A curt permission to enter the country having been granted, Mr. Rassam's first interview with the King was on the 28th of January, 1866. Theodore was seated on a sofa, and wore the common robe of the country, called a shamma. The letter of Queen Victoria, dated the 26th of May, 1864, was presented by the envoy, and Theodore received it graciously. He then entered upon the subject of his grievances. The cause of all the mischief, the prime offender, was the Abuna Salama, the Coptic Patriarch, who had told false and malicious stories about him to various Europeans. Against the missionaries he had a great deal to say, particularly against Mr. Stern. Against Mr. Cameron, besides the offence of never having brought him back an answer to his letter to the Queen, he laid the charge of having gone to visit the Turks and Egyptians, and of having been friendly with them; and, on one occasion, when he was at Kassala with the Pasha, of having brought the King and his army into contempt by ordering his Abyssinian servants to imitate the war-dance of the royal troops. This story was told to the King by a discharged servant of Mr. Cameron's, named Ingada Wark, who had quarrelled with his master, and it is probably devoid of foundation. We give it here as a sample of the kind of insults and injuries over which the suspicious and wayward mind of Theodore was continually brooding, and of which Mr. Rassam's interesting report is full. When the Queen's letter had been translated for him into Amharic, Theodore was much pleased with its contents. On the 29th of January he sent for Mr. Rassam, and told him that, for the sake of his friend the Queen of England, and in return for the trouble that he had taken in the matter of Consul Cameron, he was pleased to pardon all the European captives, and he had ordered their immediate release. He then ordered a scribe to read an Arabic translation of the letter which he had just written to the Queen, announcing the release of the captives. There is a touching humility, a childlike simplicity, in the tone of this letter, which, coming from one who so often appeared in the light of a bloodthirsty and capricious tyrant, affords a curious study of the complexities of human character. A day or two afterwards Mr. Rassam had another conversation with the King. The misdeeds of Mr. Cameron again formed a prominent topic; and it is worth while to record a part of the King's indictment, because the language which he used on this occasion seems to cast a strong light on the actual sequence of feelings and ideas that influenced him in committing Cameron to prison. Theodore said that after he had written his famous letter to the Queen in the autumn of 1862, he gave it to Consul Cameron, requesting that he would take it down to the coast, and bring up an answer himself; that he gave him money for the journey, and ordered the chiefs of all the provinces between Gondar and Massowah to supply him and his followers with food, and treat him with respect and honour. What he chiefly wanted to effect by the letter was this—that since he had no navy of his own, the Queen should send a vessel to convey his ambassador to Suez, and should procure for him a safe conduct through Egypt. Instead of complying with his request, Mr. Cameron "had gone to play with the Turks" (this refers to the visit to Kassala), and after a long time came back to Gondar, but without an answer to his letter. Six months afterwards, Cameron sent him a letter, which he had received from his Government, and demanded his dismissal, that he might go down to Massowah. The King asked why he had returned to Abyssinia if he wished to be at Massowah? Getting no satisfactory answer to this question, Theodore continued, "I sent and told him, by the power of God you shall be detained in prison until I find out whether you are really the servant of the Queen." For why, Theodore would naturally argue, if he is indeed the servant of the Queen, has he not brought me long ere this an answer to my letter?

THE WHITE TOWER, TOWER OF LONDON

FROM THE PAINTING BY H. E. TIDMARSH.

[[See larger version]]

THE EMPEROR THEODORE GRANTING AN AUDIENCE.

But the coming of Mr. Rassam, for whom Theodore, though he afterwards used him so roughly, seems to have conceived a genuine affection, appeared at first to have removed all difficulties. It was arranged that the mission should travel to Korata, a beautiful village on the south-eastern shore of Lake Dembea, and there await the arrival of the captives from Magdala; after which they should all leave the country together. For several days' march the mission accompanied the King and his army; but Theodore turned aside to Zagé, a place on the western shore of the lake, facing Korata across the water. Mr. Rassam reached Korata on the 14th of February. Some weeks elapsed, on almost every day in which the King sent a friendly message or letter to Rassam. The first indication of difficulty was on the 7th of March, when the King wrote, "When the people [prisoners] reach you, we will consult;" that is, "You shall not go home at once, as heretofore arranged, but the whole matter shall be reconsidered." The words filled Mr. Rassam with dismay. About the same time a letter was delivered to the King from the traveller Dr. Beke, who had come out to Massowah, enclosing a petition from the relations of Cameron, Stern, and several other captives, entreating the King to release them. Colonel Stanton, the British agent in Egypt, and Sir William Merewether, the Political Resident at Aden, feared that Dr. Beke's action would perplex the King and lead him to doubt the reality of Mr. Rassam's mission. They tried in vain to make Dr. Beke see the prudence of abstaining from any interference in the difficult and delicate negotiation. For the King had now begun seriously to entertain the thought of detaining Rassam and his party till the envoy should have obtained for him from England a scientific man to teach his people the mechanical arts. On the 12th of March, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Stern, Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal, and eleven other captives, mostly Germans, arrived at Korata from Magdala. On the same day the King wrote to Rassam, saying that he must have them all over to Zagé and put them on their trial again. Rassam, however, obtained leave to try them at Korata; and, having gone through the forms of a mock trial, he wrote to the King that they all confessed that they had done wrong. It was thought prudent that the captives should throw themselves on the King's mercy; but the fabrication did no good, and probably would have been better left unattempted. The King wavered. On the 25th of March he held separate consultations at Zagé, first with the German artisans, and afterwards with a body of Abyssinian chiefs, and propounded at each the question, whether to detain Rassam or let him go? The chiefs and the artisans were equally unanimous in deciding that Rassam ought to be allowed to depart. Theodore was shaken, and yet he was not quite satisfied. The pressure, however, seemed to be telling upon him, and he wrote to Rassam (April 8th), desiring that he would come and pay him a farewell visit at Zagé "after the light of Easter," and bring Mr. Cameron and the other captives with him. This, however, Mr. Rassam—knowing the hatred that the King bore to Mr. Cameron and one or two others among the captives—thought it more prudent not to do. He obtained the King's consent to leave them behind at Korata, with the understanding that they were to start on a given day on their homeward journey, and himself proceeded to Zagé, on the 13th of April, along with the other members of the mission. Unfortunately for them, Theodore for some time past had been drinking heavily, and the effect of this on his moody imagination and suspicious temper was to fill his mind with a thousand preposterous apprehensions. When, therefore, Mr. Rassam with his two companions arrived at Zagé, to pay, as they supposed their farewell visit, they were seized, cross-examined, and their money and arms taken.

Such treatment of a mission, which even in Abyssinia ought to have been safe under the protection of the law of nations, was, of course, outrageous and unprecedented. At this stage an acute crisis seemed to be reached, calling for the most careful treatment at every point. However, there was nothing to be done at the time but to humour Theodore as far as was practicable, and to use every effort to make their situation known to the British Government. In effecting the latter object Mr. Rassam found very little difficulty. Only one of his messengers appears to have been stopped; all the rest carried safely to the coast, not his letters only, but frequently large sums of money, with praiseworthy honesty and regularity. With regard to artisans from England, Theodore wrote to Mr. Rassam (April 17th), that he wished the envoy to obtain for him, from the Queen, "a man who can make cannons and muskets, and one who can smelt iron, and an instructor of artillery." It was thought expedient to comply with the request, and Mr. Rassam wrote accordingly to the Secretary of State on the following day. Mr. Flad, a lay missionary, was selected as the bearer of Mr. Rassam's letter. As his wife and children were left in Abyssinia in Theodore's power, Mr. Flad's speedy return was counted upon with confidence.