After our reconciliation we visited each other frequently, and had
some conversation about the journey I had undertaken, and the desire
I had of finding a new passage into Aethiopia. It was necessary on
this account to consult their lubo or king: I found him in a straw
hut something larger than those of his subjects, surrounded by his
courtiers, who had each a stick in his hand, which is longer or
shorter according to the quality of the person admitted into the
king's presence. The ceremony made use of at the reception of a
stranger is somewhat unusual; as soon as he enters, all the
courtiers strike him with their cudgels till he goes back to the
door; the amity then subsisting between us did not secure me from
this uncouth reception, which they told me, upon my demanding the
reason of it, was to show those whom they treated with that they
were the bravest people in the world, and that all other nations
ought to bow down before them. I could not help reflecting on this
occasion how imprudently I had trusted my life in the hands of men
unacquainted with compassion of civility, but recollecting at the
same time that the intent of my journey was such as might give me
hopes of the divine protection, I banished all thoughts but those of
finding a way into Aethiopia. In this strait it occurred to me that
these people, however barbarous, have some oath which they keep with
an inviolable strictness; the best precaution, therefore, that I
could use would be to bind them by this oath to be true to their
engagements. The manner of their swearing is this: they set a
sheep in the midst of them, and rub it over with butter, the heads
of families who are the chief in the nation lay their hands upon the
head of the sheep, and swear to observe their promise. This oath
(which they never violate) they explain thus: the sheep is the
mother of them who swear; the butter betokens the love between the
mother and the children, and an oath taken on a mother's head is