THESOURCE OF THE NILE. 267 



ed, of good buffalo's hide, and his fpear fharp-pointed with 

 iron. His filyer ornaments were only ufed when the cam- 

 paign was over, when thefe were carried by this officer. 

 Great was the refpect mewed formerly to this king in war, 

 and even when engaged in battle with rebels, his own fub- 

 jects. 



No prince ever loft his life in battle till the coming of 

 the Europeans into Abyffinia, when both the excommuni- 

 cating and murdering of their fovereigns feem to have 

 been introduced at the fame time. The reader will fee, in 

 the courfe of this hiftory, two inftances of this refpect being 

 ftill kept up : the one at the battle of Limjour, where Fafil, 

 pretending that he was immediately to attack Ras Michael, 

 defired that the king might be drefTed in his infignia, left, 

 not being known, he might be flain by the flranger Galla. 

 The next was after the battle of Serbraxos, where the king 

 was thrice in one day engaged with the Begemder troops 

 for a confiderable fpace of time. Thefe infignia, or marks 

 of royalty, are a white horfe, with fmall filver bells at his 

 head, a {Tiicld of filver, and a white fillet of fine filk or muf- 

 lin, but generally the latter, fome inches broad, which is 

 tied round the upper part of the head over his hair, with a 

 large double or bow-knot behind, the ends hanging down 

 to the fmall of his back, or elfe flying in the air. 



After the Lika Magwafs comes thePalambaras ; after him 

 theFit-Auraris ; then the GeraKafmati, and the KanyaKafma- 

 ti, their names being derived from their rank or order in en- 

 camping, the one on the right, the other on the left of the 

 king's tent ; Kanya and Gera fignifying the right and the 

 left ; after them the Dakakin Billetana Gueta, or the under 



L 1 2 chamberlain. 



