“Unable to perform any religious rite without the savage accompaniment of tinkling keys and other discordant sounds, the sacrament of the mass (_Corban_), the most solemn service of the Church, is also performed amidst the most confused and distracting clangour. The liturgy and consecration service over, all, except the communicants, leave the place of worship. These now approach the vestibule of the holy of holies, where the officiating priests, enveloped in clouds of incense, are busily occupied in washing their hands—this ceremony is copied from Pilate’s example. The water, which this act sanctifies, must not be spilled on the ground, but, as a regeneration emblem, it is sprinkled on the bended heads and the garments of the faithful, whilst the priest says, ‘If you think that I have now cleansed your garments and purified your bodies, and yet continue to cherish hatred and malice in your hearts, I tell you that the body of Christ will prove to be a burning fire to consume you, and His blood a bottomless sea to drown you!’ After this exhortation the _tabot_, the substitute for the altar, is taken out of the holy of holies, and each communicant receives a small piece of wheaten bread and a spoonful of raisin wine. To prevent the desecration of the sacred elements every one, before he quits the church, drinks a cup of water, and also refrains from expectorating that day.”[133] The ecclesiastical art of Abyssinia has already been mentioned. Stern has given an account of a singular instance of its development and of an equally strange result of the devotional use of pictures. He visited “Kudus Yohannes, which next to that at Quosquam, is the handsomest and most gorgeously bedaubed of the forty-four churches in and around Gondar.” Here “one aspiring artist, weary perhaps of the antiquated cherubims and saints, the blazing flames and leafy bowers, which are the ordinary ornaments of the churches, had sought immortal fame by painting quite a new subject—the Migration of the Israelites. In his picture he represented them marching in soldier-like attitude over the heaving and surging waves of the Red Sea, clad in British uniform, with muskets and bayonets on their shoulders.” Again, Major Harris, at the time of his mission to Sahela Selassie, who was then Negus, had presented His Majesty with a portrait of Queen Victoria. This “lay securely guarded amidst the regalia of the Ethiopian Empire till the death of the despot. His heir and successor, Hailu Malakot, to atone for some indiscretion, presented it in pious contrition to the Cathedral Church, and there the people flock on all grand festivities to worship it as the representation of the Virgin Mary.”[134]