A SWEET KING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 233, 30 September 1881, Page 1

A SWEET KING.

I write in baste, but I will sum up coy impressions of Abyssinia. The king is rapidly growing mad. He cuts off the Doses of those who take enuff and the lips of tboee who smoke. The other day a man went to ealute Rae Aloula. In saluting him his tobacco box dropped out. Kaa Alouh struck him with hie sword, and his people finished him. The kiag is hated more that) Theodore was. Cruel to a degree, be does not, however, take life. He cuts off the feet and hands of the people who ofend him. He put out tbeir eyes by pouring hot tallow into their ears. Several came to tell me this. I remonstrated with the king againit bis edict forcing men to jbeoome Cbrißtiao ?ro» MufsQiatan., He said

they wished it. I also remonstrated about the tobacco edict, bat it was of ao use. No one can travel without the king's order if he is a foreigner. You caa buy nothing without the king's order, oo one will shelter you without his order — in fact no more complete despotism could exist. It cannot last; for the king will go on from one madness to another Orders were given that no one was to approach me; nor was I to «peak to any. The officer who conducted me to the king, the second in command to Aloula, met his unole and cousin,' in chains and durst not ask why thsy were chained. The king is a man of some 45 years, a sour, ill-favored looking being. He never looks you in the face, but when you look away he glares at you like a tiger. He never smiles; his look, a!waya ohangiag, is one of thorough suspicion. Hated by and hating all, I.can imagine no more unhappy man. Avaricious above all his people, who do not lack this quality, hia idea of a free port is that fleets of iteamers will arrive from the powers of Europa with presents for him, to which ha will reply | by sending a letter, with the Sioa seal, saying, •• You are my brother, my mother, &c. How are you ?" Johannia is delighted with her Mnjisty, because aha called him her son. He carries with him all his great prisoners — the poor Goobaaie, with his eyes out, and the rest. At the great least, on September 27, he had one bullock killed for some hundreds of persons. (Colonel Gordon's «* Central Africa.")