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 Rh, and which undoubtedly led to his greatness, that of Balgudda, or protector of the salt caravans, which come up from the plains of Assa Durwa; an office always conferring considerable consequence on its possessor, owing to his being entitled to a duty on every load of salt imported into the country, and from the power which it gives him of withholding this very necessary article of consumption as well as of barter, from the interior provinces. This situation he received during the short government of his father, Kefla Yasous, over the province of Tigré. On the return of Ras Michael to the command, he fled to the fastnesses bordering on the salt-plain, where he remained, carrying on a predatory warfare, until the death of "the old lion," as the former is emphatically styled in the country.

During this period, while Ras Michael was seeking his life, he challenged any two chiefs in the army opposed to him to fight on horseback; and, two men of distinguished bravery having been made choice of for the purpose, he went down into the plain to meet them, and killed both with his own hand; possessing, notwithstanding his small and delicate form, such peculiar skill in the