Long before it was light, I was awakened by loud shouts of “abiad,” “abiad,” raised at short intervals, and apparently at some distance. On applying to Walderheros for an explanation of this uproar, he made me understand with some difficulty, that it arose from the petitioners for justice, calling upon the Negoos to hear them. It appears that after a case has been heard in the lower courts, if they may be so called, held before the governors of the town in which the conflicting parties reside, if either complain of his decision, an appeal may be made to the king himself. A company of the friends of the dissatisfied assemble, in as great a number as the influence of the party or the justice of the case can collect. These sometimes, so early as midnight, take up a position on a height overlooking the town, and opposite to that on which the palace stands. Half-a-mile, at least, intervenes between the two places. Here they keep up a continual shouting “abiad,” “abiad,” (justice,) until a messenger from the Negoos comes to know the nature of their complaint, and to introduce them into his presence. On this occasion, I did not understand sufficient of the language to learn the particulars of the case, but as the Negoos is the most easily accessible, the most patient listener, and the most upright judge that I ever heard praised by word of mouth, or read of among the most laudatory history of kings, I have no doubt that the cry of his people that awoke me this morning was duly attended to, the case investigated, and the strictest justice awarded. The Dankalli may well style Sahale Selassee, “a fine balance of gold,” for even now, when thinking of his character, the most lively pictures recur to my mind of instances of his kindness and feeling for the happiness of his subjects, which I have witnessed myself. Excepting the cruelty, and dissimulation, practised towards the unfortunate tribes of Gallas who surround his dominions, and which he has been taught to consider from his childhood, to be praiseworthy acts, which will secure the approbation of God; excepting this, nothing in his character can, I think, be justly assailed. The fears of his Christian, and the hopes of his Islam subjects, that he would renounce the faith in which he has been brought up, and profess Islamism, redounds considerably to his character as a reflecting man, and a proof of the really capacious mind he possesses; for none who are aware of the gross superstition and confusion most confused, of the tenets of the Greek Church as professed in Abyssinia, can feel surprised that a naturally sagacious mind, should refuse the trammels of absurdity and error, to embrace the reasonable simplicity of the profession of one true and only God, which is the real basis and great recommendation of the Mahomedan belief.