Great umbrage was taken at our practice of toasting the wretched half-baked dough which we received, under the denomination of bread, from the royal stores; and a soldier who carried a metallic pitcher to the stream, was roundly taxed with having used charms to poison the water, which was consequently condemned as unfit for use until purified by the blessing of the priest. Predictions of the impending fate of Abyssinia were derived from the fact of the foreigners employing instruments which read the stars; and the despot was repeatedly and earnestly warned to be upon his guard. But His Majesty cut short these insinuations by threatening to extract the tongues of three or four of the maligners, and paid no attention whatever to the threat of excommunication extended to him by the fanatic clergy of Aramba, who had declared the ban of the Church to be the just punishment due for the admission into the empire "of red heretics, who ought carefully to be shunned, since they practised witchcraft, and by burning the king's bread threatened to bring a famine upon the land." Taking their cue from the feelings of the people, the Shoan sorcerers gave out that Sahela Selassie was to be the last of the Ethiopian dynasty, descended from the house of Solomon, who should sit upon the throne of his forefathers, and that a foreign king would come by way of Alio Amba to usurp the dominion. It is, amusing to trace the progress of these crafty insinuations among an ignorant and weak-minded people. In some of the northern provinces it was confidently asserted that the Sultan of the Mohammadans had already conquered Shoa, and that all the surrounding Moslem potentates were about to unite with him in a war of extermination against the Christians; whilst in others it was believed that an Alaka, or chief of the Gypts from Grand Cairo, had contrived to smuggle himself into the capital, carrying his sovereign in a box, and that after consulting the heavenly bodies until a favourable horoscope was presented, he stamped his foot upon the ground, which opened, and ten thousand red soldiers, with beards flowing to their girdles, springing forth out of the chasm, placed the aforesaid monarch upon the throne. "Now," said the magicians, "will Theodorus arise according to the tradition, that he will come in the latter days of -Ethiopia, and create a kingdom of Peace."