The reception which he received from the priests and people brought tears to Faitlovitch's eyes. They greeted him in festive garb, dancing, singing, praying and reciting psalms accompanied by musical instruments. His reputation had gone before him and they imagined that they were greeting the Messiah. It took quite a while before he was able to convince the multitude that he was simply a white Falasha, a European Jew who wanted to help them.

He found the community was in a sad state of decline but he noticed many relics of a more prosperous past. Only small pieces of land still belonged to the Falashas who had once been the freeholders. As elsewhere, since losing their independence in the seventeenth century, they had gradually been deprived of their lands by the conquering Amharas.

On his return to his base at Amba Gualit, in Dembea, Faitlovitch decided to undertake the arduous journey to Addis Ababa which Nahum had recently made in the reverse direction. He had been so deeply impressed by the sincerity and the sufferings of the Falashas that he acceded to their request to plead their cause with the emperor in person. He considered that this was a matter of such urgency that he abandoned his original intention of visiting some of the remote villages to the south and west of Lake Tana.

On his arrival in the capital he immediately sought an audience, which was granted ten days after he reached the city. His task was facilitated by his fluency in Amharic, which pleased both the emperor and his courtiers. When he handed Menelik a copy of his book, The Death of Moses, with the Ethiopic text and translations in French and Hebrew, the Emperor asked him to read a few words of the latter as he said that he wanted to hear the language of his forefathers. (2)

In a grandiloquent speech, Faitlovitch explained the object of his visit. On behalf of his brothers, the Falashas, he said that they suffered from the calumny of being labelled budas, sorcerers, who eat the flesh of living people and at night turn into hyenas who kill

(1) See p. 95 above and Leslau, Falasha Anthology, p. xxv
(2) Quer durch Abessinien, p. 133.