Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/90

 though he seemed under very great impatience, did not often interrupt him, further than, You lie, and, It is a lie, which he repeated at every new charge. His accuser had not said one word of the murder of Joas, but passed it over without the smallest allusion to it.

In this, however, Abba Salama did not follow his example: being desired to answer in his own defence, he entered upon it with great dignity, and an air of superiority, very different from his behaviour in the king's tent the day before: he laughed, and made extremely light of the charges on the article of women, which he neither confessed nor denied; but said these might be crimes among the Franks, (looking at me) or other Christians, but not the Christians of that country, who lived under a double dispensation, the law of Moses and the law of Christ: he said the Abyssinians were Beni Israel, as indeed they call themselves, that is. Children of Israel; and that in every age the patriarchs had acted as he did, and were not lefs beloved of God. He went roundly into the murder of Joas, and of his two brothers, Adigo and Aylo, on the mountain of Wechne, and charged Michael directly with it, as also with the poisoning the late Hatze Hannes, father of the present king.

The Ras seemed to avoid hearing, sometimes by speaking to people standing behind him, sometimes by reading a paper; in particular, he asked me, standing directly behind his chair, in a low voice, What is the punishment in your country for such a crime? It was his custom to speak to me in his own language of Tigré, and one of his greatest pastimes to laugh at my faulty expression. He spake this to me in Amharic, so I knew he wanted my answer should