NEW EMPIRE OF ABYSSlNtA. 209 



■dignity -which marks some oriental faces -with the stamp of solemn insignificance. 

 His look is lively and piercing ; the fixed lines of the profile espress well the 

 ^rm will which has subjected to his yoke the freest and the least docile people of 

 the East. Rigorous towards others in point of etiquette, the Negus violates it in 

 his dress, and affects an air oi negligence which, however, never amounts to bad 

 taste. The simple cloak of a soldier, a pair of trowsers and a Bash in which are 

 his pistols and an English sabre, and over all a chama or embroidered toga form 

 Ills usual attire. Europeans, on being presented to him, show sometimes hesita- 

 tion in distinguishing him in the crowd of silk doublets (^balakamis) which 

 surround him, and commit mistakes which amuse him very much. This disdain 

 .for all luxurious studied elegance rules all his acts : the furniture of his tent is of 

 the most simple character, while his residences at Magdola and Devra-Tabor are 

 filled with silks and the cloths of France and India. Engaged in a campaign, he 

 carries the black and coarse shield of the foot soldier, while a page beai's at his 

 side the state shield, which is covered with blue velvet and strewed with 

 imperial fleurs-de-lis. 



What strikes one most in Theodore, is a happy union of suppleness and force, 

 especially the latter. Naturally haughty, violent, and addicted to pleasure, he 

 Tules his passions in this respect, that they never caus« him to go beyond the 

 bounds he has formed. He has been 'sinjustly charged with di-unkenn^ss, and I 

 have received on this point information which I had reason to believe more true. 

 He is temperate, eats little, and never drinks to an excess, still less to a brutal 

 state of intoxieation, more worthy of a Jolof or Mandingo king than of a sovereiga 

 of Christian Abyssinia. As for women they have never had the least influence 

 over his public life. I except, however, his first wife, the good and regretted 

 Tzoobedji, for whom he had a sort of worship. She was, besides, the faithful 

 companion of his days of suffering, and when he lost her, seven or eight vears 

 ago, he saw in this death a punishment which heaven inflicted on him for having 

 burat a woman alive at Godjam. Tsoobedji had kept him in the simple life and 

 in the pious customs of an Abyssinian of ancient times, and when she died, be 

 lived 1 8 months in the most strict continence. 



An ambitious marriage has been the indirect cause of the dsiorders which have 

 since arisen. To settle the claims of the house of Oubie, he married, about six 

 years ago, the daughter of Oubie, the young and beautiful Toroneche, who had, 

 throughout all Abyssinia, the name of an accomplishejj princess. Witty, educa- 

 ted, and charming, she had scarcely any defect, but an obstinate pride, which is 

 a failing common enough among the Abyssinians of a certain rank. For two or 

 three years the most perfect concord prevailed in their home. Theodore had for 

 his charming companion a tenderness mingled with a large amount of pride, and 

 when she presented him with a son, he assembled all the grandees in a iheatrieal 

 fete, where he showed them the new-born, and said : "Here is he who will rule 

 over you 1" It is doubtful whether the persons present took this remark m 

 earnest, against which the elder sons of the JSTegus might justly have protested. 

 "One day at the feast of Easter, the princess asked her husband for the pardon of 

 some chiefs of Tigr6, who had been kept in irons for their attachment to Oubi6. 

 This proper request excited the suspicions of the Negus to the highest pitcfc. 

 Vol. X. 



