On the 15th of February he arrived at Gondar, when, to his extreme vexation, he found that not only the king and Ras Michael, but almost every other person for whom he had letters, was absent with the army. Petros, the brother of Janni, his Greek friend at Adowa, to whom he had been in an especial manner recommended, had at the news of his coming been terrified by the priests, and fled to Ras Michael for instructions. A friend, however, of one of the Moors, whom Janni had interested in his favour, received him kindly, and conducted him to a house in the Moorish town, where he might, he said, remain safe from the molestations of the priests, until he should receive the protection of the government.
Late in the evening while our traveller was sitting quietly in his apartment reading the book of the prophet Enoch, Ayto Aylo, the queen's chamberlain, who probably had never before been in the Moorish town, came, accompanied by a number of armed attendants, to visit him. This man, a zealous protector of strangers, and who was desirous, as he said, to end his days in pious seclusion either at Jerusalem or Rome, after a long contest of civilities and a protracted conversation, informed Bruce that the queen-mother, who had heard of his abilities as a physician, was desirous he should undertake the treatment of a young prince then lying ill of the small-pox at the palace of Koscam. On proceeding thither next morning, however, he learned that the patient had been placed under the care of a saint from Waldubba, who had undertaken to cure him by writing certain mystical characters upon a tin-plate with common ink, and then, having washed them off with a medicinal preparation, giving them to the sick man to drink. Upon Bruce's second visit to the palace he was presented to the queen-mother, who, after some rambling conversation respecting Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, Mount Calvary, &c.,
