1843.] and the Abyssinian Church. 659 



your time ? Are you well ? Are you very well ? Are you perfectly well 

 together with a thousand other pert interrogatives to be made acquaint- 

 ed with their private condition, and at each response the Deity must be 

 invoked as to the great happiness and perfect felicity which have been ex- 

 perienced since last sight. Should the meeting take place twenty times a 

 day the same ceremony is enforced, and for each progressive state of 

 morning, noon and eve, there exists a distinct set of phrases, which from 

 their continual repetition sound grating upon the senses. Passengers 

 stand in the streets and roar out salutations intended for the inmates 

 and huts a hundred yards from the hedge. You are startled from your 

 sleep by a dunning — How are you ? from some gentleman passing be- 

 fore day dawn to his country residence, and your ears are afflicted from 

 morning sun till evening, by a most teasing and harassing string of 

 enquiry, from every one who passes himself off as an acquaintance. 



114. The buldurba, or introducer, is appointed from amongst the re- 

 tinue of every one who keeps an establishment, on the first introduction 

 of the parties. To him, and to him alone can the visitor look for ad- 

 mittance into the house, and unless he is present, the monarch and the 

 great man are alike invisible. Court-yards may be thronged with many 

 attendants, and doors may seem invitingly accessible ; but the " open 

 sesame" is wanting, and the stranger returns to his own abode disgusted 

 with the insolence as well as inconvenience of the custom. Time, how- 

 ever, softens down the rigidity of the practice, which is at first so per- 

 tinaciously observed ; suspicion of evil intention gives way, on better 

 acquaintance of character, and after a certain probation. There is much 

 more difficulty experienced in gaining admittance into the lordly Abys- 

 sinian hut than into the lordly halls of an English nobleman. 



115. Suspicion may also be easily traced in the custom of all great 

 people moving from their domiciles with a long train of armed attend- 

 ants, as in the height of Highland anarchy. The tail of the McGregor was 

 seldom of longer dimensions than that of an Abyssinian nobleman. In- 

 deed he is never allowed to be by himself, whether in the cabinet or in 

 the field he is invariably surrounded by a numerous band of mean syco- 

 phantish attendants. The custom of the country enjoins the practice, 

 the cheap price of provisions enables him to feed a large population and 

 the lack of all manufactories, supply an unlimited number of idlers, who 

 are willing to obtain a livelihood in any manner whatever. But the 



