MY FRIEND’S ACCOUNT. 71 
outside the tent; also some coffee, milk, bread, and 
honey. 
“ The Persian rug was too full of animal life to allow me 
to sleep all night, and early in the morning our guides 
came and advised us to send Wal-da-Gubbra some little 
a rifle for instance. We of course pooh-poohed 
present, 
the idea, and put our wet things out to dry; but these I 
soon had to put on again, as Wal-da-Gubbra wished to see 
me. Preceded by his interpreter, Hazach Jarro, and fol- 
lowed by Idris and Ahamed Noor, I entered an inner 
enclosure and found Wal-da-Gubbra seated under a canopy, 
with a row of men at his back. In a stern voice I was 
asked why I had come to this country, what we wanted, 
and if we were sent by a king. He then told me there 
were very bad people ahead of us, and asked if I was not 
afraid of being killed. To which I replied that when God 
wanted a life he took it, wherever it was; whereupon the 
audience broke up, and after watching the soldiers file out I 
returned to my tent. 
“ The following morning, dressed in a suit of blue flannel 
pyjamas, so as not to be outdone by the splendor of yes- 
terday, I again went to see Wal-da-Gubbra. This time I 
was’ shown into his private house, and besides a few boys 
there was no one present. He received me cordially, and 
motioned me to a rug at his side. He opened the ball by 
telling me that, being a stranger, I needed everything from 
him; whereupon I made him a present of a colored blanket 
and a bottle of wine. He then said that we could go where 
we liked and do what we liked, and that we must write a 
letter to Menelek, King of Abyssinia; upon which Idris 
and Ahamed Noor kissed his feet, and I, not feeling up to 
such an ordeal, shook him warmly by the hand. I find that 
if a Shoan kills an elephant it counts the same as if he had 
killed forty men; a lion equals ten, a leopard five, and a 
