When the king sits to consult upon civil matters of consequence, he is shut up in a kind of box opposite to the head of the council table. The persons that deliberate sit at the table, and, according to their rank, give their voices, the youngest or lowest officer always speaking first. The first that give their votes are the Shalaka, or colonels of the household-troops. The second are the great butlers, men that have the charge of the king’s drink. The third is the Badjerund, or keeper of that apartment in the palace called the _lion’s house_; and after these the keeper of the banqueting-house. The next is called Lika Magwass, an officer that always goes before the king to hinder the pressure of the crowd. In war, when the king is marching, he rides constantly round him at a certain distance, and carries his shield, and his lance; at least he carries a silver shield, and a lance pointed with the same metal, before such kings as do not choose to expose their person. That, however, was not the case in my time, as the king carried the shield himself, black and unadorned, of good buffalo’s hide, and his spear sharp-pointed with iron. His silver ornaments were only used when the campaign was over, when these were carried by this officer. Great was the respect shewed formerly to this king in war, and even when engaged in battle with rebels, his own subjects. No prince ever lost his life in battle till the coming of the Europeans into Abyssinia, when both the excommunicating and murdering of their sovereigns seem to have been introduced at the same time. The reader will see, in the course of this history, two instances of this respect being still kept up: the one at the battle of Limjour, where Fasil, pretending that he was immediately to attack Ras Michael, desired that the king might be dressed in his insignia, lest, not being known, he might be slain by the stranger Galla. The next was after the battle of Serbraxos, where the king was thrice in one day engaged with the Begemder troops for a considerable space of time. These insignia, or marks of royalty, are a white horse, with small silver bells at his head, a shield of silver, and a white fillet of fine silk or muslin, but generally the latter, some inches broad, which is tied round the upper part of the head over his hair, with a large double or bow-knot behind, the ends hanging down to the small of his back, or else flying in the air.