Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/55

 house, where seats were placed in a gallery kept apart for the Governor's family and the Bishop. The latter had just returned from a shooting excursion, and was dressed (which appeared to us somewhat singular) in half boots and scarlet stockings. One lady only was present, who was habited very gaily, and had two black slave-girls to attend her. These, and a detachment of the native troops, whose conduct appeared to be extremely decorous, constituted the whole congregation. After mass I had an opportunity of examining the body of the chapel: it was plain and neat, with a single picture of a saint on one of the sides, and a handsome altarpiece at the east-end, which on particular occasions is lighted up with a great profusion of tapers. Near the altar lay a solitary tomb-stone, with the following elegantly written inscription.

The expression in this inscription of "Viceroy of Eastern Africa," deserves remark, as it is an appellation to which (though often assumed) the governor of this settlement is not at present entitled, his proper appellation being Governador e Capitaō General do Estᵒ de Mosambique, Rios de Senà e Sofala."

At a short distance from this chapel stands a house allotted to the Bishop, where he generally resides, belonging to the order of St. John De Deos, which has a monastery on the Island of Mosambique, now used as an hospital. It is a singular ordination imposed on the order, that the superior of it must be chosen out of the serviteurs. There were at this time only two monks in the monastery. In the afternoon of the 9th, we crossed the isthmus of Soué Souâh, and visited a village bearing the same name,