Besides the stores that Ozoro Esther always was provided with, the king had sent her two live cattle, wine, brandy, and hydromel; and what was a very unusual condescension, the Ras, immediately after council, came into the tent, and brought with him a fresh supply. He was very gracious and affable, said a number of kind things to everybody, and asked me particularly how we drank in England?
I explained to him as well as I could the nature of our toasts, and drinking to the health of our mistresses by their names in bumpers; that our soldiers toasts on such a night as that, if the general honoured them as he did us now with his company, would be, A fair morning, and speedy sight of our enemy. He comprehended it all very easily, and when I saw he did so, I asked if I should give my toast? and he and all the company joining in a loud cry of approbation, I filled a horn with wine, and standing up, for he had forced us all to be seated, I drank, Long life to the king, health, happiness, and victory, to you, Sir, and a speedy sight of king Theodorus. A violent shout of applause followed. He himself (the soberest of men) would drink his horn full, which he did, with many interruptions from immoderate fits of laughter; the horn went quickly round, and I ventured to prophecy, that, in the thousand years he is to reign, Theodorus will never again be so chearfully toasted.
The Ras then turning to me said, I wish I had 5000 of your countrymen, Yagoube, to-morrow, such as you are, or such as you have described them. I answered. Would you had one thousand, and I had twenty lives staked upon the issue. Ayto Engedan upon this got up, and passing across the tent in a very graceful manner, kissed the Ras's hand, saying, Do not make us think you undervalue, or distrust your children, by forming such a wish: Yagoube is one of us, he is our brother, and he shall see and judge to-morrow, if we, your own sons, are not able to fight your battle without the aid of any foreigners. Tears, on this, came into the old man's eyes, who took Engedan in his arms, and kissed him; then recommending to us not to sit up late, he withdrew. A great deal of buffoonery followed about toasts, and soon after arrived two officers from the king, desiring to know what was the reason of that violent outcry? by which he meant the shout when we drank the toast. Ozoro Esther answered, We were all turned traitors, and were drinking the health of king Theodorus. But it was afterwards thought proper to explain the whole matter before the messengers went back, and make them drink the toast also.
Tecla Mariam had not spoken much, her father having sent for her at that time to the king. Before she departed, I begged Ozoro Esther to apologise for me, that I had absented myself, and had not waited upon her in the morning. I intreated her to continue her kind partiality to me the next day, and to judge for ever of the esteem I had for her by my then behaviour. She promised to do so with the utmost complacency and sweetness, and departed.
Soon after this, a servant arrived from Ras Michael, with a magnificent saddle and bridle as a present to Engedan. This man told us that a messenger had come from Waragna Fasil, desiring a place might be marked out for him to encamp, for he was to join the king early in the morning; but nobody gave any credit to this, nor did he, as far as I ever heard, advance a foot nearer the camp. The messenger commanded us all, moreover, to go to bed, which we immediately complied with. I only went to the king's tent, where the company was dispersing, and kissed his hand, after which I retired. In my way home to my tent, I saw a faggot lying in the way, when the story of the Guraguè came presently into my mind. I ordered some soldiers to separate it with their lances; but it had been brought for fuel, at least no Guragué was there.
I was no sooner laid upon my bed, than I fell into a profound sleep, which continued uninterrupted till five o'clock in the morning of the 20th. I had spared myself industriously in last night's carousal, for fear of contributing to a relapse into despondency in the morning; but I found all within serene and composed as it should be, and entirely resigned to what was decreed, I was perfectly satisfied, that the advancing or retarding the day of my death was not in the power of the army of Begemder. I then visited all the horses and the black soldiers, and ordered two or three of them, who were not perfectly recovered from their hurts, to stay in the camp. I afterwards went to the king's tent, who was not yet up; and the very instant after, the Ras's first drum beat, and the king rose; soon after which, the second drum was heard for the soldiers to go to breakfast. I went into the king's tent to kiss his hand, and receive his orders. He told me they were speedily then going to breakfast within, to which meal I was engaged at Ozoro Esther's. He answered, Make haste then, for I am resolved to be on the field before king Theodorus to-day. I am his senior, and should shew him the example. He seemed more than ordinary gay and in spirits.
I finished my breakfast in a few minutes, and took a grateful, but chearful leave of Ozoro Esther, and received many acknowledgements, and kind expressions, both from her and Tecla Mariam, who did not fail to be there according to appointment. The day was clear, the sun warm, and the army descended into the plain with great alacrity, in the same order as the day before. Guebra Mascal, with his musqueteers, took possession of the long hill in the valley, and coasted the left flank of our left wing, the river Mariam and its high banks being only between us. The king took his post, with the winding road aforementioned (up the steep banks of the Mariam) close on his left. Guebra Mascal having come to the south end of the hill below, marched briskly up the road, and then advanced about 200 yards, making his men lye down at the brink of the hill next the plain, among bent grass, and thin tall shrubs like Spanish broom, so as to be perfectly out of sight; his line was at right angles with our front, so that his fire must enfilade the whole front of our line.
If not very useful, yet it may, however, be thought curious, to know the disposition of a barbarous army ready to engage in a pitched battle as this was. Kefla Yasous, who commanded the left-wing under the king, placed his cavalry in a line to the opening of the road down into the valley; between every two musquets were men armed with lances and shields; then, at a particular distance, close before this line of horse, was a body of lances, and musquets, or sometimes either of them, in several lines, or, as they appeared, a round body of soldiers, standing together without any order at all; then another line of horse, with men between, alternately as before; then another round corps of lances and musquets, advanced just before the line of horse, and so on to the end of the division.
I know nothing of the disposition of the rest of the army, nor the ground they were engaged on; that where we stood was as perfect a plain as that commonly chosen to run races upon, and so I believe was the rest, only sloping more to the lake Tzana.