While some waited for an answer to their letter others could not restrain their impatience to reach Jerusalem. In his report to the Alliance Halevy had written that about five years earlier an immense multitude of men, women and children abandoned their homes and, singing hymns and waying flags, set forth eastwards. Uncertain of the route and ill prepared, they expected the waters of the Red Sea to divide when they arrived at its shores and give them a safe passage to the Holy Land. By the time they reached Axum, in Tigrai province, the pilgrims were already in a desperate plight and could go no further. Many died from starvation and sickness but the remainder held on for three long years before abandoning the ill conceived project. Those who eventually returned found their huts in ruins, taken over, said Halevy, by hyenas and scorpions, but with one great consolation - the missionaries had disappeared, having been imprisoned by the emperor while they were away.

After this catastrophe the Falashas suffered all the hardships of the anarchy which devastated the country. Those in utter poverty were obliged to beg for charity from those slightly better off The herds of cattle which formed their sole wealth disappeared and, in his day, wrote Halevy:

. .. the Falasha harnesses himself to the plough with his wife and children in order not to die of hunger. Fearing that he will not harvest what he has sown, he abandons his field and attempts to gain a livelihood by handicraft which brings in little in view of the poverty of the country. He visits the markets and risks going as far as the Sudan but he will be fortunate if, on his return, he is not robbed by the soldiers or the outlaws who infest the highways. He returns home as poor, but more miserable than before, bringing back nothing for his children except a fatherly kiss.

Halevy was writing as an eyewitness, perhaps a little sentimentally, but there is no need to suppose, keen observer that he was, that he was exaggerating.