254 EPISCOPAL SALIVA. 



From that time Abyssinia became a military kingdom. 

 As the princes of Numidia had used elephants after 

 the destruction of the Carthaginian republic, so the 

 Abyssinians used them in pageantry and war long 

 after the days of the Ptolemies, who had first shown 

 them how the huge beasts might be entrapped. Hin- 

 doos were probably employed by the Ptolemies, as 

 they were by tbe Carthagenians, for the management 

 of the elephantine stud. In the fourth century 

 two shipwrecked Christians converted the king and 

 his people to the new religion — a beneficial event, 

 for thus they were brought into connection with the 

 Roman empire. Tbe patriarch of Alexandria was the 

 Abyssinian pope, as he is at the present day ; and 

 during all these years he has never ceased to send 

 them their Aboona or Archbishop. This ecclesiastic is 

 regarded with much reverence ; he costs six thousand 

 dollars ; he is never allowed to smoke ; and, by way of 

 blessing, he spits upon his congregation, who believe 

 that the episcopal virtue resides in the saliva, and not, 

 as we think, in the fingers' ends. 



Abyssinia had still its ancient sea-port in Annesley 

 Bay, and sent trading vessels to the India coast. The 

 Byzantine emperor having made his proposals through 

 the Patriarch of Alexandria, and having received from 

 the Negus a favourable reply, despatched a fleet of 

 transports down the Red Sea ; the king filled them 

 with his brigand troops ; Yemen was invaded and 

 subdued, and now it was the Christians who began to 

 persecute. Another Arab prince ran off for help, and 

 he went to the Persian king, who at first refused to 

 take the country as a gift, saying it was too distant 

 and too poor. However, at last he ordered the prisons 

 to be opened, and placed all the able-bodied convicts 



