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 Amba, when a summons came from the monarch in these formal words:—­“Tarry not by day, neither stay ye by night; for the heart of the father longeth to see his children, and let him not be disappointed.”

They now ascended through a country of romantic beauty, to Machalwan, the place appointed for the interview.  The Abyssinian in charge of the embassy, was now sent forward to obtain permission to fire a salute of twenty-one guns on the arrival of the troop at the royal residence.  This request seemed to have alarmed his majesty in no slight degree.  The most romantic reports of the ordnance had gone before them.  It was currently believed that their discharge was sufficient to set fire to the ground, to shiver rocks, and to dismantle mountain fastnesses.  Men were said to have arrived, with “copper legs,” who served those tremendous engines; and in alarm for the safety of his palace, capital, and treasures, the suspicious monarch still peremptorily insisted on withholding the desired license, until he should have seen the battery “with his own eyes.”  It rained incessantly during the night which preceded the day of presentation, and