country should do aught else but work for him. On his first interview
with Mr. Stern, after this gentleman's return to Abyssinia, Theodore,
on being informed as to the motives of Mr. Stern's journey, said,
in an angry mood, "I have enough of your Bibles." Theodore also
believed that by ill-using Mr. Stern he would please his "Gaffat
children," therefore, immediately after Mr. Stern's imprisonment,
he wrote to them saying, "I have chained your enemy and mine."

That the crisis was at last brought on by malicious representations
to his Majesty of trifling incidents, was proved to us quite
accidentally on our way down. At Antalo I had a few friends at
dinner, amongst them Mr. Stern, when, in the evening, Peter Beru,
an Abyssinian who had received his education at Malta and had been
one of the interpreters of Mr. Stern's book at the famous public
trial at Gondar, came into the tent, and, being a little excited,
told Mr. Stern that three things had called down upon him the King's
displeasure: first, the enmity of the Gaffat people against him;
secondly, his (Mr. Stern's) intimacy with the Abouna; thirdly, his
not having called upon his Majesty during his last stay at Gondar.

On the 22nd of November Mr. Laurence Kerans arrived at Gondar. He
came for the purpose of joining Captain Cameron in the capacity of
private secretary. He brought with him some letters for Captain
Cameron; amongst them one from Earl Russell ordering the consul
back to his post at Massowah. Of all the captives none deserves
greater sympathy than poor Kerans. Quite a youth when he entered
Abyssinia, he suffered four years of imprisonment in chains, for
no reason whatever except that he arrived at an inauspicious time.
It is true that, according to his wonted habit, his Majesty charged
him with having intended to insult him by offering him a carpet