ch. xi WITH BRITISH MISSION TO KING MENELIII 281 
Mahomed. During the dance of David, Menelik had been 
sitting in the wooden gallery which runs completely round 
the building, half-way up, with Mr. Rodd sitting by his side 
and the rest of us standing round. He now shouldered a 
Winchester and marched, with the Mission following, three 
times round the gallery. 
The ceremonies closed with a feu de joie on a grand 
scale, the rifles, loaded with ball, being held perpendicularly 
in the hands and let off. The fire, beginning at the summit, 
ran down the ridges for miles where the soldiers had lined 
the road. 
Being separated from the rest of the Mission while returning 
to the plains through the dense mass of soldiers, and having let 
the royal procession, headed by the King’s red drummers seated 
on mules, and the dusty crowd pass, I was able unostentatiously 
to get some good photographs. The people were most friendly, 
and it was curious to see the long lines and mobs of white-clad 
figures, looking no larger than patches of sprinkled rice, moving 
down over the open hillsides or threading their way through 
the bushes. A carpet of grass covered alike the shoulders of 
the mountains, the valleys, and the plains below^, except where 
interrupted by ploughed fields and huts. Large trees were 
scattered singly, looking like elms at hedge-corners in England, 
and giving the country a homelike and tame but still beautiful 
appearance. The bushes and wildflowers looked and smelt 
remarkably English ; and during our stay at Addis-Abbaba we 
found mushrooms and ripe blackberries. 
An audience was granted by Queen Taitu, for whom we had 
brought a gold and emerald necklace. In return Queen Taitu 
committed to our care, as a present to Her Majesty, a heavy gold 
filigree necklace, which was a copy of one worn by all queens of 
Ethiopia, from the Queen of Sheba downwards. 
The presents to Menelik, the looking after and despatching 
of which from England had been one of my duties, included a 
few rifles, some scientific instruments, a quantity of massive 
plate, and several big-game rugs. The interest in the latter was 
enhanced from the fact that they were the skins of animals 
from the remotest parts of the British Empire, unknown in 
Abyssinia. They included a large Polar bear, black and brown 
bears, snow-leopard, and tiger. With the signing of the treaty, 
and the investiture of Menelik with the G.C.M.Gr. on 14th May, 
was concluded the business of the Mission in Addis-Abbaba. 
