At last the cries of the people flying into Gondar, seeking protection from the cruelties of the rebels, determined the Ras to march out, and set his all upon the fortune of a battle. The risk was not thought great, as he had been all his life in use to conquer; had a better army at that time than ever he commanded; the Begemder troops, too, in whom the rebels trusted most, were but those which he and his men had beaten at Nefas Musa, although led by a very brave and valiant officer, Mariam Barea. All this was true; but then, since that period, these troops of Begemder had been constantly led by himself, had been trained, and disciplined with the old troops of Tigrè, and taught to conquer with them. Above all, they had been used to see the effect of fire-arms, which they no longer feared as formerly, but boldly rushed in upon the musqueteers, sometimes without giving them time to fire, or at least before they had time to charge again. At last, having previously called in all his out-posts, on the 13th of May he marched out of Gondar, taking with him the King and Abuna, as also Ozoro Esther, and Ozoro Altash her sister, and all the other ladies about court, who were in possession of the great fiefs of the crown, and whom he obliged to personal attendance, as well as to bring the quota of troops they were bound to by their respective tenures. The king's army halted upon the same ground they had done on their return to Gondar. They were then supposed to be near 20,000 foot, belonging to Tigrè and its dependencies, incomparably the best troops of the empire, 6000 of which were armed with musquets, six times the number that all the rest of Abyssinia could furnish, and, considering they were all match-locks, very expert in the management of them. The rest of the foot which joined them since he passed the Tacazzè were about 10,000, besides 2000 of the king's household, 500 of which were horsemen; of these, few short of 200 were his black servants, armed with coats of mail, the horses with plates of brass on their cheeks and faces, with a sharp iron spike of about five inches in length, which stuck out in the middle of their forehead, a very troublesome, useless piece of their armour; their bridles were iron chains; the body of the horse covered with a kind of thin quilt stuffed with cotton, with two openings made above the flaps of the saddle, into which the horseman put his thighs and legs, and which covered him from his hip (where his shirt of mail ended) down to a little above his ancle: his feet were covered with slippers of thin leather, without heels, and his stirrups were of the Turkish or Moorish form, into which his whole foot entered, and, being hung very short, he could raise himself, and stand as firmly as if he was upon plain ground. The saddles were in the Moorish form likewise, high before and behind; a strong lace made fast to the coat of mail by the one end, the other passed through a small hole in the back of the saddle, kept it