He had told us once, "You will see
what great things I will achieve during the rainy season," and we
expected that he would march into Lasta or Tigre before the roads
were closed by the rains, to subdue the rebellion that for years
he had allowed to pass unnoticed. It is very probable that if he
had adopted that course he would have regained his prestige, and
easily reduced to obedience those provinces. No one was so much
Theodore's enemy as himself; he seems to have been possessed with
an evil spirit urging him to his own destruction. Many a time he
would have regained the ground he had lost, and put down to a certain
extent rebellion; but all his actions, from the day we left him
until he arrived at Islamgee, were only calculated to accelerate
his fall.
Begemder is a large, powerful, fertile province, the "land of sheep"
(as its name indicates), a fine plateau, some 7,000 or 8,000 feet
above the sea, well watered, well cultivated, and thickly populated.
The inhabitants are warlike, brave for Abyssinians, and often have
repulsed the rebels venturing to invade their province, so firm in
its allegiance to Theodore. Not many months before Tesemma Engeddah,
a young man, hereditary chief Of Gahinte, a district of Begemder
near its eastern frostier, with the aid of the peasants, attacked
a force sent into Begemder by Gobaze, utterly routed it and put
every man to death; except a few chiefs who were kept for the
Emperor to deal with as he thought fit.
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