734 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
extravagantly fond; if he does not cat, ill-fortune is near at 
band. 
Nanna Georais, chief of the Agows of Banja, a man of 
the greateft confideration at Gondar, both with the king and 
Ras Michael, and my particular friend, as I had kept him in 
my houfe, and attended him in his ficknefs, after the cam- 
paign of 1769, confeffed to me his apprehenfions that he 
fhould die, becaufe the ferpent did not eat upon his leaving 
his houfe to come to Gondar. He was, indeed, very ill of 
the low country fever, and very much alarmed; but he re- 
covered, and returned home, by Ras Michael’s order, to ga- 
ther the Agows together again{ft Waragna Fafil; which he 
did, and foon after, he and other feven chiefs of the Agows 
were flain at the battle of Banja; fo here the ferpent’s warn- 
ing was verified by a fecond trial, though it failed in the 
firft. 
BeroreE an invafion of the Galla, or an inroad of the ene- 
my, they fay thefe ferpents difappear, and are nowhere to 
be found. Fafil, the fagacious and cunning governor of 
the country, was, as it was faid, greatly addiéted to this 
fpecies of divination, in fo much as never to mount his 
horfe, or go from home, if an animal of this kind, which he 
had in his keeping, refufed to eat. 
THE Shum’s name was Kefla Abay, or Servant of the ri- 
ver; he wasaman about feventy, not very lean, but infirm, 
fully as much fo as might have been expected from that 
age. He conceived that he might have had eighty-four or 
eighty-five children. That honourable charge which he 
poffelfed had been in his family from the beginning of the 
2 world, 
