The inclosure was as bare as the
holy place itself; no graceful juniper, tall sycamore, or dark green
guicho solemnized its precincts, or offered cool shade where the
hundred priests, defteras, and deacons who daily performed service,
could repose after the fatiguing ceremony--the howling and the
dancing to David's psalms. On the same line, but below the hillock
on which stood the church, the Abouna possessed a few houses and a
garden; but, alas for him, his _pied-a-terre_ had for several
years become his prison.
The prison-house, a common gaol for the political offenders, thieves,
and murderers, consisted of five or six huts inclosed by a strong
fence, and surrounded by the private dwellings of the more wealthy
prisoners and guards, extending from the eastern slope of the hillock
to the edge of the precipice and to the open space towards the
south. At the time of our captivity these houses cannot have contained
less than 660 prisoners. Of these, about 80 died of remittent fever,
175 were released by his Majesty, 307 executed, and 91 owed their
liberty to the stormers of Magdala. The prison rules were in some
respects very severe, in others mild and foreign to our civilized
ideas. At sunset every prisoner was ordered into the central
inclosure. As they passed the gate they were counted and their
fetters examined.
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