Late in the evening while our traveller was sitting quietly in his apartment reading the book of the prophet Enoch, Ayto Aylo, the queen’s chamberlain, who probably had never before been in the Moorish town, came, accompanied by a number of armed attendants, to visit him. This man, a zealous protector of strangers, and who was desirous, as he said, to end his days in pious seclusion either at Jerusalem or Rome, after a long contest of civilities and a protracted conversation, informed Bruce that the queen-mother, who had heard of his abilities as a physician, was desirous he should undertake the treatment of a young prince then lying ill of the small-pox at the palace of Koscam. On proceeding thither next morning, however, he learned that the patient had been placed under the care of a saint from Waldubba, who had undertaken to cure him by writing certain mystical characters upon a tin-plate with common ink, and then, having washed them off with a medicinal preparation, giving them to the sick man to drink. Upon Bruce’s second visit to the palace he was presented to the queen-mother, who, after some rambling conversation respecting Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, Mount Calvary, &c., demanded of him bluntly whether he were not a Frank, by which they mean a Catholic. The traveller, in reply, swore to her by all the truths in the Bible, which she had then on a table before her, that his religion was more different from that of the Roman Catholics than her own. The old lady appeared to be convinced by his asseverations, and he shortly afterward took his leave. That same evening the prince, as well as his daughter, who had likewise been seized by the contagion, died of the small-pox in spite of the saints of Waldubba; and Bruce had to congratulate himself that these honest jugglers had taken the weight of the odium from his shoulders upon their own, for the patients would very probably have died whether they had been under the care of the monks or of the physician. However, this natural event was the death-blow to the reputation of the saints. Bruce was required to repair immediately to the palace, and the various members of the royal family, as well as of the family of the Ras, who now fell sick, were placed with unbounded confidence under his care. Policy, as well as humanity, rendered his attentions to his numerous patients incessant; and very fortunately for him only one out of the whole number died. Ozoro Esther, the young and beautiful wife of Ras Michael, both of whose children, the one by a former and the other by her present husband, survived, was unbounded in her gratitude to the man whom she regarded as their preserver; and her friendship, which never knew diminution, may be regarded as one of the most valuable acquisitions our traveller ever made in Abyssinia. As a reward for his services he received a neat and convenient house in the immediate vicinity of the palace.