any human beings beyond the hunters that had
composed our party, in countries that were so wild
and savage, that the print of a naked foot upon the
sand had instinctively brought the rifle upon full
cock. Our European society was quickly increased :
two German missionaries had arrived, en route for
an establishment that had been get on foot in the
heart of Abyssinia, under the very nose of the King
Theodore, who regarded missionaries as an unsavoury
odour. Both were suffering from fever, having foolishly
located themselves in a hut close to the foul
stench of dead animals on the margin of the polluted
stream, the water of which they drank. One of these
preachers was a blacksmith, whose iron constitution
had entirely given way, and the little strength that
remained, he exhausted in endless quotations of texts
from the Bible, which he considered applicable to
every trifling event or expression. I regretted that I
could not agree with him in the propriety of invading
Abyssinia with Bible extracts, as the natives attached
as great impoitance to their own particular form of
Christianity, as any other of the numerous sects that
unhappily divide that beautiful religion into schisms ;•
any fresh dogma introduced by strangers might destroy
the union of the Abyssinian Church, and would
be not only a source of annoyance to the priesthood,
but would most probably influence them and the king
against all Europeans.
The blacksmith assured me that, the special mission
upon which he was employed, was the conversion of