This thorn, like many men we meet daily in society, has got itself into a degree of reputation and respect from the noxious qualities and power of doing ill which it possesses, and the constant exertion of these powers. The Abyssinians, who wear coarse cotton cloths, the coarsest of which are as thick as our blankets, the finest equal to our muslin, are in the same degree annoyed with it. The soldier screens himself by a goat’s, leopard, or lion’s skin, thrown over his shoulder, of which it has no hold. As his head is bare, he always cuts his hair short before he goes to battle, lest his enemy should take advantage of it; but the women, wearing their hair long, and the great men, whether in the army or travelling in peace, being always cloathed, it never fails to incommode them, whatever species of raiment they wear. If their cloak is fine muslin, the least motion against it puts it all in rags; but if it is a thick, soft cloth, as those are with which men of rank generally travel, it buries its thorns, great and small, so deep in it that the wearer must either dismount and appear naked, which to principal people is a great disgrace, or else much time will be spent before he can disengage himself from its thorns. In the time when one is thus employed, it rarely fails to lay hold of you by the hair, and that again brings on another operation, full as laborious, but much more painful than the other. In the course of my history, when speaking of the king, Tecla Haimanout II. first entering Gondar after his exile into Tigré, I gave an instance that shewed how dangerous it was for the natives to leave this thorn standing; and of such consequence is the clearing of the ground thought to be, that every year when the king marches, among the necessary proclamations this is thought to be a very principal one, “Cut down the Kantuffa in the four quarters of the world, for I do not know where I am going.” This proclamation, from the abrupt stile of it, seems at first absurd to stranger ears, but when understood is full of good sense and information. It means, Do not sit gossiping with your hands before you, talking, The king is going to Damot, he certainly will go to Gojam, he will be obliged to go to Tigré. That is not your business, remove nuisances out of his way, that he may go as expeditiously as possible, or send to every place where he may have occasion. The branches of the Kantuffa stand two and two upon the stalk; the leaves are disposed two and two likewise, without any single one at the point, whereas the branches bearing the leaves part from the stalk: at the immediate joining of them are two thick thorns placed perpendicular and parallel alternately; but there are also single ones distributed in all the interstices throughout the branch.