The time being come, he informed me Ras Michael and Fasil had made peace; Welleta Michael, the Ras’s nephew, taken by Fasil at the battle of Limjour, had been the mediator; that the king and Michael, by their wise behaviour, had reconciled Tigré as one man, and that the Ras had issued a proclamation, remitting to the province of Tigré their whole taxes from the day they passed the Tacazzé till that time next year, in consideration of their fidelity and services; and this had been solemnly proclaimed in several places by beat of drum. The Ras declared, at the same time, that he would, out of his own private fortune, without other assistance, bear the expence of the campaign till he seated the king on his throne in Gondar. A kind of madness, he said, had seized all ranks of people to follow their sovereign to the capital; that the mountain Haramat still held out; but that all the principal friends, both of Za Menfus and Netcho, had been up with the governors of that fortress offering terms of peace and forgivenness, and desiring they would not be an obstacle in the king’s way, and a hinderance to his return, but that all terms had been as yet refused; however, says he, you know the Ras as well as I, he will play them a trick some of these days, winking with his eye, and then crying out, Drink! I asked him if any notice had been taken of the carpet I had procured to cover the body of Joas, and hoped it had given no umbrage. He said, “No; none at all; on the contrary, the king had said twenty kind things upon it; that he was present also when a priest told it to Ras Michael, who only observed, Yagoube, who is a stranger in this country, is shocked to see a man taken out of his grave, and thrown like a dog upon the bare floor. This was all Michael said, and he never mentioned a word on the subject afterwards;” nor did he, or the king, ever speak of it to me upon their return to Gondar. The Iteghé, too, had much commended me, so did all the nobility, more than the thing deserved; for surely common humanity dictated thus much, and the fear of Michael, which I had not, was the only cause that so proper an action was left in a stranger’s power. Even Ozoro Esther, enemy to Joas on account of the death of her husband Mariam Barea, after I had attended her one Sunday from church to the house of the Iteghé, and when she was set down at the head of a circle of all those that were of distinction at the court, called out aloud to me, as I was passing behind, and pointing to one of the most honourable seats in the room, said, Sit down there, Yagoube; God has exalted you above all in this country, when he has put it in your power, though but a stranger, to confer charity upon the king of it. All was now acclamation, especially from the ladies; and, I believe, I may safely say, I had never in my life been a favourite of so many at one time.