I thanked my kind landlord, and let him go; but recollecting, called him again, and asked, “What shall I do with Netcho? how shall I rejoin him? my company is too small to pass Maitsha without him.”--“Sleep in peace, says he, I will provide for that. I tell you in confidence, the king’s money is in my hands, and was not ready when the Ras passed; my son is but just arrived with the last of it this evening, tired to death; I send the money by Netcho, and my son too, with forty stout fellows well armed, who will die in your service, and not run away like those vagabond Christians, in whom you must place no confidence if danger presents itself, but immediately throw yourself among the Mahometans. Besides, there are about fifty soldiers, most of them from Tigré, Michael’s men, that have been loitering here these two days. It was one of these that fired the gun just before you came, which alarmed Netcho; so that, when you are come back in safety from the cataract, they shall be, by that time, all on their march to the passage. My son shall mount with you; I fear the Nile will be too deep, but when once you are at Tsoomwa, you may set your mind at rest, and bid defiance to Woodage Asahel, who knows his enemy always before he engages him, and at this time will not venture to interrupt your march.” As I have mentioned the name of this person so often, it will be necessary to take notice, that he was by origin a Galla, but born in Damot, of the clan Elmana, or Densa, two tribes settled there in the time of Yasous I. that he was the most intrepid and active partizan in his time, and had an invincible hatred to Ras Michael, nor was there any love lost betwixt them. It is impossible to conceive with what velocity he moved, sometimes with 200 horse, sometimes with half that number. He was constantly falling upon some part of Michael’s army, whether marching or encamped; the blow once struck, he disappeared in a minute. When he wanted to attempt something great, he had only to summon his friends and acquaintance in the country, and he had then a little army, which dispersed as soon as the business was done. It was Ras Michael’s first question to the spies; Where was Woodage Asahel last night? a question they very seldom could answer with certainty. He was in his person too tall for a good horseman, yet he was expert in this qualification by constant practice. His face was yellow, as if he had the jaundice, and much pitted with the small-pox; his eyes staring, but fiery; his nose as it were broken, his mouth large, his chin long and turned up at the end; he spoke very fast, but not much, and had a very shy, but ill-designing look. In his character, he was avaricious, treacherous, inexorable, and cruel to a proverb; in short, he was allowed to be the most merciless robber and murderer that age had produced in all Abyssinia.