All Abyssinian litigants are required to find security. “These securities must be persons whom the judge is certain of being able to seize if necessary. If the charge be serious they must be persons of property, and are liable both for the appearance of their principals, and for the sentence whatever that may be. This custom obtains both in civil and criminal law. In default of such security, each party is chained by the wrist; an additional expense, as the chains must be hired, and the jailor—that is, the person to whom he is chained, paid a sum fixed by law. This bail is the prop of Abyssinian society; no commercial or market transfer takes place without it. The Abyssinian judge or creditor cares nothing for the principal in a cause; the bail is seized, and in self-defence produces his man; and it is an honourable trait that the principal rarely absconds. A friend will thus become security in a case of murder, though rendering himself thereby liable to suffer death, or to pay the price of blood, to them a fortune. “After both parties have given security the plaintiff only is allowed to produce his witnesses; the defendant can, when they are called by name, admit or reject their evidence, in almost every case great indulgence being shown in this respect. . . . In small affairs, such as a sudden dispute on the high road, the meeting of an absconded debtor, or any civil matter, the first decent person to be found is obliged to act as a temporary judge, if adjured by the ‘death of the chief’ paramount. He must then place the accused in bonds, which is done by tying his cloth (_shama_) to that of his accuser, and escort or send them to the nearest magistrate, who, should the accused demand it, must in like manner forward him to his immediate master or chief, where the case is first heard, the plaintiff having right of appeal; the law in this being, however, highly favourable to the defendant, the plaintiff not being always disposed for a long journey.”[217] Every man is his own advocate. Those who wish to read an account of the proceedings “in court” should refer to “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 308, or “Wanderings among the Falashas,” pp. 48, 170. The hearing usually gives occasion for a good deal of eloquence and a great deal of lying.