THE SOURCE OF THE NILE 303 
though it would not have been agreeable to have told her 
fo, for fhe loved to be thought ill, to be attended, and flat- 
tered ; {he was, however, in thefe circumftances, fo perfect- 
ly good, fo converfable, fo elegant in all her manners, that 
her phyfician would have been tempted to wifh never to fee 
her well. 
Sue was then with child by Ras Michael ; and the late- 
feftival, upon her niece’s marriage with Powuflen of Begem- 
der, had been much too hard for her conftitution, always 
weak and delicate fince her firft misfortunes, and the death 
of Mariam Barea. After giving her my advice, and direct- 
ing her women how to adminifter what I was to fend her, 
the doors of the tent were thrown open; all our friends 
ccame flocking round us, when we prefently faw that the 
interval employed in confultation had not been fpent ufe- 
lefsly, for a. moft abundant breakfaft was produced in wood-. 
en platters upon the carpet. There were excellent ftewed’ 
fowls, but fo inflamed with Cayenne pepper as a!moft to 
blifter the mouth; fowls dreffled with boiled wheat, juft 
once broken in the middle, in the manner they are prepa- 
red in India, with rice called dillaw, this, too, abundantly 
charged with pepper; Guinea hens, roafted hard without 
butter, or any: fort of fauce, very white, but as tough as lea- 
ther; above all, the never-failing drind, for fo they call the 
collops of raw beef, without which nobody could have been 
fatisfied ; but, what was more agreeable to me, a large quan-. 
taty of wheat-bread, of Dembea flour, equal in all its quali-. 
ties to the beft in London or Paris.. 
Tue Abyflinians fay, you muft plant firft and then water; 
nobody, therefore, drinks till they have finifhed eating 3. 
Vou, Uy gull) after 
QJ 
