I was not taken back to the shed outside the palace courts, but into a much more comfortable apartment between the two stockades, where I found several priests sitting upon the ground on low chairs, employed perusing a book themselves, or attending to some boys, who, in the usual school tone, were practising a reading lesson, that I was told soon after I went in was a chapter of St. Luke. A few pupils were also receiving their first instructions in writing. It appeared that this was a religious institution connected with the palace, being the residence of these priests, who about midnight begin chanting their orisons, and keep the howling concert up until daylight. How it is possible for the Negoos, or any one residing within ear-shot of them, to sleep, I do not know, but I do not exaggerate when I say, that to my ears their holy exercises sounded a deal more inhuman, than the noise made by a pack of famished wolves. The priests, however, appeared a good-natured set, and soon spread an oxskin upon the loose dry grass, that appeared to be collected in large quantities for the purpose of forming soft beds for the holy fathers, all of whom, with their pupils, occupied this thatched apartment. I considered that it formed a good counterpart of the character of the college of Oxford in the days of King Alfred, and looked with interest upon its inmates, when I reflected, that probably their habits and feelings assimilated with those of the earliest teachers of our celebrated University. A bright fire of wood crackled upon the low hearth, and I threw myself upon my littered couch by its side. No inducement existed to tempt me into the open air, for the sky had now become covered with low grey clouds, whilst a heavy mist hid the high romantic cliffs of Kundi, that close around the head of the valley of Myolones. Sometimes a puff of wind rolled along before it, a huge cloud of the condensed moisture, that for a few minutes enveloped the precincts of the palace in a dense fog. A thought of rain, however, did not trouble me, for I was in most comfortable quarters, on very good terms with the learned monks, and as Walderheros had been sent for to the palace, and returned with two bottles of the barilla tedge, I enjoyed myself exceedingly.