THE KINGDOM OF SHOA. 185 



by the sagacious monarch, has reduced all his 

 people to the most abject state of submission, 

 dependent upon him for every kind of property 

 they possess. Most fortunately for them, he is a 

 just and good man, for he can give and take away 

 at pleasure ; and thus holding wealth and honour in 

 one hand, and poverty and wretchedness in the 

 other, he has made himself the point upon which 

 turns human happiness ; and that kind of demon 

 worship which propitiates spirits supposed to have 

 the power of inflicting evil is, in consequence, paid 

 to Sahale Selassee, who could at any moment 

 reduce to a beggar the richest, and most powerful 

 of his slaves. 



It is no fiction of the Shoan law, that everything 

 in the country is the positive property of the monarch. 

 He can, without assigning any reason, dispossess 

 the present holder and confer his wealth upon 

 another, or retain it for his own use. He can 

 demand the services of all his people at all times, 

 who must perforin everything required of them, 

 to build palaces, construct bridges, till the royal 

 demesnes, or fight his enemies. They are, from 

 first to last, both rich and poor, the mere slaves of 

 one sole lord and master, and scarcely a day passes 

 over but in some way or other the most wealthy are 

 obliged to confess it, or run the risk of being 

 denounced as an enemy to the sovereign, which 

 would be followed by confiscation of all property, or 

 incarceration in Guancho. the State prison, with a 



