Walderheros, whose greatest weakness was to be considered the servant of a most powerful and influential master, felt any sneers at my poverty a great deal more acutely than myself, and which, after all, he generally excited himself, by his assumption of importance, and the affectation of swearing by my name, “Ahkeem e moot,” “may the doctor die,” if a thing was not so and so, as if I had been a magnate of the land; for besides swearing by the life of the Negoos upon all important matters, the dependents of Abyssinian noblemen are accustomed, in private life, or on trivial occasions, to asseverate the truth of anything by similar imprecations upon the lives of their masters. This practice has not a bad effect upon a listening stranger, being a very pleasing characteristic of the natural affection that ought to exist between master and servant. Several affronts that Walderheros had received about my economy, and the small establishment I kept up, determined him at length to put it to Tinta himself, if such a scandalous little place I lived in was fit for a friend of the Negoos, and as I supported this expostulation by a direct request to have a proper domicile appointed for me during my stay in Shoa, my worthy balderabah undertook to see the Negoos next day about the matter. This was so far satisfactory to Walderheros, who could now talk about nothing else but my new house, and a large garden which was to be attached to it, and where, according to his account, teff grass, jowarhee, and cayenne pepper plants would all flourish most advantageously, especially as regarded my expenditure. According to his account, there could be no question about the success of my housekeeping. Everything was propitious, and he amused me by the manner in which he used to endeavour to convince me how comfortable we should be. He had a wife, and he had a slave girl, caught by himself on some Galla expedition; besides these, I was to buy a donkey, and then there was himself, all of whom were to work like horses, and save me three ahmulahs a-week, about seven-pence halfpenny, and, in fact, my whole expenditure, by his making out, was to be a dollar a-month, one-half for his wages during that time, and the remainder for the purchase of poultry and sheep. Tinta, in two or three days, brought a reply from the Negoos, that I was to look out what house would suit me, and if I were well enough to visit him at Ankobar, where he was coming to from Angolahlah, in the course of the week, he would then give the necessary directions to put me in possession of my choice.