edding or food. The unfortunate mission had thus to spend a night,
probably unequaled by their sufferings in the open field. Though so near
the equator, they felt the cold severely; rain set in with great violence,
pouring through the roof, and entering into the threshold. A fire was
indispensable, yet they were nearly suffocated with smoke; they were
devoured with insects, and in this torment and fever tossed till dawn. At
the arrival of morning they received the disappointing message, that the
king could not yet visit his capital, but that they might either seek him
among the mountains, or wait for him where they were.

Major Harris imputes this disappointment to the accidental opening of one
of the boxes of presents. Royal cupidity had been so strongly excited by
the conjectures of their contents, that the king had evidently been
anxious, in the first instance, to hasten their delivery as much as
possible. Gold and jewels were probably uppermost in the royal conceptions;
but the box happening to contain only the leathern buckets belonging to
the "galloper guns," the spectators were loud in their derision. "These,"
they exclaimed, "are but a poor people! What is their nation compared with
the Amhara? for behold, in this trash, specimens of the offerings brought
from their boasted land to the footstool of the mightiest of monarchs."

The rainy season was now setting in, and the situation of the embassy
became more comfortless from day to day. Notes were written, and answers
received from the monarch, but the royal interview was still postponed,
partly by the artifice of the knavish governors, who kept a longing eye on
the presents, and partly by the barbarian etiquette of showing the natives
the scorn with which their king was entitled to treat all the nations of
the world.

The residence of the mission in this comfortless place, however, gave a
opportunity of acquiring considerable knowledge of the habits and commerce
of the interior. The chief traffic is in slaves, but coffee is exported
extensively from Hurrna, and large caravans three times in the year visit
the ports, Zeyla and Barbara, laden with ivory, ostrich feathers, ghee,
saffrons, gums, and myrrh. In return are brought blue and white calicoes,
Indian piece goods, Indian prints, silks, and shawls, red cotton yarn,
silk threads, beads, frankincense, copper wire, and zinc.

A fortnight rolled away painfully in this detestable place, which was
named Alio Amb