TO REMARKS UPON THE EMBASSY. 



impolitical letter of remonstrance on a previous 

 occasion ; the innocent writer of which, Mr. 

 Krapf, had already been made to feel the kingly 

 resentment by the ill-usage that gentleman received 

 from the chief, Adara Billee, when he endeavoured 

 to return to Shoa, after an unsuccessful attempt 

 to reach the city of Gondah. 



For the future, I shall endeavour to relate the 

 incidents of my residence in Shoa, with as little 

 allusion to politics as possible, but the reader must 

 excuse the few remarks I have already made, con- 

 vinced as I am, that the physical failure of the 

 expedition on the western coast of Africa, under 

 Capt. Trotter, is much less to be regretted, than 

 the great moral injury the cause of African civili- 

 zation and English influence in that continent 

 have sustained by the incapability of one man, 

 and the ill-judged proceedings which characterized 

 his ambassadorial career. I am not the proper 

 person, however, to sit in judgment upon any one ; 

 but I know from personal experience, that as 

 regards Southern Abyssinia, the merchant and the 

 missionary must now seek other situations for 

 carrying out their interesting and philanthropic 

 projects for the regeneration of Africa.* 



* I had fancied that the political tactics of the Shoan Embassy 

 were unparalleled in history. The " Heimskringha, " or " Chro- 

 nicles of the Kings of Norway," record, however, a somewhat 

 similar display of resplendent genius : — " At this time a king 

 called Athelstan had taken the kingdom of England. He sent 

 men to Norway to King Harold with the errand that the messen- 



