Upon occasions of festivals, which are exceedingly numerous, an unlimited amount of raw meat is added to their usual fare. Slave boys carry about a large lump of flesh, held fast over one shoulder by a strong grip of both hands, whilst each of the dining party cuts with his knife such portion he may desire, and then dismisses the boy with his blessing to the next who requires a like uncooked steak. In addition to their entertainment by the King when on duty at the palace, the gunmen receive a monthly pay of from three to seven ahmulahs, or salt-pieces, according to their length of service. Besides the numerous gunmen who are generally slaves born in the service of the Negoos, there is an inferior class who have been purchased from dealers, or have come to the King as the import duty when Kafilahs of these unhappy creatures arrive in his dominions. The usual “assair,” or tithe, being taken as of every other kind of merchandize that is brought into Shoa. These slaves are employed generally as cutters of wood; and a most toilsome and ill-requited labour is that which they have to perform, for the country around Angolahlah and Debra Berhan is so bare of wood that the inhabitants have no other resource for fuel but the dung of cattle mixed with mire, which are formed into large flat cakes and heaped up in storehouses for protection from the weather. I believe that the quantity of potass in the soil in this part of the country, contributes considerably to the value of this strange kind of fuel, as its combination with sundry other elements contained in the dung saturates the mass with saltpetre. The Negoos, however, does not employ this kind of fuel in his palaces, but is supplied by the wood-cutting slaves with the cedar-smelling pine-tree, called “ted,” or the more adapted for a bright warm fire, the oil-containing wood of the wild olive-tree; both of which grow abundantly in the forests of Kundee and Afrabinah, that occupy the head of some of the numerous valleys sloping towards the Hawash, on the east of the ridge in front of Ankobar. From these forests, the stalwart frames of the Shankalli slaves bear long and heavy burdens of the rended fire-wood up the steep rugged ascent, to the right of the Hill of Grace; and then, for twenty-five miles, to the palaces of Debra Berhan and Angolahlah. Upon this painful and laborious duty, not less than three hundred slaves are employed, who receive daily the most wretched fare, either a few handsful of parched wheat, or else, the sour and coarse refuse from the gunmen’s table. Still, these, I found, were far from being over-worked; for three days are allowed to each for the conveyance of the load, and the return back from the distant palaces to their homes, which even these are provided with for themselves and their families.