jo APPENDIX. 



the wearer muft either difmount and appear naked, which 

 to principal people is a great difgrace, or elfe much time 

 will be fpent before he can difengage himfelf from its 

 thorns. In the time when one is thus employed, it rarely 

 fails to lay hold of you by the hair, and that again brings 

 on another operation, full as laborious, but much more 

 painful than the other. 



In the courfe of my hiftory, when fpeaking of the king, 

 Tecla Haimanout II. firft entering Gondar after his exile 

 into Tigre, I gave an inflance that mewed how dangerous 

 it was for the natives to leave this thorn Handing; and of fuch 

 confequence is the clearing of the ground thought to be, 

 that every year when the king marches, among the necef- 

 fary proclamations this is thought to be a very principal one, 

 " Cut down the KantufFa in the four quarters of the world, 

 for I do not know where I am going." This proclamation, 

 from the abrupt ftile of it, feems at firft abfurd to ftranger 

 ears, but when underftood is full of good fenfe and informa- 

 tion. It means, Do not fit goniping with your hands before 

 you, talking, The king is going to Damot, he certainly will 

 go to Gojam, he will be obliged to go to Tigre. That is not 

 your bufinefs, remove nuifances out of his way, that he may 

 go as expeditioufly as pouible, or fend to every place where 

 he may have occafion. 



The branches of the KantufFa ftand two and two upon the 

 ftalk ; the leaves are difpofed two and two likewife, without 

 any fingle one at the point, whereas the branches bearing 

 the leaves part from the flalk : at the immediate joining of 

 them are two thick thorns placed perpendicular and parallel 

 4 alternately, 



