496 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
za to Ras Michael at his dinner and fupper: low men are al- 
ways employed on fuch errands, that they may not, from 
their confequence excite a defire of vengeance. The mef- 
fage that he brought was to order bread and beer to be rea- 
dy for 30,000 men who were coming with the king, as he 
had juft decamped from before ‘the mountain Haramat, 
which he had taken, and put Za Menfus to the fword, 
with every man that was in it: this meffage ftruck the 
queen with fuch a terror that fhe was not vifible the whole 
«lay. 
ArTerR afking the meffenger if he had any word from 
‘tthe king to me, he faid, “ Very little ;” that the king had 
called him to tell me he fhould foon begin his march by 
Beleffen; and that he would fend for me to meet him when 
he fhould arrive at Mariam-Ohha; he told me befides, that 
the king had got.a ftone for me with writing upon it of 
old times, which he was bringing to me; that it had been 
dug up at Axum, and was ftanding at the foot of his bed, 
but that he did not order him to tell me this, and had only 
learned it from the fervants. My curiofity was very much 
raifed to know what this ftone could be, but I foon faw it 
was in vain to-endeavour to learn any thing from Guebra 
Chriftos ; he anfwered in the affirmative to every inquiry: 
when I afked if it was blue, it was blue; and if black, it was 
biack; 1t ‘was round, and fquare, and oblong, juft as I put 
my queftion to him: all he knew about it at laft, he faid, was, 
tat it cured all fort of ficknefs ; and, if a man ufed it pro-- 
perly, it made him invulnerable and immortal: he did not, 
however, pretend to warrant this himfelf, but {wore he had 
the account from a prieft of Axum who knew it. I was 
perfectly fatisfied all further inquiry was unneceflary ; he 
I had 
