true that Begemder and Amhara were in rebellion, young, wild, and worthless people, like Guebra Mehedin and Confu, could never be those pitched upon for the respectable office of Fit-Auraris. The worst that could be, as they conceived, was, that some misunderstanding might subsist between Ras Michael and the governors above named, but Fasil was undoubtedly the enemy of them all. They imagined therefore that this disgust, if any, would be soon got over, and concluded that it was highly absurd, in any case, to attack me, as they certainly knew that the queen, Powussen, and Gusho, would be full as ill-pleased with it as the king or Ras Michael. It therefore appeared to them, as it also did to me, that these wild, young men, had taken the first surmise of a rebellion, as a pretence for robbing all that came in their way, and that I, unfortunately, had been the first.
We were in the middle of this conversation when the parties appeared. They had, perhaps, an hundred horse, and were scattered about a large plain, skirmishing, playing, pursuing one another, shrieking and hooping like so many frantic people. They stopt, however, upon coming nearer, seeing the respectable figure that we made, just ready to pass the ford, which alone divided us. Our servants had neither seen Netcho nor Adigo, when they went in the morning, though they knew Adigo was expected, and these marauders hoped to have intercepted me, thinly accompanied, as they had done my baggage.
Guebra Mehedin and his brother approached nearer the banks than the rest, and a servant was sent from them, who crossed the river to us, upbraiding Ayto Adigo with pro-tecting
