vernment in Gondar; on the contrary, those officers were only appointed to give force to the sentences and proceedings of the civil judges, and had not deliberation in any cause out of the camp. But two Umbares, or judges, of the twelve were obliged to attend each of the three districts; two were left in the king's house, and four had their chamber of judicature in his.
The citizens, upon this fair aspect of government, where justice and power united to protect them, dismissed all their fears, became calm and reconciled to Michael the second day after his arrival, and only regretted that they had been in anarchy, and strangers to his government so long.
The third day after his arrival he held a full council in presence of the king. He sharply rebuked both parties in a speech of considerable length, in which he expressed much surprise, that both king and queen, after the experience of so many years, had not discovered that they were equally unfit to govern a kingdom, and that it was impossible to keep distant provinces in order, when they paid such inattention to the police of the metropolis. Great part of this speech applied to the king, who, with the Iteghè and Galla, were in a balcony as usual, in the same room, though at some distance, and above the table where the council sat, but within convenient hearing.
The troubled state, the destruction of Woggora, and the insecurity of the roads from Damot, had made a famine in Gondar. The army possessed both the rivers, and suffered no supply of water to be brought into the town, but allow-
