" There are then laid before every guest, instead of plates, round cakes, if I may so call them, about twice as big as a pancake, and something thicker and tougher. It is unleavened bread, of a sourish taste, far from be ing disagreeable, and very easily digested, made of a grain called teff. It is of different colours, from black to the colour of the whitest wheat-bread. Three or four of these cakes are generally put uppermost, for the food of the person opposite to whose seat they are pla ced. Beneath these are four or live of ordinary bread, and of a blackish kind. These serve the master to wipe his fingers upon, and afterwards the servant, for bread to his dinner. Two or three servants then come, each with a square piece of beef in his bare hands, laying it upon the cakes of teff, placed like dishes clown the table, without cloth or any thing else beneath them. By this time all the guem, have knik es in their lands, and their men have the large crooked ones, which they put to all sorts of uses during the time of war. The women have small clasped knis es, such as the worst of the kind made at Birmingham, sold for a penny each. The company are so ranged, that one man sits between two women ; the man, NY ith his long knife, cuts a thin piece, which would be thought a good b( al-steak in England, while you see the motion of the fibres yet perlectly distinct, and alive in the flesh.
" No man in Abyssinia, of any fashion whatever, feeds himself, or touches his own meat. The women take the steak, and cut it lengthways, like strings, about the thickness of your little finger, then crossways into square pieces, something smaller than dice. This they lay upon a piece of the tell* bread, strongly powdered with black or Cayenne pepper, and fossil salt ; they then wrap it up in the tar bread like a cartridge. In the meantime, the man, having pm up his knife, with each hand resting on his neighbour's knee, his body stooping, his head low and forward, and his mouth open, very like an idiot, turns to her whose cartridge is first ready, who stuffs the whole of it into his mouth, which is so full, that he is in constant danger of being choked. This is a mark of grandeur. The greater a man would seem to be, the larger piece he takes in his mouth ; and the more noise he makes in chewing it, the more polite he thought to be. They have, indeed, a proverb, that says, " Beggars and thieves only eat small pieces, or without making a noise." Having despatched this morsel, which he does very expeditiously, his next female neighbour holds forth another cartridge, which goes the same war, and so on till he is satisfied. l le never drinks till he has finished eating ; and before he begins, in gratitude to the fair ones that fed him, he makes up two small rolls of the same kind and form ; each of his neighbours open thei° mouths at the same time, while, with each hand, he puts their portion into their mouths. Ile then falls to drink ing, out of a large handsome horn ; the ladies eat till they are satisfied, and then all drink together. A great dual of mirth and joke goes round, very seldom w ith any mixture of acrimony or ill humour.
" All this time the unfortunate victim at the door is bleeding indeed, but bleeding little. As long as they
can cut off the flesh front his bones, they do not meddle with the thighs or the parts where the great arteries are. At last they tall upon the thighs likewise ; and soon aft[. r, the annual, bleeding to death, becomes so tough, that the cannibals who have the rest of it to eat. find very hard work to separate the flesh from the bones with their teeth like dogs." This inhuman practice is so repugnant to the manners and sentiments of Europeans, that some have been in duced to regard it as altogether absurd and impossible. But, not to mention the temerity and the injustice of rejecting an account of distant nations, because it hap pens not to coincide with our own customs, or precon ceived opinions,—Mr Bruce's narrative is confirmed by the testimony of other travellers, and, in a certain de gree, by the practice of other countries. Lobo assures us, that the Galla eat raw meat, and nothing else, a cus tom which seems to have prevailed pretty generally in the south of Africa. Speaking of the Abyssinians, he affirms, "that their greatest treat is a piece of raw beef, quite Ttfar177. When they give a feast, they kill an ox, and immediately serve up a quarter of it on the table, with much pepper and salt ; and the gall of the ox serves them fur oil and v ine gar." 'ro cut the animal in pieces while alive, is an easy and natural refinement on this barbarous practice ; and accordingly Abram, an Abys sinian, told sir William. Jones, that the country people and soldiery made no scruple of drinking the blood, and eating the raw flesh of an ox, not caring IN hether they cut it when dead or alive.
A people of such unexampled cruelty towards brute animals, cannot be expected to pay much regard to the sufferings of their fellow creatures. Inured iron, their infancy to blood, murder seems almost their pastime. Even children, when provoked, are prevented only by the want of strength from imbruing their impotent nands in the blood of a playfellow, or a brother. Their sanguinary laws are but a weak restraint against these violent pas sions, when seconded by greater strength and address ; and the punishments annexed to the laws themselves, exhibit the most striking example of the national cru elty. One of these punishments is flaying alive ; and even Ozoro Esther, the heroine of Mr Bruce's narra tive, smiled with savage complacency when presented with the skin of an enemy. Criminals are frequently' hewn in pieces with a sabre ; nor is this performed by common executioners, whose office, in every civilized country, is held infamous and detestable, but by people of quality, and officers of rank. So little, indeed, is thought of these executions, that Mr Bruce, happening one day to pass by an officer who had three men to despatch in this manner, was coolly requested by him to stop till he had cut them all to pieces, as he wished to converse with him upon an affair of consequence. Stoning to death is another capital punishment frequent in Abys sinia; inflicted generally on Franks and Roman Catho lics, when they happen to be found, and on other here tics in religion.