340 ABYSSINIAN MORALITY. 



laughing and looking quite happy at being rein- 

 stated, and without the least trace of sorrow or 

 contrition in her countenance. 



This apparent lack of morality amongst the 

 Shoans, like their Church history, is quite beyond 

 my understanding. Yet even as respects this, 

 a person educated in the more correct principles of 

 what is considered to constitute social happiness, 

 does not perceive in Shoa that violence done to 

 propriety, which similar conduct in many of 

 the southern states in Europe is apt to excite. 

 The loose habits and indiscriminate intrigue, 

 which displeased me when I witnessed it among 

 the inhabitants of various countries situated 

 upon the northern shores of the Mediterranean, 

 only occasioned a smile when I observed it in 

 Abyssinia. Among the former it was the preten- 

 sion and affectation of virtue that made their sins 

 stand in bolder comparison as vices, than a somewhat 

 similar course of conduct among the simple, good- 

 natured inhabitants of the latter country, who have 

 no public opinion to propitiate, or, on the other 

 hand, to control them, and whose naturally yielding 

 disposition renders them too prone to indulgence ; 

 where also, let it be recollected, religion applies no 

 curb, for the priests themselves in Shoa have had 

 the decency to cease preaching that, which they 

 never pretend to practise. 



I was not many weeks upon the banks of the 

 Ganges, and had not many opportunities of 



