TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA. 
of every age, and even a number of infants, were 
admitted. Amid these candidates for clerical dig- 
nity, there was a continued lamentation, " like the 
" crying of so many young kids/' on account of 
the mothers being absent, and their being left a 
whole day without suck. The ceremonies were 
here various, but the principal consisted in pulling 
out a tuft of hair from the forehead. The most 
hazardous part of the operation was the swallowing 
of the host, which, consisting of coarse dough, could 
scarcely, though accompanied with a large quantity 
of water, be got over these tender throats without 
choking. 
Alvarez and his companions soon after set 
out on their return to Portugal ; but the season 
proving unfavourable, they found it more comfort- 
able to return to court ; and having made them- 
selves more agreeable than at first to the young 
monarch, they remained for several years. On the 
28th April 1526, they set sail, accompanied by 
Zaga Zabo, an Abyssinian, who came as ambassa- 
dor to Portugal. An account of his embassy, and 
a treatise on the manners of the Ethiopians, derived 
from his information, were afterwards published by 
Damian Goez. 
* In 1535, Abuna Marcos, the patriarch of Abys- 
sinia, being at the point of death, the king pre- 
* Purchas, III. 9, 
