“Before the pond a scaffold was built, covered round with planks, within which sat the king looking towards the pond, his face covered with blue taffeta, while an old man, who was the king’s tutor, was standing in the water up to the shoulders, naked as he was born, and half dead with cold, for it had _frozen_ violently in the night. All those that came near him he took by the head and plunged them in the water, whether men or women, saying, in his own language, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Now Shoa, where the king was then, is in lat. 8° N. and the sun was in 22° south declination, advancing northward, so the sun was, on the day of the Epiphany, within 30° of the zenith of the bathing-place. The thermometer of Fahrenheit rises at Gondar about that time to 68°, so in Shoa it cannot rise to less than 70°, for Gondar is in lat. 12° N. that is 4° farther northward, so it is not possible water should freeze, nor did I ever see ice in Abyssinia, not even on the highest or coldest mountains. January is one of the hottest months in the year, day and night the sky is perfectly serene, nor is there there a long disproportioned winter night. At Shoa the days are equal to the nights, at least as to sense, even in the month of January. The baptism, Alvarez says, began at midnight, and the old tutor dipt every person under water, taking him by the head, saying, ‘I baptise thee in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ It was most thronged at sun-rise, and ended about nine o’clock; a long time for an old man to stand in frozen water. The number (as women were promiscuously admitted) could not be less than 40,000; so that even the nine hours this baptist-general officiated, he must have had exercise enough to keep him warm, if 40,000, (many of them naked beauties) passed through _his hands_. The women were stark naked before the men, not even a rag about them. Without some such proper medium as frozen water, I fear it would not have contributed much to the interests of religion to have trusted a priest (even an old one) among so many bold and naked beauties, especially as he had the first six hours of them in the dark.