faithful to him.

When I first met Theodore, in January, 1866, he must have been about
forty-eight years of age. His complexion was darker than that of
the majority of his countrymen, the nose slightly curved, the mouth
large, the lips so small as hardly to be perceived. Of middle size,
well knit, wiry rather than muscular, he excelled as a horseman,
in the use of the spear, and on foot would tire his hardiest
followers. The expression of his dark eyes, slightly depressed, was
strange; if he was in good humour they were soft, with a kind of
gazelle-like timidity about them that made one love him; but when
angry the fierce and bloodshot eye seemed to shed fire. In moments
of violent passion his whole aspect was frightful: his black visage
acquired an ashy hue, his thin compressed lips left but a whitish
margin around the mouth, his very hair stood erect, and his whole
deportment was a terrible illustration of savage and ungovernable
fury.

Yet he excelled in the art of duping his fellow-men. Even a few
days before his death he had still, when we met him, all the dignity
of a sovereign, the amiability and good-breeding of the most
accomplished "gentleman." His smile was so attractive, his words
were so sweet and gracious, that one could hardly believe that the
affable monarch was but a consummate dissembler.

He never perpetrated a deed of treachery or cruelty without pleading
some specious excuse, so as to convey the impression that in all
his actions he was guided by a sense of justice. For example, he
plundered Dembea because the inhabitants were too friendly towards
Europeans, and Gondar because one of our messengers had been betrayed