He had been the playmate of the little grandson of Nasr, the son of her daughter Dauer, and was presented to me under the name of Rehân, the Arabic name for the sweet-smelling basil. It was added, that he was from the district of Makâdi, on the Abyssinian frontier, whence the most intelligent and faithful slaves generally came. This district is under Christian dominion, and is inhabited by Christians and Mahommedans, in separate villages. The former call themselves Nazâra (Nazarenes) or Amhâra (Amharic Christians), the latter Giberta. Of these Giberta children are often stolen from their own race and from among their neighbours, and sold to Arabic slave-dealers; for, in the interior of Abyssinia, the slave trade is strictly prohibited. This account of the lad, however, was soon found to be untrue, and was only invented to preclude the blame of offering me a Christian slave; while, on the contrary, it would seem much more wrong to deliver me a Mahommedan. The boy first told our Christian cook, and then me, that he was of Christian parentage, had received the name Rehân here, and that his real name was Gabre Mariam, _i. e._ in Abyssinian, “Slave of Maria.” His birth-place is near Gondar, the metropolis of Amhâra. He seems to belong to a distinguished family, for the place Bamba, which is denoted by Bruce in the vicinity of Lake Tzana, according to his story, belonged to his grandfather, and his father, who is now dead, had many flocks, which he himself had often driven to the pasturage. When he was somewhat far off his dwelling with them one day, about three or four years ago, he was stolen by mounted Bedouins, carried to the village of Waldakarel, and, afterwards sold to King Idris Adlân, who had given him to his sister Nasr. He is a handsome, but very dark-coloured boy, about eight or nine years of age, but much more advanced than a child of that age would be with us. The girls marry here at the age of eight. He wears his hair in innumerable little plaits, which must be redone and anointed at least once a month, by a woman understanding it; his body, too, is rubbed with fat from time to time. His whole clothing consists of a great white cloth that he fastens round the hips, and throws over his shoulders. I now call him by his Christian name, and shall bring him to Europe with me. Saïd Hashim tried his utmost to induce us to remain a few more days in Wed Médineh. On the first evening he invited us to his house with a number of the most considerable Turks, and had a number of female dancers to show us the national dances of the country, which consist chiefly in movements of the upper part of the body and the arms, as they are found on the Egyptian monuments, yet differing from the present Egyptian dances, which are made up of very ungraceful and lascivious movements and motions of the hips and legs.