210 THEODORE II, AND THE 



" Do you pay," he replied, " that you prefer your father to me?" "Perhaps so," 

 answi'red the proud princess. Sbe had scarcely spoken when she received a 

 Tiolent blow upon her cheek. Bell, who wished to interfere, received another • 

 Oubie, who, since the marriage, had regained favour, was put in irons, and has 

 not yet recovered his liberty. Moreover the Negus, to sting his wife to the quick? 

 took immediately four favorites from the lowest ranks. This first freak having 

 passed, he dismissed them all, except one, a woman of Jedjo-Gallas, who has 

 none of thf physical or moral charms of Toroneche, but who skilfully retains her 

 capricious lover by many cares and attentions which the haughty Toroneehe was so 

 imprudent as to despise. What shows clearly the debasement of the national 

 character is, that the people who surrounded the Negus have sided with him ir* 

 this scandalous act. The church alone protests by the voice of some bold priests. 

 At Easter, Theodore II., obliged, for the sake of decorurr>, to receive the sacra- 

 ment, obtains absolution only on condition of changing hi<? conduct. He thers 

 goes and sees the iteghe, who still has some influence over him, for he is proud, in 

 spite of his faithlessness, of being the husband of a woman so much adroired. He 

 passes an hour listening to tbe most biting and harsh truths, and if sometimes be 

 becomes angry and threatens, the iteghe coolly reminds him that a neg.us has never 

 killed his wife, and that she is well assured' that be will not begin. 



Theodore then returned somewhat ashamed to his little eourt, makes a publie 

 confession, declares "that he is the most scandalous sinner in Ethiopia, that he is 

 80 in spite of himself, that it is a victory of the demon, a victory which should 

 make us all feel our weakness and our nothingness." Finally he promises that he 

 will try to do better, and dismiss the favorite. Easter over, he retakes her, and 

 adds Hometimies another. 



In these faults, eveyrthing with the Negus is destined for effect. He is theatrical, 

 fakereo^ as the Abyssians say ; the shade of meaning is rendered in the great Latin, 

 comedy by glorios'us. No one has more than he the attitude, the gesture^ the voice of 

 royalty which commands; he presides admirably over an assembly, and his elo- 

 quence, lively and colored, rarely fails in its object. Witb an assumed contempt 

 for literary men, whom he calls azmari (stage players), he is himself one of the 

 first order ; he has cultivated very much the Amharie, the common language of 

 Abyssinia (1), and competent judges have assured me that his letters are models- 

 in this language. He likes to write ; his letters, of a mystical form and often ob- 

 scure, are master-pieces of African diplomacy. In them it is very necessary, as- 

 it is said, to read between the lines. 



The name of Cromwell has often occurred to my mind when bearing the Negus^ 

 gpeak or when reading his letters. He recalls the famous protector by the theo- 

 logical pathos in which he envelopes the inspirations of bis mysterious policy. He 

 evidently retains, without his knowledge, the impressions of his early scholastic 

 and monachal education. With him, the theologian has dictated to the sovereign 

 impolitic acts and useless deeds of severity, as the affair of Azago at the begin- 

 ning of his reign. I have said that Azago was a little town of theologieaJ 

 merchants, who held upon the nature of Christ a very subtle opinion slightly 



(1) The language of books is especially the yhif, a dead one which the clergy and lawyers 

 speak and write. It is the Latin of Abyssinia. 



