“Ayto Engedan, said I, we must have a touch at that table. It was said, the piercing that was more than Guebra Mascal could do. We have one half of the candle left still; it is the thinnest, weakest half, and I shall put the wick foremost, because the cotton is softest.” The table being now properly placed, to Engedan’s utmost astonishment the candle, with the wick foremost, went through the table, as the other had gone through the three shields. “By St Michael! says Engedan, Yagoube, hereafter say to me you can raise my father Eshté from the grave, and I will believe you.” Some priests who were there, though surprised at first, seemed afterward to treat it rather lightly, because they thought it below their dignity to be surprised at any thing. They said it was done (mucktoub) by writing, by which they meant magic. Every body embraced that opinion as an evident and rational one, and so the wonder with them ceased. But it was not so with the king: It made the most favourable and lasting impression upon his mind; nor did I ever after see, in his countenance, any marks either of doubt or diffidence, but always, on the contrary, the most decisive proofs of friendship, confidence, and attention, and the most implicit belief of every thing I advanced upon any subject from my own knowledge. The experiment was twice tried afterwards in presence of Ras Michael. But he would not risk his good shields, and always produced the table, saying, “Engedan and those foolish boys were rightly served; they thought Yagoube was a liar like themselves, and they lost their shields; but I believed him, and gave him my table for curiosity only, and so I saved mine.” As I may now say I was settled in this country, and had an opportunity of being informed of the manners, government, and present state of it, I shall here inform the reader of what I think most worthy his attention, whether ancient or modern, while we are yet in peace, before we are called out to a campaign or war, attended with every disadvantage, danger, and source of confusion. CHAP. X. _Geographical Division of Abyssinia into Provinces._ At Masuah, that is, on the coast of the Red Sea, begins an imaginary division of Abyssinia into two, which is rather a division of language than strictly to be understood as territorial. The first division is called _Tigré_, between the Red Sea and the river Tacazzé. Between that river and the Nile, westward, where it bounds the Galla, it is called _Amhara_. Whatever convenience there maybe from this division, there is neither geographical nor historical precision in it, for there are many little provinces included in the first that do not belong to Tigré; and, in the second division, which is Amhara, that which gives the name is but a very small part of it.