Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/650

634 with the magnificent finishing of the room; it was the work of the Falasha, and consisted of painted cane, split and disposed in Mosaic figures, which produces a gayer effect than it is possible to conceive. This chamber, indeed, was never perfectly finished, from a want of mirrors. The king died; taste decayed; the artists were neglected, or employed themselves in ornamenting saddles, bridles, swords, and other military ornaments, for which they were very ill paid; part of the mirrors fell down; part remained till my time; and I was present when the last of them were destroyed, on a particular occasion, after the battle of Serbraxos, as will be hereafter mentioned.

king had begun another chamber of equal expence, consisting of plates of ivory, with stars of all colours stained in each plate at proper distances. This, too, was going to ruin; little had been done in it but the alcove in which he sat, and little of it was seen, as the throne and person of the king concealed it.

was charmed with this multiplicity of works and workmen. He gave up himself to it entirely; he even wrought with his own hand, and rejoiced at seeing the facility with which, by the use of a compass and a few straight lines, he could produce the figure of a star equally exact with any of his Greeks. Bounty followed bounty. The best villages, and those near the town, were given in property to the Greeks that they might recreate themselves, but at a distance, always liable to his call, and with as little loss of time as possible. He now renounced his favourite hunting-matches and incursions upon the Shangalla and Shepherds of Atbara.