But a terrible disaster was to befall the palace and the people.  The dweller amongst mountains must be always exposed to their dilapidation; and a season of unusual rain, continuing to a much later period than usual, produced an earth-avalanche.

“As the evening of an eventful night (Dec. 6th) closed in, not a single breath of wind disturbed the thick fog which brooded over the mountain.  A sensible difference was perceptible in the atmosphere; but the rain again began to descend, and for hours pelted like the dischage of a waterspout.  Towards morning, a violent thunder storm careered along the crest of the range, and every rock and cranny re-echoed from the crash of the thunder.  Deep darkness again settled on the mountains, and a heavy rumbling noise, like the passage of artillery wheels, as followed by the shrill cry of despair.  The earth, saturated with moisture, had slidden from their steep slopes, houses and cottages were engulfed in the debris, or shattered to fragments by the descending masses, and daylight presented a strange scene of ruin.  Perched on the apex of the conical peak, the palace buildings were now stripped of their palisades, or overwhelmed:  the roads along the hill were completely obliterated.  The desolation had spread for miles along the great range:  houses, with their inmates, had been hurried away.”

Before the mission took its departure, it did honour to the character of its country by one act which alone would have been worth its time and trouble.  The horrid policy of African despotism condemns all the brothers of the throne to the dungeon, from the moment of the royal accession.  The king had exhibited qualities of a very unexpected order in an African despot, and, under the guidance of the mission, had made some advances to justice, and even to clemency.  At this period, he was suddenly seized with an alarming spasmodic disorder, and he apprehended that his constitution, enfeebled by the habits of his life, was likely to give way.  On his recovery being despaired of by both priests and physicians, he suddenly sent for the British mission.

“‘My children,’ said his majesty in a sepulchral voice, as he extended his burning hand towards them, ’behold I am sore stricken.  Last night they believed me dead, and the voice of mourning had arisen within the palace walls; but God hath spared me until now.’”

It seems to be the custom for the king’s physician to taste the draught prescribed for him, and an attenpt being made to do this by the British, the sick monarch generously forbade it.

  “‘What need is there now of this?’ he exclaimed reproachfully.  ’Do I
  not know that you would administer to Sahela Selasse nothing that
  could do him mischief?’”

The reader will probably remember an almost similar act of confidence of Alexander the Great in his physician.  An opportunity was now taken of urging him to an act of humanity, however strongly opposed to the habits of the country, and to the interests of the man.  It was represented to him that his uncles and brothers had been immured in a dungeon during the thirty years of his reign, and that no act could be more honourable to himself, or acceptable to Heaven, than the extinction of this barbarous custom.