Note 88 — OUSTAS. From 1709 to 1714.

There seems here some contradiction which needs explanation. It is said that the palace was burnt before Oustas went to his tent. How then could the soldiers assemble in it afterwards? The palace consists of a number of separate houses at no great distance, but detached from one another with one room in each. That where the coronation is performed is called Anbasa Bet; another, where the king sits in festivals, is called Zeffan Bet; another is called Werk Sacala, the gold-house; another Gimja Bet, or the brocade-house, where the wardrobe and the gold stuffs used for presents, or received as such, are laid. Now, we suppose Oustas in any one of these apartments, say Zeffan Bet, which he left to go to his tent, and it was then burnt; still there remained the coronation-house where the regalia was kept, which the soldiers locked up that it might not be used to crown Fasil, Oustas’s son, whom they thought the seven great men they had murdered conspired to place upon the throne after his father.