54f 
TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA. 
to make them forget the hardships through which 
they had passed. 
As soon as the missionaries were recruited from 
their fatigues, they began to enter upon their spi- 
ritual functions. They soon arrived at a village 
situated upon a mountain, from the chief of which 
the known favour of the emperor secured them a 
hospitable reception. But scarcely were they 
seated, when the whole neighbourhood began to 
echo with shrieks and lamentations, like those of 
persons involved in the most dreadful calamity. 
On inquiry, they learned that their arrival was 
the sole cause of this pitiable affliction. The in- 
habitants firmly believed, it seems, that they were 
the emissaries of the devil, and would certainly 
entrap a few of their countrymen, whose fate they 
were thus deploring. They were firmly assured 
also, that the course of the missionaries was 
speedily to be followed by clouds of grasshoppers 
(locusts), the scourge of the country, and the sure 
precursors of famine. There happened this year 
to be a peculiar inroad of these terrible insects, 
which led the people easily to credit the report ; 
never reflecting, says Lobo, " that the country 
" was tormented by locusts, before there were Je- 
*' suits in Abyssinia, or even in the world." It 
was also a firm article of belief, that the hosts 
administered in the sacrament were compounded 
of juices strained from the blood of the camel, the 
