THE SOURCE Or THE NILE. 393 



though it would not have been agreeable to have told her 

 fo, tor lhe loved to be thought ill, to be attended, and flat- 

 t< • d ; lhe was, however, in thefe circumitances, fo perfeft- 

 1- .od, fo converfable, fo elegant in all her manners, that 

 her phyfician would have been tempted to wilh never to fee 

 her well. 



She was then with child by Ras Michael ; and the late 

 feftival, upon her niece's marriage with Powuffen of Begem- 

 der, had been much too hard for her conftitution, always 

 weak and delicate fince her firft misfortunes, and the death 

 of Mariam Barea. After giving her my advice, and direct- 

 ing her women how to adminifter what I was to fend her, 

 the doors of the tent were thrown open ; all our friends 

 came flocking round us, when we prefently faw that the 

 interval employed in confutation had not been fpent ufe- 

 lefsly, for a mod abundant breakfaft was produced in wood- 

 en platters upon the carpet. There were excellent ftewed 

 fowls, but fo inflamed with Cayenne pepper as almoft to 

 blifter the mouth ; fowls dreffed with boiled wheat, jufl 

 once broken in the middle, in the manner they are prepa- 

 red in India, with rice called pillow v this, too, abundantly 

 charged with pepper; Guinea hens, roafted hard without 

 butter, or any fort of fauce, very white, but as tough as lea- 

 ther; above all, the never- failing brind, for fo they call the 

 collops of raw beef, without which nobody could have been 

 fatisfied; but, what was more agreeable to me, a large quan- 

 tity of wheat-bread, of Dembea flour, equal in all its quali- 

 ties to the belt in London or Paris. 



The Abyffinians fay, you muft plant firft and then water; 



nobody, therefore, drinks till they have finilhed eating; 



Vol. III. 3 D after 



