the choice of the king is always according to the will of the minister, which passes for that of the people; and, his inclination and interest being to govern, he never fails to choose an infant whom thereafter he directs, ruling the kingdom absolutely during the minority, which generally exhausts, or is equal to the term of his life.
From this flow all the misfortunes of this unhappy country. This very defect arises from a desire to institute a more than ordinary perfect form of government; for the Abyssinians first position was, "Woe be to the kingdom whose king is a child;" and this they know must often happen when succession is left to the course of nature. But when there was a choice to be made out of two hundred persons all of the same family, all capable of reigning, it was their own fault, they thought, if they had not always a prince of proper age and qualification to rule the kingdom, according to the necessities of the times, and to preserve the succession of the family in the house of Solomon, agreeable to the laws of the land. And indeed it has been this manner of reasoning, good at first view, though found afterwards but too fallacious, which has ruined their kingdom in part, and often brought the whole into the utmost hazard and jeopardy.
The king is anointed with plain oil of olives, which, being poured upon the crown of his head, he rubs into his long hair indecently enough with both his hands, pretty much as his soldiers do with theirs when they get access to plenty of butter.
The
