Ozoro Esther, the very young widow of Netcho, was married, very much against her own consent, to the young governor of Begemder, and this marriage was crowned with the universal applause of court, town, and country; for Mariam Barea possessed every virtue that could make a great man popular; and it was impossible to see Ozoro Esther, and hear her speak, without being attached to her for ever after.
Still the complaint remained, that there was no promotion, no distinction of merit, but through some relation to the queen-mother; and the truth of this was soon so apparent, and the discontent it occasioned so universal, that nothing but the great authority Ras Welled de l'Oul, the Iteghé's brother, possessed, could hinder this concealed fire from breaking out into a flame.
The queen, mother to Joas, was Ozoro Wobit, a Galla. Upon Joas's accession to the throne, therefore, a large body of Galla, said to be 1200 horse, were sent as a present to the young king as the portion of his mother. A number of private persons had accompanied these; part from curiosity, part from desire of preferment, and part from attachment to those that were already gone before them. These last were formed into a body of infantry of 600 men, and the command given to a Galla, whose name was Woosheka; so that the regency, in the person of the queen, seemed to have gained fresh force from the minority of the young king Joas, as yet perfectly subject to his mother.
There were four bodies of household troops absolutely devoted to the king's will. One of these, the Koccob horse,
