The Arabs are of many different tribes; the chief are the Daveina, then the Nile. These, besides getting a good market, and food for their cattle and protection for themselves, have this great additional advantage, they escape the Fly, and consequently are not pillaged, as the rest of the Arabs in Atbara are, when changing abodes to avoid the havock made by that insect. In return for this, they constantly bring horses from Atbara, below Sennaar, for the king’s own use, and for such of his cavalry who are armed with coats of mail, no Abyssinian horse, or very few at least, being capable of that burden. Ayto Confu had many districts of land from his father Kasmati Netcho, as well as some belonging to his mother Ozoro Esther, which lay upon that frontier; it was called Ras el Feel, and had a sendick and nagareet, but, as it was governed always by a deputy who was a Mahometan, it had no rank among the great governments of the state. Besides these lands, the patrimony of Confu, Ras Michael had given him more, and with them this government, young as he was, from favour to his mother Ozoro Esther. This Mahometan deputy was named Abdel Jelleel, a great coward, who had refused to bring out his men, tho’ summoned, to join the king when marching against Fasil. He had also quarrelled with the Daveina, and robbed them, so that they traded no more with Ras el Feel, brought no more horses, and the district was consequently nearly ruined, whilst a great outcry was raised against Abdel Jelleel by the merchants who used to trade at that market, not having now money enough to pay the _meery_. Ammonios, his Billetana Gueta, was the person Ayto Confu had destined to go to Ras el Feel to reduce it to order, and displace Abdel Jelleel; but Ras Michael had put him as a man of trust over the black horse under me, so he was employed otherwise. Confu himself was now preparing to go thither to settle another deputy in the place of Abdel Jelleel, and he had asked the assistance of troops from the king, by which this came to my knowledge. The first time I saw Ozoro Esther, I told her, that, unless she had a mind to have her son die speedily, she should, by every means in her power, dissuade him from his journey to Ras el Feel, being a place where the bloody flux never ceased to rage; and this complaint had never perfectly left him since he had had the small-pox, but had wore him to a shadow. There could be no surer way therefore of destroying him than letting him go thither as he proposed. He had been for some time indeed taking bark, which had done him great service. His mother Ozoro Esther, the Iteghè, whose first favourite he was, and all his friends, now took the alarm, upon which the Ras forbade him positively to go.