ANT ALO. 
oiir departure, the Ras appeared to be much depressed, wished 
me to keep continually near him, and often fixed his eyes upon 
me with a sorrowful expression, repeatedly inquiring, if I should 
ever again return to the country.'' To which I answered, with 
sdme degree of reluctance, that I believed, I should never 
again undertake the voyage." I found, that a dream, which he had 
had a few nights before, had left a strange impression, respect- 
ing me upon his mind. He fancied, that he was sitting on the 
brow of a hill, and, that he saw me, in a plain below, passing 
along and sowing grain with both hands, and that the corn 
sprung up instantaneously round me in great profusion ; while, 
at the same instant, he perceived, that his lap was full of gold/' 
It is astonishing what an etFect trifling circumstances of this de- 
scription produce in a country where the minds of the inhabi-i 
tants are deeply tinged with superstition and a love of scriptural 
lore. 
In the course of the ensuing night, we paid our last visit to the 
Ras : he was much affected, and the parting was painful on both 
sides. During the visit, he again expressed, in the strongest terms, 
his gratitude to our Sovereign, for regarding the welfare of so 
remote a country ; and professed his most anxious wish to en- 
courage, by every means in his power, an intercourse with Great 
Britain ; at the same time, expressing with great sincerity his 
fears, that the country which he commanded might not be able 
to supply any quantity of valuable commodities sufficient to re- 
compense our merchants for engaging in so precarious a trade ; 
more especially as the Abyssinia ns were not much acquainted 
with commercial transactions, and the unsettled state of the 
