THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. ^^ 



added, which was not alked of him, that the other was his 

 fon. 



There is always near the king, when he marches, an 

 officer called Kanitz Kitzera, the executioner of the camp; 

 he has upon the tore of his faddle a quantity of thongs made 

 of bull hide, rolled up very artificially, this is called the ta- 

 rade. The king made a fign with his head, and another 

 with his hand, without fpeaking, and two loops of the ta- 

 radc were inflantly thrown round the Shum and his fon's 

 neck, and they were both hoifted upon the fame tree, the 

 tarade cut, and the end made faft to a branch. They were 

 both left hanging, but I thought fo aukwardly, that they 

 Ihould not die for fome minutes, and might furely have 

 been faved had any one dared to cut them down ; but 

 fear had fallen upon every perfon who had not attended the 

 king to Tigre. 



This cruel beginning feemed to me an omen that violent 

 rcfolutions had been taken, the execution of vrhich was 

 immediately to follow; for though the king had certainly a 

 delight in the fliedding of human blood in the field, yet till 

 that time I never faw him order an execution by the hands 

 of the hangman; on the contrary, I have often feen him 

 fliudder and exprefs difgufl, lowly and in half words, at 

 fuch executions ordered every day by Ras Michael. In this 

 inflancc he feemed to have lofl that feeling ; and rode on, 

 fometimes converfing about Fafil's horfc, or other indiffer- 

 ent fubje(5ts, to thofe who were around him, without once 

 reflecting upon the horrid execution he had then fo recent- 

 ly occafioned. 



I 2 Ijlf 



