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"Proud and Free!" No. 1 Royal guest at the Coronation was George V's third son the Duke of Gloucester. France sent Marshal Franchet d'Esperey, Italy, Rear Admiral Prince Udine, cousin of King Vittorio Emanuele.
As everyone knows, the African colonies and "spheres" of Britain, France and Italy completely surround Abyssinia, cutting her off from the sea. (Jibuti, where the Jacobys landed, is in French Somaliland.) This state of affairs explains why the King of Kings sent a personal envoy to Calvin Coolidge three years ago, begged the President to re-establish a U. S. diplomatic mission in Abyssinia, where none had existed for almost 20 years. The wish was granted, and J. G. White Engineering Corp., Manhattan Engineers, got a $15,000,000 dam building contract in Abyssinia for which British firms would have given their eyeteeth.
In a circular letter to member states of the League of Nations, protesting Anglo-French-Italian encroachments, the King of Kings then wrote: "We Abyssinians have seldom met foreigners who did not desire to possess themselves of Abyssinian territory. . . . With God's help, and thanks to the courage of our soldiers, we have always, come what might, stood proud and free upon our native mountains."
Pomp & Gifts. Her Majesty the Queen of Sheba presented to His Majesty King Solomon gifts worth more than $4,000,000 before they began the intimacy from which sprang Abyssinia's Royal House. Recently their alleged descendant bought from European jewelers for $1,000,000 jewels and gold for a set of crowns over which Coptic priests began some weeks ago 21 days of prayer.
Every lion killed in Abyssinia is the property of the Conquering Lion of Judah (each loyal lion-killer being allowed to keep a small tuft of fur as a mark of prowess), and months ago in London a bale of lion skins was delivered to a Bond Street tailor with instructions to "fashion them into suitable garments for a coronation."
Along with the Bond Street lion clothes there arrived in Abyssinia last week the Royal & Imperial coach of Kaiser Wilhelm II (picked up cheap in Germany for $6,000), a team of the famed Habsburg white horses and an Austrian coachman who used to drive the late, great Franz Josef.
Compared to such costly pomp even the expensive gifts of European governments seemed cheap. What if the Duke of Gloucester brought an English coronation cake weighing one ton?* What if President von Hindenburg sent 500 bottles of fine Rhine wine? What if the French gift was an airplane which flew from Paris to New Flower in short hops?
"Bad Coffee." Abyssinians sip the Coffee of Peace instead of smoking the Peace Pipe. When someone is poisoned the well-bred Abyssinian thing to murmur is "mm, bad coffee."
This was murmured after the death of the late Empress Zauditu (TIME, April 14). But it was never proved that the present King of Kings really did bad-coffee his cousin. He said she died "of shock" when one of his bombing planes blew up her Imperial consort.