NEW EMPIRE OF ABYSSINIA. fl 



to the complaints of tlie former : " What do you want, ray friend ? 

 your pot has been broken by a kick from a mule !" The Negus had 

 tact enough not to break the law with regard to these audacious 

 perverters of justice, and to receive their resignation from themselves. 

 In a matter in which he was personally interested, he assembled the 

 lihuouent, and laying the question before them, asked what the code 

 decided. " Sire," replied the judges, " the code is your majesty." 

 He took them at their word, and suppressed their jurisdiction, leav- 

 ing them an honorary life, title and annuity, and substituting himself 

 in their place as a court of appeal for the whole empire. In view of 

 the quibbling character of the Abyssinian people, such a labour 

 would have frightened any other than* this indefatigable worker. I 

 have personally been in a position to judge of Theodore's great 

 activity, as attested by other travellers. After a prolonged vigil, 

 the Negus would take three or four hours of sleep, interrupted, from 

 two o'clock in the morning, by the numerous pleaders who came 

 to take their places, uttering a cry which represents the Naro of 

 the Normans : Djan-ho, djan-ho, djan-Jidi ! (majesty ! majesty !). 

 The suits commenced almost immediately, and were, sometimes, not 

 over till ten o'clock. A square composed of officers, soldiers, and 

 Buitors, awaiting their turn, formed the audience. This expeditioua 

 open-air justice, has been one of the principal causes of the popula- 

 rity of the Negus : it was severe in great matters, jocular in small. 

 One day a peasant was pleading against the tcheha (mayor) of his 

 village, who had called him donkoro (blockhead), an injury provided 

 for in the code. ''You must pay the fine," said the Negias to the 

 mayor;" "there should he no blockheads in my realm." Another 

 day, they brought him a soldier who had murdered two merchants 

 upon the road. " What did you kill them for ?" asked the Negus. 

 '* Because I was hungry." " But could you not, at least, only have 

 taken from them what was necessary, and spared their lives ?" " If 

 I had not killed them," replied the soldier innocently, " they would 

 have defended their property." The emperor, exasperated at this 

 ingenuous remark, had both his hands cut ofi" : had them served upon 

 a plate, and said to him : " Ah, you were hungry ? Well ! eat !" 



This Draconian system had immediate effects. The roads, up to 

 that time drenched with gore by robbery and civil war, now became as 

 eecure as those of France and Germany. An inhabitant of Djenda 

 informed me, that the year before, not a single market day passed in 



