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 used to the Ras: "we go on in the dark, not knowing what is right or what is wrong, but I believe we shall do no good until we get a lesson from you;" "and now," he added, rising from his seat, "at the desire of the Ras, and from the friendship I bear you, I have to pray to God for your future prosperity:" he then recited a long prayer for our safe return, to which we with great sincerity answered, "Amen."

I have been induced to dwell at some length upon the preceding ceremony of baptism, from its determining one of the most disputed points respecting the Abyssinian Church, the Jesuits having always accused it of an error in the form of administering the ceremony, which rendered it of no avail. In conformity with this opinion, they insisted on the re-baptism of all those whom they converted to the Romish Church, a circumstance which ultimately gave great offence, and tended to occasion their dismissal from the country. Many erroneous observations and mis-statements have also been made respecting a ceremony practised by the Abyssinians on the feast of the Epiphany, which falls, according to their reckoning, on the 11th of January, when the greater part of the inhabitants are accustomed to assemble by the brooks or lakes in the neighbourhood, for the purpose of performing a species of ablution, which has been interpreted into an annual repetition of baptism. I made many enquiries respecting this custom, which Mr. Pearce had witnessed every year during his stay in the country, and I found that it was always considered as "a mere commemoration of Our Saviour's baptism;" and that, it was rather a holiday scene of riotous mirth, than a religious ceremony. The younger part of the company, after they have received the priest's blessing, jump into the water, and as Ludolf well describes, "proceed to leap and dance, and duck one another, and by and by to fill the neighbouring fields with hoopings and hollowings; the usual consequences of such kind of sport."

The Abyssinians administer the holy Sacrament of communion in both kinds, with leavened bread always