530 
of thin bars of iron of different 
lengths, highly tempered, and set 
in a row on a hollow case of wood, 
about five inches square, closed 
on three sides, and is generally 
played upon with a piece of quill. 
One of these instruments whiclr I 
brought to England has twenty 
of these bars. There is another 
described in Purchas that had only 
nine, which also differs in some 
other respects from the one I have 
just mentioned. As the descrip- 
tion of this in old English is cha- 
racteristic, I shall here give it to 
the reader.—* Another instru- 
ment they have called also ‘ Am- 
bira,’ all of iron wedges, flat and 
narrow, a span long, tempered in 
the fire to differing sounds. They 
are but nine set in a row, with 
the ends in a piece of wood as in 
the necke of a viole, and hollow, 
on which they play with their 
thumbe nailes, which they weare 
Jong therefore, as lightly as men 
with us on the virginals, and is 
better musicke.” 
THE RAS OF ABYSSINIA. 
(From the Same.) 
From the preceding narrative 
of affairs it will appear, that, on 
my former journey I had enter- 
tained an erroneous opinion re- 
specting the character of the Ras, 
as, at that time, I conceived that 
he owed his elevation more ‘to 
his cunning than to his strength 
of character.” In this I was un- 
doubtedly mistaken ; since he is 
distinguished still more for his in- 
trepidity and firmness than by the 
policy with which he has uniform- 
ly ruled the country under his 
command ; having been success- 
fully engaged in upwards of forty 
battles, and having evinced on 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1815. 
these occasions even too great a 
disregard of his own personal 
safety in action. . 
At the time of Mr. Bruce’s ar- 
rival in the country, in 1770, Ras 
Welled Selassé was a young man 
of some consequence about the 
court, so that, considering him at 
that time to have been three or 
four and twenty, his age must, 
at the period of my last visit to 
the country, have amounted to 
about sixty-four ; a point some- 
what difficult of proof from the 
extreme delicacy which existed of 
making any enquiries of this de- 
scription among his followers.— 
The first situation he held of any 
importance, and which undoubt- 
edly led to his greatness, was that 
of Balgudda, or protector of the 
salt caravans, which come up from 
the plains of Assa Durwa ; an of- 
fice always conferring consider- 
able consequence on its possessor; 
owing to his being entitled to a 
duty on every load of salt import- 
ed into the country, and from the 
power which it gives him of with- 
holding this very necessary article 
of consumption as well as of bar- 
ter, from the interior provinces. 
This situation he received during 
the short government of his fa- 
ther, Kefla Yasous, over the pro- 
vince of Tigré. On the return of 
Ras Michael to the command, he 
fied to the fastnesses bordering on 
the salt plains, where he remained, 
carrying on a predatory warfare 
until the death of “ the old lion,” 
as the former is emphatically 
styled in the country. 
During this period, while Ras 
Michael was seeking his life, he 
challenged any two chiefs in the 
army opposed to him to fight on 
horseback; and, two men of dis- 
