The standards of the infantry have their flags painted two colours crossways--yellow, white, red, or green. The horse have all a lion upon their flag[97], some a red, some a green, and some a white lion. The black horse have a yellow lion, and over it a white star upon a red flag, alluding to two prophecies, the one, “Judah is a young lion,” and the other, “There shall come a star out of Judah.” This had been discontinued for want of cloth till the war of Begemder, when a large piece was found in Joas’s wardrobe, and was thought a certain omen of his victory, and of a long and vigorous reign. This piece of cloth was said to have been brought from Cairo by Yasous II. for the campaign of Sennaar, and, with the other standards and colours, was surrendered to the rebels when the king was made prisoner. The king’s household troops should consist of about 8000 infantry, 2000 of which carry firelocks, and supply the place of archers; bows have been laid aside for near a hundred years, and are only now used by the Waito Shangalla, and some other barbarous inconsiderable nations. These troops are divided into four companies, each under an officer called Shalaka, which answers to our colonel. Every twenty men have an officer, every fifty a second, and every hundred a third; that is, every twenty have one officer who commands them, but is commanded likewise by an officer who commands the fifty; so that there are three officers who command fifty men, six command a hundred, and thirty command five hundred, over whom is the Shalaka; and this body they call Bet, which signifies a _house_, or _apartment_, because each of them goes by the name of one of the king’s apartments. For example, there is an apartment called Anbasa Bet, or the _lion’s house_, and a regiment carrying that name has the charge of it, and their duty is at that apartment, or that part of the palace where it is; there is another called Jan Bet, or the _elephant’s house_, that gives the name to another regiment; another called Werk Sacala, or the _gold house_, which gives its name to another corps; and so on with the rest; as for the horse, I have spoken of them already. There are four regiments, that seldom, if ever, amounted to 1600 men, which depend alone upon the king, and are all foreigners, at least the officers; these have the charge of his person while in the field. In times when the king is out of leading-strings, they amount to four or five thousand, and then oppress the country, for they have great privileges. At times when the king’s hands are weak, they are kept incomplete out of fear and jealousy, which was the case in my time;--these have been already sufficiently described.