Meanwhile arrived a special messenger, bearing reiterated compliments from the Negoos, with a horse and a mule from the royal stud, attired in the peculiar trappings and colours which in Shoa pertain solely to Majesty. The bridles and breastplates glittered with studs and bosses of polished metal; gay embroidery in coloured worsted covered the saddle-cloth of the mule, and a collection of silver chains, jingles, and bells, encircled her neck. At sight hereof women and girls enveloped in blood-red shifts, who had thronged to the busy scene to stare at the white strangers, at once burst into a loud scream of acclamation. A group of hooded widows, occupying an adjacent public asylum, thrust their fingers into their ears, and joined in the clamour. Escort and camel-drivers, now at their journey's end, had placed no bounds to their hilarity. A fat ox that had been promised was turned loose among the spectators--pursued by fifty savages with gleaming creeses--and ham-strung by a dexterous blow, which threw it bellowing to the earth in the height of its mad career. The rival clans of lean curs, that are respectively quartered on the dung-heaps of the twin hills, and suffer no intrusion into each other's domains, rushed to the neutral ground, and forthwith commenced an indiscriminate engagement over the garbage; and whilst Debtera Tekla Zion, still counting and recounting, amended his long list with untiring perseverance, crowds of porters and lounging visitors added the mite of their united voices to the din, tumult, and intolerable uproar which continued until close of day. Predatory incursions of the Galla upon the Argobba frontier are frequent, and not many weeks had passed away since six of the king's liege subjects were murdered within the precincts of the encamping ground. In defiance of tempestuous weather, two European soldiers and an officer had been on guard without shelter during every night of the long and tedious march, and the sergeant of the escort had every hour personally relieved the sentries: but the exposed position of the baggage, added to the evil character borne by the spot, and the experience already gained at Dinomali, still precluded the discontinuance of watch and ward, whereof all were heartily weary.