S6 THEODORE TI. AND THE 



I ask you to do honour to her wares ; and, if it be not very appetiz- 

 ing, accept my excuses therefor." And he forced tnem, trembling 

 and liappy to get off so easily, to drink, to the dregs, flagons of this 

 abominable purgative. 



This was followed by a new engagement, in which Menene fought 

 In person, and, wounded by a lance-thrust, fell into the power of 

 Kassa. If as Ali then besieged, in the heart of winter, the mountain 

 "which served for a stronghold to Onbie ; he left the siege, and came 

 in person to ask from the young conqueror the peace that he had 

 refused to Menene, and to the solicitations of Amara Konfou, one 

 of the shrewdest diplomatists of the country. Kassa consented to 

 treat, kept Gondar, released Menene, and, according to national 

 usage, gave his own mother as a guarantee of good faith. Kassa wa» 

 then in the condition of a half-rebel, which he could only maintain 

 by force of audacity. In his position of ras and master of the capi- 

 tal, the young chief did not fear to exact tribute from the powerful 

 prince Gocho, dedjas, and, almost, king of all the country surrounded 

 by the river Alsai in its vast upper curve. Gocho, brave, liberal, 

 and a friend of Europeans, was the truest type of the mokonnen, or 

 Abyssinian nobleman ; and> consequently, without more mind and 

 foresight than his fellows. Surprised and exasperated at this inso- 

 lence, he collected a good army, obtained from Kas Ali the investiture 

 of the conquests he was about to make, arrived upon the Dembea, 

 and succeeded in sweeping away the little army of Kassa who took 

 refuge in the low grounds {Jvolla) of his native province where he 

 lived, for a year, upon roots and wild fruits, while the conqueror in- 

 stalled himself in Gondar (1852). What most affected Kassa was, 

 that Gocho had found and plundered the pits which he had filled 

 with his favourite provisions, the cJiimhera, or Abyssinia pea. How- 

 ever, in October of the same year, he again took the field at the head 

 of a small army that he had disciplined by means of some Egyptian 

 fusileers, prisoners or deserters, after the expedition of Gallabat.. 

 He boldly offered battle to the powerful army of Gocho near Djenda, 

 on the north-west point of Lake Tana, and was overthrown at the 

 first charge. His men were taken or trodden down by the cavalry : 

 he himself took refuge, with fifteen followers, in a field of maize, 

 "where he placed them in ambush just as Gocho came upon him at the 

 gallop, and cried to his men in the excitement of victory : " Secure 

 this Jcollenya, this vagabond of the lowlands !" Hardly had GochO' 



