After some more conversation upon the same subjects, as the day was drawing to a close, Karissa took up his musket, and made preparations for departing; but before he went insisted upon my promising to ask the Negoos that he might be allowed to accompany me to Enarea when I went, to which place he undertook to conduct me, through Gurague, with perfect safety, and would only require such a present as I could give him, upon our return to Shoa. The journey would not require more than one month to accomplish it, including all detentions and necessary delays. It only required, he said, the permission of the Negoos; who, in that case, would send an affaro, or servant, to see me safe upon my journey, and to bear the royal commands for assistance to his governors or friends. It was this appointment of affaro Karissa desired, and none other could have been better qualified, had circumstances been so ordered as to have admitted of my proceeding farther; but situated as I was, worn out by disease, and reduced to my last seven or eight dollars, I could hold out no hope to Karissa beyond saying that I should apply to the Negoos for permission to go to Enarea, and if I went he should be sure to accompany me. I learned from this man that Sahale Selassee possesses at least one thousand firearms, of which three or four hundred are European muskets. Of these the British Embassy had presented three hundred, and before its return one hundred and forty more had been brought up by M. Rochet d’Hericourt. With the Kafilah I accompanied there were more than fifty pistols, all of which were given by the Ambassador to the Negoos. These small weapons were quite unsuited to Amhara soldiers, who like long shots about as well as any military, it has ever been my fortune to observe in actual combat. The pistols, however, were not altogether useless, for, by the orders of the sagacious monarch, several of the best matchlocks were immediately new stocked and fitted with the locks of the former, and were thus rendered much more available as fire-arms.