One After The Other, On Some Good Ground, He Imprisoned The Chiefs; But It Was Only To Test Their Fidelity:

They would, he knew get for him what he wanted, and then he would not only release them, but treat them with the greatest honour.

The poor men did their best, and the peasants, in order to obtain the deliverance of their chiefs, brought all they had as a ransom. At last, both chiefs and peasants found that all their efforts failed to satisfy their insatiable master.

This state of things lasted for more than eight months, and during that period, first by plausible and honeyed words, afterwards by intimidation, he kept himself and army without difficulty and without trouble. He made no expeditions during that time, except one against Gondar. He hated Gondar - a city of merchants and priests, always ready to receive with open arms any rebel: any robber chief might sit undisturbed in the halls of the old Abyssinian kings and receive the homage and tribute of its peaceful inhabitants. Several times before Theodore had vented his rage on the unfortunate city; he had already more than once sent his soldiers to plunder it, and the rich Mussulman merchants had only saved their houses from destruction by the payment of a large sum. It was no more the famous city of Fasiladas, nor the rich commercial town that former travellers had described; confidence could no longer dwell under the repeated extortions of king and rebel, nor could the metropolis of Abyssinia afford to answer the repeated calls made upon its wealth. But still the forty-four churches stood intact, surrounded by the noble trees that gave to the capital such a picturesque appearance; no one had dared extend a sacrilegious hand to those sanctuaries, and until then Theodore himself had shrunk from such a deed. But now he had made up his mind: the gold of Kooskuam, the silver of Bata, the treasures of Selassie should refill his empty coffers; her churches should perish with the doomed city: nothing would he leave standing as a record of the past, not a dwelling to shelter the people he despised.

On the afternoon of the 1st of December, Theodore started on his merciless errand, taking with him only the elite of his army, the best mounted and the best walkers amongst his men. He never halted until he came, the next morning, to the foot of the hill on which Gondar is built - a march of more than eighty miles in less than sixteen hours. But though he suddenly pounced upon his enemy, it was too late; the news of his approach had spread faster. The joyous elelta resounded from house to house; the anxious and terrified inhabitants desired to appear happy in presence of the dire calamity such a visit presaged. The rebel's deputy had left the palace in time, and accompanied by a few hundred horsemen, awaited, at some distance from the town, the result of Theodore's coming.

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