When night fell, rockets were fired by the royal command, “to instil terror into the breasts of the Galla hordes;” and the peak which ran near the headquarters, was chosen as the most central spot for the display.  The effect, brilliant every where, was here all that even Majesty could have desired.  The “fire-rainers” (the picturesqe name which, we presune, Major Harris has adopted from the natives) produced delight, wonder, and terror, in all their degrees; and if the Galla nation were present, they must, to a man, have solicited chains, rather than be roasted alive by those flying monsters, which the people seem to have taken for the works of magic, if not magicians themselves.  The display was followed by a repast in the old heroic style, and which will not be forgotten, should Abyssinia ever give the world a sable Homer.

“The chiefs and nobles sat down to their feast in the royal pavilion, where hydromel, beer, and raw flesh were in regal profusion!!  After supper, speeches were made in the Homeric style, boasting of what the warriors had done, and intended to do.  A fragment of one of the speeches; addressed to the English as the party broke up, gives a fair idea of Abyssinian table eloquence, ‘You are the adorners,’ (the orator had been decorated with a scarlet cloak;) ’you have given me scarlet broadcloth, and behold I have reserved the gift for this day.  This garment will bring me success; for the Pagan who sees a crimson cloak on the shoulders of the Amhara,’ (Abyssinian,) ’believing him to be a warrior of distinguished valour, will take, like an ass, to his heels, and be speared without the smallest danger.’”

The march, and the foray into the country of one of the Galla tribes, are admirably told, and perhaps are among the best descriptions in the volumes—­exact without being tedious, and deeply coloured without exaggeration.  But we must hasten to other things.  This was the monarch’s eighty-fourth foray; and on this we may conceive something of the horrors of barbarian life, and of the tremendous evils which nations have escaped whose laws and principles tame down the original evil of man.

We are glad to find that the embassy refused to take any share in this horrible work, though they fell into some disrepute with the troops, and even with the monarch, for their remissness.  The king had even reserved an unlucky Galla in a tree, to be shot by his guests.  But this they declined, first, on the pretext of its being the Sabbath, and next, more distinctly on the ground, that—­“no public body was authorized by the law of nations, to draw a sword offensively in any country not at war with its own.”  They then offered the compromise, “that an elephant was esteemed equivalent to forty Gallas, and a wild buffalo to five, and that they were ready to shoot as many of both as his Majesty pleased.”  But the embassy did more effectual things; the sick and wounded received relief from them to the extent of their means, and they even prevailed on the king to liberate all his prisoners.  The troops in the foray amounted to about 20,000.