Never resting, almost always on the march, his army day
by day becoming reduced in strength, he went from province to
province; but in vain: all disappeared at his approach. There was
no enemy; but there was no food! At last, reduced by necessity, in
order to keep around him some remnants of his former immense army,
he had no alternative left but to plunder the few provinces still
faithful to him.
When I first met Theodore, in January, 1866, he must have been about
forty-eight years of age. His complexion was darker than that of
the majority of his countrymen, the nose slightly curved, the mouth
large, the lips so small as hardly to be perceived. Of middle size,
well knit, wiry rather than muscular, he excelled as a horseman,
in the use of the spear, and on foot would tire his hardiest
followers. The expression of his dark eyes, slightly depressed, was
strange; if he was in good humour they were soft, with a kind of
gazelle-like timidity about them that made one love him; but when
angry the fierce and bloodshot eye seemed to shed fire. In moments
of violent passion his whole aspect was frightful: his black visage
acquired an ashy hue, his thin compressed lips left but a whitish
margin around the mouth, his very hair stood erect, and his whole
deportment was a terrible illustration of savage and ungovernable
fury.
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