Our interpreter had spent three years in Marseilles, and we found that he and his followers conformed to the requirements of civilization as regards dirt much more closely than the generality of his countrymen. I do not know whether Parkyns’s description of the use of butter as pomade still holds good in parts of Abyssinia; probably not very widely, as Mr. Wylde tells us that “European hats are getting very common, and are generally of the bowler, wideawake, or Terai patterns,”[23] but in the western provinces, where nearly all the people whom we met were peasants, we saw no sign either of this innovation or that the dairy had been drawn upon to smarten the _coiffure_. Nevertheless, greasiness of person was the rule. I may mention here that bodily cleanliness is not only unusual in Abyssinia, but raises a doubt as to the genuineness of a man’s religious profession. In this respect matters have not changed since Parkyns’s time. “St. John’s is the only cleanly day in the calendar; for in the evening the whole population, male and female, old and young, go down to bathe. It is a fact, that, excepting on this occasion, there are many of the number, who, beyond washing their hands before and after meals, and their feet after a journey, never trouble the water from one year’s end to another. My habit of washing every day in the European fashion gave rise to much scandal on my first arrival; and it was constantly inquired, ‘Is he a Mussulman, that he thus washes, and so often?’”[24] The Abyssinians are fond of shaking hands, and it is impossible to avoid this civility without giving serious offence. Nearly all, owing to their independence of soap, suffer from a complaint once associated—wrongly, no doubt—with a highland region nearer home, and the result was that none of the Europeans of our party escaped _scabies_. Johannes possessed a felt sombrero, which he held in his hand when we received him in the rest-house. Like most of his countrymen, he wore a cartridge-belt around his middle. He also carried a revolver in his belt. His “boy” held his rifle. Altogether the interpreter was a picturesque but piratical figure, and it occurred to me that a group of Abyssinian “villains” would be effective in a melodrama.