portrait--the national idea being, that whoever takes a likeness,
immediately becomes invested with power over the original. "You are
writing a book," he said. "I know this, because I never enquire what you
are doing that they do not tell me you are using a pen, or gazing at the
heavens. That is a good thing, and it pleases me. You will speak
favourably of myself; but you shall not insert my portrait, as you have
done that of the King of Zingero."

The English had new wonders for him; they shaped planks out of trees in a
fashion new to the Abyssinians, who waste a tree on every plank. "You
English are indeed a strange people," said the king, as he saw the first
plank formed in this economical style. "I do not understand your stories
of the roads dug under rivers, nor of the carriages that gallop without
horses; but you are a strong people, and employ wonderful inventions."

At length the Gothic hall was complete. It may be presumed that nothing
like it was ever seen in Abyssinia before; for the mission not merely
built, but furnished it with couches, ottomans, chairs, tables, and
curtains; doubtless a very showy affair, though we camot exactly
comprehend the author's expression of its being furnished after the manner
of an English cottage ornee. The king, however, was delighted with it. "I
shall turn it into a chapel," said his majesty, patting his chief
ecclesiastic on the back. "What say you to that plan, my father?" As a
last finishing touch, were suspended in the centre hall a series of large
coloured engravings, representing the chase of the tiger in all its
various phases. The domestication of the elephant, and its employment in
war or in the pageant, had ever proved a stumbling block to the king; but
the appearance of the hugest of beasts in his hunting harness struck the
chord of a new idea. "I will have a nunber caught on the Roby," he
exclaimed, "that you may tame then, and that I too may ride on an elephant