The Shoan prison for these unfortunates is a high conical hill, called Guancho, situated midway between Aliu Amba and Farree, and is the residence of the Wallasmah Mahomed, who fills the office of State gaoler, as well as collector of duties upon that frontier of the kingdom. Here, at the period of this interview with the King, were confined five princes of the blood Royal, some of whom had been prisoners for as many as thirty, or thirty-four years. From personal inspection of their apartments, an opportunity afforded to no other European besides, I can state that the close and rigorous confinement, said to have been imposed upon these captives, is much exaggerated; and, although the separate sleeping apartments at night were not more than seven feet in all their dimensions, still they were only composed of sticks, such as the common garden rods for raising peas in England, and a strong man leaning hard against them must have fallen out through the wall of his cell. Only two of the royal prisoners wore chains; these were on one hand and leg of the same side, and were long enough to admit of the freest motion. A long-thatched _wort bait_, or meat-house, contained their families; for not only did the King remember his captive brethren on days of festival, by sending them oxen, and honey-wine, but they were allowed to marry, and their wives lived with them in their confinement. I took a ground plan of the whole establishment, and the Wallasmah, who was too old to accompany me on my survey, when I was in the only place that looked like a dungeon at all, a vault about twenty feet square, cut out of the summit of the hill, stamped several times upon the roof to intimate that his sitting-room was over this secure place. In this dismal dungeon, however, no person had been confined for the last six or seven years, although it was being then prepared, by a second door being put up, for the occupation of the unfortunate Samma-negoos, an ex-frontier governor, who had assisted his brother, a denounced rebel, to escape to Argobba, where he is now entertained by the Mahomedan Prince of that country, Beroo Lobo. When I visited Guancho, this prisoner occupied a small den of sticks, not four feet wide in any direction, and his hands and feet were chained close together, so that his removal to the larger subterranean cell will, at all events, afford him some opportunities of exercise, though he will then be deprived of light and fresh air.