It was about nine o'clock in the morning when we entered Gondar; every person we met on the street wore the countenance of a condemned malefactor; the Ras went immediately to the palace with the king, who retired, as usual, to a kind of cage or lattice-window, where he always sits unseen when in council. We were then in the council-chamber, and four of the judges seated; none of the governors of provinces were present but Ras Michael, and Kasmati Tesfos of Siré. Abba Salama was brought to the foot of the table without irons, at perfect liberty. The accuser for the king (it is a post in this country in no great estimation) began the charge against him with great force and eloquence: he stated, one by one, the crimes committed by him at different periods, the sum of which amounted to prove Salama to be the greatest monster upon earth: among these were various kinds of murder, especially by poison; incest, with every degree collateral and descendant. He concluded this black, horrid list, with the charge of high treason, or cursing the king, and absolving his subjects from their allegiance, which he stated as the greatest crime human nature was capable of, as involving in its consequences all sorts of other crimes. Abba Salama, though he seemed under very great impatience, did not often interrupt him, further than, _You lie_, and, _It is a lie_, which he repeated at every new charge. His accuser had not said one word of the murder of Joas, but passed it over without the smallest allusion to it. In this, however, Abba Salama did not follow his example: being desired to answer in his own defence, he entered upon it with great dignity, and an air of superiority, very different from his behaviour in the king's tent the day before: he laughed, and made extremely light of the charges on the article of women, which he neither confessed nor denied; but said these might be crimes among the Franks, (looking at me) or other Christians, but not the Christians of that country, who lived under a double dispensation, the law of Moses and the law of Christ: he said the Abyssinians were _Beni Israel_, as indeed they call themselves, that is, Children of Israel; and that in every age the patriarchs had acted as he did, and were not less beloved of God. He went roundly into the murder of Joas, and of his two brothers, Adigo and Aylo, on the mountain of Wechné, and charged Michael directly with it, as also with the poisoning the late Hatzé Hannes, father of the present king.