On the fourth morning of my stay at Angolahlah, a page came from the King to desire Capt. Harris to attend at the palace. Shortly after this was complied with, another summons arrived for one of the soldiers, who was employed as a carpenter, to follow also. In about half an hour, the whole party returned, the interpreter, Ibrahim, carrying in his cloak the torn-up, tarpaulin-covered packages of letters. I now learnt that the Negoos had commanded that the boxes and other things should be burst open in his presence. This arbitrary command being immediately complied with, after the first few were examined, he graciously gave permission for the whole to be removed to the tents of the Embassy, being satisfied with the willingness shown to gratify him in his most unreasonable demands. This humiliating concession, I am convinced, would not have been required had not the monarch felt some jealous misgivings as to the amount of prerogative he had curtailed himself of by attaching his signature to the treaty of commerce; the first fruits of which had been the impolitical letter of remonstrance on a previous occasion; the innocent writer of which, Mr. Krapf, had already been made to feel the kingly resentment by the ill-usage that gentleman received from the chief, Adara Billee, when he endeavoured to return to Shoa, after an unsuccessful attempt to reach the city of Gondah. For the future, I shall endeavour to relate the incidents of my residence in Shoa, with as little allusion to politics as possible, but the reader must excuse the few remarks I have already made, convinced as I am, that the physical failure of the expedition on the western coast of Africa, under Capt. Trotter, is much less to be regretted, than the great moral injury the cause of African civilization and English influence in that continent have sustained by the incapability of one man, and the ill-judged proceedings which characterized his ambassadorial career. I am not the proper person, however, to sit in judgment upon any one; but I know from personal experience, that as regards Southern Abyssinia, the merchant and the missionary must now seek other situations for carrying out their interesting and philanthropic projects for the regeneration of Africa.[2]