NKW EMPIRE OF ABYSSINIA. 61 



** will they be blessed who have eaten corn watered by such blood ?" 

 In the struggles which followed the death of Sabhogadia, the violent 

 gave way, little by little, to the skilful, and, remarkable among the 

 latter became the famous Oubie, long known in Europe from the 

 narratives of travellers whom, while bearing towards them the deep- 

 est hatred, he exerted himself to please and entertain. The life of 

 Oubie is an unconnected romance, commencing from his very birth. 

 He was the child of a caprice of dedjas Hailo,* a young prince whom 

 a rainstorm had surprised while hunting, and obliged to pass some 

 hours in the house of a beautiful widow of Djanamora. The family 

 of dedjas Hailo bore a close resemblance to that of Eichard, Cceur 

 de Lion, in which " fate condemned the lathers to hate their sons, 

 and the sons, their fathers." The bastard Oubie, disowned by his 

 father, at the death of that parent, succeeded in ejecting his brothers 

 scattered his uncles, and either fought in detail or brought into cle- 

 verly laid ambush, the brilliant and rash native feudal lords. About 

 1840, he exercised actual royal authority, from the environs of Mas- 

 saona to the gates of Gondar. Two men, alone, stood out against 

 him, ras or high constable Ali, master of Gondar and the central 

 provinces, and dedjas Gocho, a great baron, almost unassailable 

 among the mountains of Godjam. Oubie had a manifest superiority 

 over these two men. He had an object, that of replacing the dege- 

 nerate dynasty, lingering in the great deserted halls of the palace of 

 Gondar, and of restoring the line of warlike and conquering Negns, 

 who, for three centuries past, had been but an ironical memorial to 

 the present. As a formality indispensable to his coronation, he had 

 made sure of the interested concurrence of the ahouna or head of the 

 national church, and, strong in this support, he went to give battle 

 to ras Ali before his own residence of Deora Tabor. 



This battle, fought in 1841, might pass for a comedy had not hu« 

 man blood flowed in it. The ras, seeing his cavalry routed at the very 

 first charge, galloped away, and was only discovered a fortnight later, 

 hidden in a monastery among the mountains of Lasta. Three of his 

 generals, thinking all was'lost, went to the tent of Oubie in order to 

 give up their arras. They found him in a senseless state of intoxica- 

 tion, and taking advantage of his condition, bound him and carried 



• The titles oi dedjas (duke), ras (high constable), are placed, without an ar- 

 ticle, before the name of the person, as in the case of the English lord, and the 

 Spanish ion. 



