by the wild tribes on either side. Such raids did indeed occur, and only too frequently. But, so long as his health permitted him to administer his own affairs, Menelik always showed his willingness either to check them himself or to co-operate with his neighbours in checking them, as well as to negotiate with regard to any matters in dispute. Indeed in the British operations (1900-4) against the troublesome Mohammed Abdullah, known as the 'Mad Mullah,' Menelik's troops inflicted several severe defeats upon the enemy, and finally drove him out of Abyssinian territory altogether.

From his youth, Menelik had been keenly alive to the advantages which he and his country might gain from European commerce and material civilisation. So early as 1880, he had granted a concession to a French explorer to make a railway from Tajura Bay to Shoa, though nothing came of it. Again in 1893-4, he granted to M. Ilg, his favourite Swiss Councillor of State, authority to form a company for the construction of a line from Jibuti to Harrar and Addis Abbaba and thence westwards to the banks of the White Nile. Out of this original concession grew the prolonged and tortuous 'affair' of the Jibuti railway, over which for more than ten years the French, British, and Italian Ministers fought fierce diplomatic battles. These were only ended-and then de jure rather than de facto-by special clauses in the Tripartite Treaty of 1906, dealing not only with the points in dispute, but also with the future construction of railways in Abyssinia by the three Powers respectively. Meanwhile the construction of the Jibuti railway itself, undertaken by the French and begun in 1897, was hindered by all kinds of obstaclesfinancial difficulties, foreign obstruction, and native intrigues; and it did not reach Addis Abbaba until 1918, five years after Menelik's death.

In road-making Menelik was even less successful. For a few months in 1896 his Italian prisoners were employed in cutting roads near Addis Abbaba, but none of these ever reached completion. Other efforts were equally futile, so that the only means of communication continued to be beaten tracks, following the water-sheds so far as possible, and utterly impassable during the heavy rains from June to September. In this season, Vol. 237.-No. 470.

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too, the rivers running at the bottom of the deep cañons are unfordable, and the upland districts are like islands entirely cut off from one another. Wheeled traffic, therefore, is at all times impracticable; and all merchandise has to be conveyed on pack-animals.

In 1899, Menelik began a new policy of trying to open up his country by granting commercial concessions to Europeans. The earliest was the concession of a large and recently conquered district north-west of Lake Rudolf to Leontieff, a Russian adventurer, who was recalled in disgrace after two years of plunder and misgovernment. Shortly afterwards concessions to search for gold were granted to an English company in the Beni Shangul country and to Councillor Ilg in Wallega. In 1903, an Italian company was authorised to search for minerals in general in the whole of Tigre and a large part of Amhara; aud a Sennar syndicate received the same privilege for Gojjam. Ydlibi, a cosmopolitan financier of doubtful extraction, was suffered for some years to exploit-with the help of British capital-a monopoly in rubber over a vast territory in the south-west lowlands. Similar concessions and monopolies for coffee, skins, wax, and salt were assigned to companies of different nations.

These spasmodic efforts of the Emperor to develop the rich resources of his country met with but little success, for various reasons. First and foremost, he completely failed to carry his people with him; for the native Abyssinians pride themselves on being a ruling race and leave all trade and industry-even agriculture except in the north-to the Galla and other conquered races. Secondly, the official class is hopelessly lazy, venal, and corrupt, and looks upon all traders as fair game. After payment of imperial or local dues at innumerable points on the trade routes, or of backsheesh to greedy officers, the luckless merchant, whether a subject or a foreigner, would find even the heaviest profits completely swallowed up. The only commercial institution of his reign that has survived is the Bank of Abyssinia, founded in 1905 by the National Bank of Egypt, with the right of minting money and issuing notes. All public finance passes through its hands, and it also transacts insurance and mortgage business. After

some early struggles it has proved financially successful. At a comparatively early date a telegraph line was constructed by the Italians from Addis Abbaba to Eritrea, and more recently another line along the French railway has connected Addis Abbaba with Jibuti. When the telephone was introduced, Menelik was quick to see its advantages for administrative purposes, and linked up his capital with his principal administrative centres.

Nor was the Emperor more successful in his policy of social reform. In 1889, like his predecessor John, he decreed the abolition of slavery except for captives taken in war. But, except that slaves were no longer sold in open market and the export trade was stopped, the decree remained a Idead letter. Even now every Abyssinian, who can afford it, owns one or more slaves for his household work. Similarly, Menelik decreed a reform of the Fatha Nagast, the ancient code of law, based, according to one theory, on the Mosaic law and the code of Justinian or, according to another, on a 13th-century amalgamation of the Mosaic law, the Canon Law of the early Eastern Church, and Moslem Law; but after the decree justice continued to be administered in the courts according to the varying local customary law exactly as before. Again, in 1900, he forbade the importation of absinth and other spirits, but the Abyssinians remained as drunken a nation as ever. In 1907, Menelik decreed a compulsory system of education for all boys over 12; but twenty miles outside Addis Abbaba, where alone any schools were built, no one ever heard of the decree. In the same year he set up a Council of Ministers on the European model; but so long as he kept his health, he continued to do all the work of administration himself.

The first sign that all was not well with the aged Emperor was a rumour, in May 1906, that he had had an apoplectic stroke. In the same spring death removed both Ras Makonnen and Ras Mangasha, the two possible and most obvious successors to the throne-facts which, coupled with German intrigues which began with the appearance of the first German Minister at Addis Abbaba about the same time, undoubtedly hastened the conclusion of the Tripartite Convention in July of that

year. For the next eighteen months, notwithstanding that he was in August 1907 smitten with partial paralysis, Menelik was still able to take a more or less active part in transacting business, his last public act being the signature on May 16, 1908, of a final frontier treaty with Italy. In June it was officially announced that Menelik had appointed Lij Yasu, the son of Ras Mikael and his own daughter Shoaraga, then a boy of twelve, to be his successor.

For the next five and a half years the old Emperor lingered on in a comatose state till his death on Dec. 16, 1913. His capital became the centre of intrigues among rival claimants to the throne, though the fear of Menelik's recovery was sufficient to prevent any decisive action being taken. Foremost among the intriguers was the Empress Taitu, who, childless herself, aimed to get Princess Zauditu, the Emperor's daughter by a former wife and now the wife of her nephew, Ras Gugsa, recognised as heiress to the throne in place of Yasu. In October 1909, however, the Council of Ministers announced that Menelik had again solemnly designated Yasu as his successor and Ras Tesamma as regent. For the next few months a quarrel between the new regent and Ras Woldo Giorgis, the two most powerful of the Shoan chiefs, once more favoured Taitu's designs, till matters came to a crisis in March 1910. Then the leading Rases of Shoa united to crush her ascendency and insisted on a restoration of the state of things as decreed by Menelik. Tesamma was allowed to continue as regent; but, on his death in April 1911, the Council decided that Yasu, now fifteen years of age, was old enough to act himself under its guidance.

Things now went from bad to worse, notwithstanding the efforts of Ras Mikael to win over all parties to support his son. Yasu soon tired of his Councillors' leading-strings, and for several months left Addis Abbaba and roamed about his Empire, spending much of his time in the Moslem province of Jimma. Here he first showed signs of reverting to the faith of his forefathers -Ras Mikael had been a recent and fanatical convert to Christianity-and betrothed himself to the daughter of Aba Jifar, its hereditary Sultan. Early in 1913 Yasu returned to Addis Abbaba, where he found that his

Moslem proclivities had highly incensed the Shoan chiefs against him. He now seems to have conceived the design of forming a Wollo-Moslem party to overthrow the Christian Government of the Empire, and with this end in view paid frequent visits to the chiefs of the Wollo and Danakil countries. Menelik's death in December 1913 made little difference to the general state of affairs; indeed the event was for nearly three years concealed from the knowledge of the people. In 1914 Yasu made his father Negus of Wollo Galla and Tigre, and after the outbreak of the European war was encouraged by his Turkish and German advisers to lay plans for uniting all the Moslems of the Empire into a single all-powerful body. He proceeded to form alliances with the Moslem and Danakil chiefs, both of Abyssinia and the neighbouring countries, supplying the 'Mad Mullah' with a large stock of arms.

In 1916 his designs came to a head. In April he officially placed Abyssinia in religious dependence upon the Sultan of Turkey, and sent to the Turkish Consul at Addis Abbaba a confession of his Moslem faith and an Abyssinian flag bearing the crescent, promising his Moslem allies to lead them against the Entente Powers so soon as a great German victory should be announced; for it was commonly believed that the Central European Powers had already embraced Islam and imposed their new faith on Belgium, Poland, Serbia, and France. This outrageous conduct, however, was too much for the long-suffering Shoan chiefs. While Yasu was at Harrar, they assembled (September 1916) at Addis Abbaba and drew up a bill of indictment, accusing him of apostasy, dissolute conduct, and misgovernment. The Abun Matewos, with great reluctance, pronounced his excommunication and absolved the Rases from their oath of fealty. The Princess Zauditu, Menelik's daughter, was proclaimed Empress; and Dejazmach Taffari, son of Makonnen, was declared regent and heir to the throne. At Addis Abbaba the revolution was carried through practically without a blow. A few days later Yasu's forces at Harrar were defeated, and the renegade prince fled to his Danakil friends. On Oct. 27 his father, at the head of his Wollo army, was overwhelmed and made prisoner near Ankober. The new Government