A commercial convention betwixt Great Britain and Shoa was a subject that had been frequently adverted to; and His Majesty had shaken his head when first assured that five hundred pair of hands efficiently employed at the loom would bring into his country more permanent wealth than ten thousand warriors bearing spear and shield. But he had gradually begun to comprehend how commerce, equitably conducted, might prove a truer source of wealth than forays into the territories of the heathen. This conviction resulted in the expression of his desire that certain articles agreed upon might be drawn up on parchment, and presented for signature, which had accordingly been done; and the day fixed for the return of the embassy to Ankóber was appointed for the public ratification of the document by the annexure thereto of the royal hand and seal.
Nobles and captains thronged the court-yard of the palace at Angollála, and the king reclined on the throne in the attic chamber. A highly illuminated sheet, surmounted on the one side by the Holy Trinity—the device invariably employed as the arms of Shoa—and on the other by the Royal Achievement of England, was formally presented, and the sixteen articles of the convention in Amháric and English, read, commented upon, and fully approved. They involved the sacrifice of arbitrary appropriation by the crown of the property of foreigners dying in the country, the abrogation of the despotic interdiction which had from time immemorial precluded the purchase or display of costly goods by the subject, and the removal of penal restrictions upon voluntary movement within and beyond the kingdom, which formed a modification of the obsolete national maxim, “never to permit the stranger who had once entered, to depart from Abyssinia.” All these evils His Majesty unhesitatingly declared his determination to annul for the good of his people.
Tekla Mariam, the royal notary, kneeling, held the upper part of the unrolled scroll upon the state cushion, and the king, taking the proffered pen, inscribed after the words “Done and concluded at Angollála, the Galla capital of Shoa, in token whereof we have hereunto set our hand and seal,”—“Sáhela Selássie, who is the Negoos of Shoa, Efát, and the Galla.” The imperial signet, a cross encircled by the word “Jesus,” was then attached by the scribe in presence of the chief of the church, the Dedj Agafári, the Governor of Morát, and three other functionaries who were summoned into the alcove for the purpose.
“You have loaded me with costly presents,” exclaimed the monarch as he returned the deed: “the raiment that I wear, the throne whereon I sit, the various curiosities in my storehouses, and the muskets which hang around the great hall, are all from your country. What have I to give in return for such wealth? My kingdom is as nothing.”
Volume Two—Chapter Forty Six.
Appendix.
Remarks on the Geology, Botany, and Zoology of the Highlands of Southern Abyssinia.
Geology.