A desire on the part, of the despot to preserve due respect in the eyes of his lieges, and perhaps also to imbue the minds of his foreign visitors with a befitting sense of his importance, were the most probable motives. Under the existing disappointment, it afforded some consolation to remember that embassies of old to Northern Abyssinia had experienced similar treatment, and to know that delegates to Shoa from the courts of Gondar and Tigre are never presented to the king until weeks after their arrival--a custom originating probably in the more kindly feeling of allowing rest to the way-worn traveller at the close of a long and perilous journey, but perpetuated for less worthy considerations. At length there came a pressing invitation to visit the monarch at Debra Berhan, coupled with an assurance that the Master of the Horse should be in attendance to escort the party. But no Master of the Horse was forthcoming at the time appointed, and the following day brought a pathetic billet from the palace--a tiny parchment scroll, enveloped in a sheet of wax, breathing in its contents regret and disappointment. "Son of my house, my heart longed to behold you, and I believed that you would come. As you appeared not, I passed the day in distress, fearing lest the waters should have carried you away, or that the mule had fallen on the road. I commanded Melkoo to wait and receive you, and to conduct you to me; but when I hoped to see you arrive, you stayed out. The mule returned; and when I inquired whither you were gone, they told me that you were left. I have committed the fault, in that I gave not orders that they should go down, and bring you." Meanwhile, the most vigorous attempts were made, on the part both of the Wulasma and of Ayto Wolda Hana, to exercise exclusive control over the baggage lodged at Alio Amba. Locks were placed upon the latches, and guards appointed over the doors of the houses wherein it was deposited-- fully as much care being taken to preclude access on the part of those by whom it had been brought, as if His Christian Majesty had already become the _bona fide_ proprietor. Repeated orders on the subject, obtained from the palace, were uniformly disregarded by the over-zealous functionaries, and it was only by force of arms that the repositories were finally burst open, and that charge of the contents could be resumed.