They eat and drink together once a-day in the evening, each having a fixed portion of food. The women grind flour, and work as do other Shoan females; the monks labour at the forge, or in the fields belonging to their convent. The Tabeeb women also make the earthenware vessels in the country, as all ironwork is done by the men. There are two superiors, an aged woman who has charge of the females, and an old man placed in authority over the males. The Negoos is a great friend to the Tabeebs, and gives to them several oxen during the year. Besides he has bestowed a great deal of land upon the various monasteries of these people, of which institutions there are no less than forty-two in Shoa. When the good man left me, I gave him a pair of scissors in return for his drinking horn, as I now made it a rule not to receive any memolagees. He was so delighted with my gift, that he pressed me very much to come and see him at his convent, as soon as ever I dared to move about, and promised me a very good reception. The Abyssinians in making their drinking-horns, show considerable ingenuity, not so much in the complexity of their machinery, as in the great simplicity of the few aids they require to turn out a very neatly made article. A proper ox-horn being selected, it is cut into such lengths as are required. One of these is then gradually fixed upon a conical wooden mould; boiling water being employed to soften the horn, and make it more readily adapt itself to the shape, it is then laid aside for a few days, when the form becoming fixed, it is placed in the lathe to receive a series of circular cut rings, with which the outside is usually ornamented. The lathe is nothing more than two short sticks placed in the ground, not more than three inches high above its surface. From the centre of each end of the mould an arm projects about six inches long, which is armed with a bit of iron. These iron points are received in the short stick supports, and the mould, with the horn upon it, then revolves freely. The workman sits upon the ground, and with his feet pressed hard against a stick, supports it in this manner against two stones, placed at a convenient distance in front of his work. This forms a rest for his cutting instrument, which he holds in his left hand, and presses against the horn, whilst with his right he wheels backwards and forwards the mould by a small catgut string bow, applied and used in the same manner as is the same tool by many artisans in England.