46 THEODORE II. AND THE 



THEODOEE II. AND THE NEW EMPIEE OF ABYSSINIA. 



THE YOUTH AND ACCESSION OF THEODOKE. 



{Tt anslated from the Revue des deux Mondes, Nov., 1864.) 



I. 



Since tbe adventurous journey of Bruce, more precise notions 

 have replaced, among us, tlie old world fables which made of the empire 

 of the Negus* something as unknown and mysterious as the District of 

 Monomatapa. This result, is due, chiefly, to certain narratives, in 

 books welcomed with generally deserved favour in Erance, England, 

 and Germany. This movement towards publicity, however, has been 

 arrested during the last twelve or fifteen years, a thing much to be 

 regretted, since it is precisely within that period that Abyssinia has 

 made its first serious effort at political and social reorganization. So 

 much the less should this attempt be allowed to pass unnoticed, as it 

 is, perhaps, the only endeavour of its kind, attempted by a declining 

 people in taking as a model, not European modern civilization, but 

 that which it formerly possessed. Whatever may be the final issue 

 of this bold experiment, it will not, perhaps, be uninterestiug to be= 

 come acquainted with its phases and, above all, to study the strange 

 man who presides over it, and whose name has for two years begun 

 to be familiar to us. 



The traveller who coasts along the African shore of the Eed Sea, 

 and who, since leaving Suez, has had nothing before his eyes but 

 downs and little dun hills, unconnected and monotonous, on approach- 

 ing the coral islet of Massaona, sees, defined against the horizon, a 

 long and lofty wall, over which, as sentinels, tower three or four 

 peaks, ordinarily hidden in the clouds. This is the most advanced 

 slope of an immense table land, two hundred leagues in breadth by 

 a length stiil undetermined ; and this plateau, rising to an average 

 height of 8000 feet above the level of the sea, is the whole of Abya- 

 sinia. Never have the boundaries of a state been defined by nature 

 with a more inflexible hand. The plateau, which possesses the mean 

 temperature of central Europe, and where hardly a twentieth part of 

 the soil remains uncultivated, is composed of arable lands rivalling in 



* This word of the Amharic language, ■which maybe translated Kin§ of Ktngs^ 

 is principally employed to designate the sovereign of Abyssinia. 



