190 CRUELTY OF WUSSEN SAGGAD. 



arbitrary power placed in the hands of a really 

 good man. 



Although now experiencing the advantages of 

 virtue and wisdom directing the actions of Sahale 

 Selassee, the Shoans of the last generation were 

 exposed to the evils arising from the very opposite 

 character, and have had opportunities of com- 

 parison between the disposition of the present 

 Negoos and the severe and merciless tyrant who 

 preceded him. All the older men who recollect 

 the rule of Wussen Saggad abound with tales of 

 the severe punishments, often unmerited, or 

 inflicted for moral faults of omission in duty, 

 rather than for the commission of actual 

 crimes ; which, in fact, as might be naturally 

 expected under such a tyrant, were often 

 perpetrated by those of his courtiers, who more par- 

 ticularly shared his favours. I saw some horrid 

 cases of the excision of noses, and of obliteration 

 of sight; unfortunates who had been doomed to 

 these punishments by their tyrannical master, in- 

 truding themselves upon the traveller who visits 

 Shoa, in the vain hope of receiving some medical 

 relief. In one instance, I was requested by Sahale 

 Selassee himself to do what I could to relieve one 

 of these objects of his father's cruelty, in whom the 

 rude excision of the nose had been followed by a 

 spreading cancerous sore over the whole face. 



By these reflections and observations, noted down 

 when I was more than usually put out of my way 



