This priest came often to the Iteghé's and Ayto Aylo's, with both of whom he was much in favour, and here I now happened to meet him, when I was taking my leave in the evening. I beg of you, says he, Yagoube, as a favour, to tell me, now you are immediately going away from this country, and you can answer me without fear, Are you really a Frank, or are you not? Sir, said I, I do not know what you mean by fear; I should as little decline answering you any question you have to ask had I ten years to stay, as now I am to quit this country to-morrow: I came recommended, and was well received by the king and Ras Michael: I neither taught nor preached; no man ever heard me say a word about my particular mode of worship; and as often as my duty has called me, I have never failed to attend divine service as it is established in this country. What is the ground of fear that I should have, while under the king's protection, and when I conform in every shape to the laws, religion, and customs of Abyssinia? True, says Tensa Christos, I do not say you should be alarmed; whatever your faith is I would defend you myself; the Iteghé knows I always spoke well of you, but will you gratify an old man's curiosity, in telling me whether or not you really are a Frank, Catholic, or Jesuit? I have too great a regard, replied I, to request of a man, so truly good and virtuous as you, not to have answered you the question at whatever time you could have asked me; and I do now declare to you, by the word of a Christian, that my countrymen and I are more distant in matters of religion, from these you call Catholics, Jesuits, or Franks, than you and your Abyssinians are; and that a priest of my religion, preaching in any country subject to those Franks, would as certainly be brought to the gallows as if he had committed murder, and just as speedily as you would stone a Catholic priest preaching here in the midst of Gondar. They do precisely by us as you do by them, so they have no reason to complain. And, says he, don't you do the same to them? No, replied I; every man in our country is allowed to serve God in his own way; and as long as their teachers confine themselves to what the sacred books have told them, they can teach no ill, and therefore deserve no punishment. No religion, indeed, teaches a man evil, but, when forgetting this, they preach against government, curse the king, absolve his subjects from allegiance, or incite them to rebellion, as being lawful, the sword of the civil power cuts them off, without any blame falling upon their religion, because these things were done in contradiction to what their priests, from the scripture, should have taught them were truly the tenets of that very religion.