46 ATROCIOUS TYRANNY 



effect of restoring him to perfect good humour : 

 indeed, to show his regard for us, much to our 

 surprise, he directed- some of his attendants to 

 liberate the unfortunate messenger who had been 

 detected bringing me a letter the day before Mr. 

 Scott's arrival, and who, we conceived, had returned 

 to Ankobar, according as had been stated on one of 

 our first visits by the Wallasmah himself. Instead 

 of this being the fact, we now found that the poor 

 fellow had been the whole time confined in his 

 thatched lock-up, and supplied with a scanty fare 

 of the worst kind of bread and water. I felt very 

 sorry for him when he came staggering out of 

 prison, with blood-shot eyes and squalid look ; and 

 it was with feelings of pity rather than of contempt, 

 that I witnessed the broken spirited man, with 

 shoulders bare, and with the most abject submission, 

 stoop and kiss the earth at the feet of his unjust and 

 tyrannical oppressor. The Wallasmah, with the 

 penetrating glance of suspicious cunning, read in 

 my countenance the detestation I felt at such 

 unwarrantable conduct on his part, and muttered 

 in excuse, something about the man having been 

 " one of Krapf's servants," as if he considered that 

 quite a sufficient pretext for the harshest treatment. 

 The Mahomedans of Efat fully believe, that the 

 exhortations of that zealous missionary alone pre- 

 vented the Negoos from changing his religion ; as, 

 shortly before his arrival in Shoa, a Koran and a 

 mollum to expound it to the Christian monarch, 

 had been sent for to the palace. 



