrouded in a black woollen cloak, studded with emblems of the faith, and furnished with a peaked hood. The sacerdotal vest was first embroidered by command of Hatzé David, the father of Saint Theodórus, to commemorate the arrival from Jerusalem of a fragment of the true cross on which Christ died; and officiating priests are expected to appear in one of these, composed either of scarlet or party-coloured cloth.

A silver or brazen cross and a slender crutch are the never-failing accoutrements of the priest; and on all occasions of ceremony, the mitre, the censer, and the great umbrellas are conspicuous objects. Long rods, furnished with streaming pennants, manufactured of the light pith of the juwarree, in alternating bands of red and white, were carried by the host of dirty boys who swelled the procession; and after the labours of the day were over, these emblems of regeneration were hung up in the churches as votive offerings. On the conclusion of the exhibition, the clergy dispersed under a salvo of musketry to their respective churches, and individuals who, from any unavoidable circumstance, had been precluded from participating in the general immersion, were then privately baptised, males and females being alike divested of every portion of apparel, and plunged into a large reserv............