There are some strange remnants of Judaism still lingering amongst the tribes of these highland regions. The Galla have a tradition, that their whole nation will one day be called on to march, _en masse_, and reconquer Palestine for the return of the Jews. The king of Shoa regards himself as a direct descendant of the house of Solomon, calls himself king of Israel, and the national standard bears the motto, "The Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed." They believe the 45th Psalm to be a prophecy of Queen Magueda's visit to Jerusalem; whither she was attended by a daughter of Hiram, king of Tyre. The Jewish prohibitions against the flesh of unclean animals, are observed by the Abyssinians. The sinew which shrank, and the eating of which was prohibited to the Israelite, is also prohibited in Shoa. The Jewish Sabbath is strictly observed. The Abyssinians are said, by Ludolf, to be the greatest fasters in the world. The Wednesdays and Fridays are fasts; the forty days before Easter are rigidly observed as a fast; and from the Thursday preceding Easter till the Sunday, no morsel of meat is to enter the lips, and the prohibition against drink is equally rigorous. St Michael and the Virgin Mary are venerated in the highest degree; St Michael as the leader of the hosts of heaven, and the latter as the chief of all saints, and queen of heaven and earth, and both as the great intercessors of mankind. Like the Jews of old, the Abyssinians weep and lament on all occasions of death; and the shriek ascends to the sky, as if the soul could be recalled from the world of spirits. As with the Jews, the most inferior garments are employed as the weeds of woe; and the skin torn from the temples, and scarified on the cheeks and breast, proclaims the last extremity of grief. As the Rabbins believe that angels were the governors of all sublunary things, the Abyssinians adopt this belief: carrying it even further, they confidently implore their assistance in all concerns, and invoke and adore them in a higher degree than the Creator. The clergy enjoy the price of deathbed confession; and the churchyard is sternly denied to all who die without the rite, or whose relations refuse the fee and the funeral feast. Eight pieces of salt are the price of wafting a poor man's soul to the place of rest, and the feast for the dead places him in a state of happiness, according to the cost of the entertainment. For the rich, money procures the attendance of priests, who absolve, and pray continually day and night. The anniversaries of the deaths of the six kings of Shoa are held with great ceremony in the capital; and once every twelvemonth, before a splendid feast, their souls are absolved from all sin.