ABSTRACT
Three days after my arrival at Gaffat, I was visited by Messrs. Bender and Kienzlen, two of the six German artisans who were sent to Abyssinia by the Bishop of Jerusalem in the hope that by the introduction of useful trades, and the exhibition of a pure faith, former prejudices against Europeans might be removed, and the King and his nominal Christian subjects become more favourably disposed towards the reception of an unadulterated Gospel, and the efforts of missionaries. The visit of two Europeans in that wild and strange land, where I had not a friend or companion beyond parties of pestering, and importuning native mendicants, was indeed a great relief to my mind, in the utter loneliness and solitude to which, till the arrival of my companion, I should otherwise have been hopelessly doomed. My new acquaintances, who had been more than five years in the country, gave me much useful information about Abyssinia and its population. The King they held in high esteem for his probity of sentiment, purity of life, and singleness of purpose; but in reference to his subjects, they certainly could only re-echo what I had from the first day noticed, that they were a false, treacherous, and insolent race— absurdly superstitious in their religious belief, and re-voltingly obscene in their domestic relations—insolent to an inferior, and cringing and servile to a superior— at one time declaring that they had entirely departed from the faith of the Gospel, and a minute after contending that their creed had the signet of St. Mark for its authenticity, and the example of wonder-working saints for its inviolable defence;—a nation, in fact, so debased in mind and vitiated in heart, that notwithstanding their physical and intellectual superiority to every other African tribe, they vie with all in truth-lessness, cunning, and moral depravity.
