Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/99

 moon the other two, whose cries were still remaining in my ears: that the hyænas at night would scarcely let me pass in the streets when I returned from the palace; and the dogs fled into my house to eat pieces of human carcases at leisure.

Although his intention was to look grave, I saw it was all he could do to stifle a laugh at grievances he thought very little of. "The men you saw with Za Mariam just now, says he, are rebels, sent by Kefla Yesous for examples: he has forced a junction with Tecla and Welleta Michael in Samen, and a road is now open through Woggora, and plenty established in Gondar. The men you saw suffer were those that cut off the provisions from coming into the city; they have occasioned the death of many poor people; as for the hyæna he never meddles with living people, he seeks carrion, and will soon clear the streets of those incumbrances that so much offend you; people say that they are the Falasha of the mountains, who take that shape of the hyæna, and come down into the town to eat Christian flesh in the night." — "If they depend upon Christian flesh, and eat no other, said I, perhaps the hyænas of Gondar will be the worst fed of any in the world." — "True, says he, bursting out into a loud laughter, that may be, few of those that die by the knife anywhere are Christians, or have any religion at all; why then should you mind what they suffer?" — "Sir, said I, that is not my sentiment; if you was to order a dog to be tortured to death before me every morning, I could not bear it. The carcases of Abba Salama, Guebra Denghel, and the rest, are still hanging where they were upon the tree; you smell the stench of them at the palace-gate, and will soon, I apprehend, in the palace itself. This cannot