THE SOURCE Or THE NILE. 393
though it would not have been agreeable to have told her fo, tor lhe loved to be thought ill, to be attended, and flat- t< • d ; lhe was, however, in thefe circumitances, fo perfeft- 1- .od, fo converfable, fo elegant in all her manners, that her phyfician would have been tempted to wilh never to fee her well.
She was then with child by Ras Michael ; and the late feftival, upon her niece's marriage with Powuffen of Begem- der, had been much too hard for her conftitution, always weak and delicate fince her firft misfortunes, and the death of Mariam Barea. After giving her my advice, and direct- ing her women how to adminifter what I was to fend her, the doors of the tent were thrown open ; all our friends came flocking round us, when we prefently faw that the interval employed in confutation had not been fpent ufe- lefsly, for a mod abundant breakfaft was produced in wood- en platters upon the carpet. There were excellent ftewed fowls, but fo inflamed with Cayenne pepper as almoft to blifter the mouth ; fowls dreffed with boiled wheat, jufl once broken in the middle, in the manner they are prepa- red in India, with rice called pillow v this, too, abundantly charged with pepper; Guinea hens, roafted hard without butter, or any fort of fauce, very white, but as tough as lea- ther; above all, the never- failing brind, for fo they call the collops of raw beef, without which nobody could have been fatisfied; but, what was more agreeable to me, a large quan- tity of wheat-bread, of Dembea flour, equal in all its quali- ties to the belt in London or Paris.
The Abyffinians fay, you muft plant firft and then water;
nobody, therefore, drinks till they have finilhed eating;
Vol. III. 3 D after
