496 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



za to Ras Michael at his dinner and fupper: low men are al- 

 ways employed on fuch errands, that they may not, from 

 their confequence excite a defire of vengeance. The mef- 

 fage that he brought was to order bread and beer to be rea- 

 dy for 30,000 men who were coming with the king, as he 

 had juft decamped from before the mountain Haramat, 

 which he had taken, and put Za Menfus to the fword, 

 with every man that was in it : this meflage flruck the 

 queen with fuch a terror that fhe was not viable the whole 

 day. 



After afking the meffenger if he had any word from 

 the king to me, he faid, " Very little ;" that the king had 

 called him to tell me he mould foon begin his march by 

 Beleffen; and that he would fend for me to meet him when 

 he mould arrive at Mariam-Ohha ; he told me befides, that 

 the king had got a ftone for me with writing upon it of 

 old times, which he was bringing to me ; that it had been 

 dug up at Axum, and was ftanding at the foot of his bed, 

 but that he did not order him to tell me this, and had only 

 learned it from the fervants. My curiofity was very much 

 raifed to know what this flone could be, but I foon faw it 

 was in vain to endeavour to learn any thing from Guebra 

 Chriftos ; he anfwered in the affirmative to every inquiry : 

 when I alked if it was blue, it was blue; and if black, it was 

 black ; it was round, and fquarc, and oblong, juft as I put 

 my queltion to him: all he knew about it at laft, he faid, was, 

 that it cured all fort of licknefs ; and, if a man ufed it pro- 

 perly, it made him invulnerable and immortal: he did not, 

 however, pretend to warrant this himfelf, but fwore he had 

 the account from a pricfl of Axum who knew it. 1 was 

 perfectly fatisfied all further inquiry was unneceflary ; he 



1 had 



