Word: coptic
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Only 17 miles from Aduwa lies the holy city of Aksum, whose capture was the next step in the Italian advance. For days Italian forces had this mecca of the Coptic Christians practically surrounded. Scouting planes made hourly flights over it, could see no trace of Ethiopian troops. Still no attack was made, for in the centre of small Aksum stands a little crenelated stone church, holiest in the empire. There Ethiopia's earliest kings are buried. In it was supposed to lie the true Ark of the Covenant. Before such a Christian shrine Italy dared risk no accident...
...news that three Italian army columns had crossed Ethiopia's far northern border reached Addis Ababa last week in a crashing thunderstorm. That night little Emperor Haile Selassie talked long with his white advisers, prayed longer to his dusky Coptic God. At dawn the lean Semitic Negroes began moving down out of the eucalyptus forests toward the palace. The guards let 5,000 into the palace grounds. While the Emperor watched the mob from a window, his Chancellor Haile Wolde-Roufe read out in the Amharic tongue Ethiopia's first effort at a modern mobilization order...
...keep the Italian Minister, Count Vinci-Gigliucci from being lynched, the Emperor had to seat that diplomat close to himself. Brandishing ancient guns and showing empty cartridge belts, fierce tribesmen kept shouting at their sovereign, "Give us bullets! We want to shoot!" Meanwhile Ethiopia's Coptic clergy, supposed to play a prominent role in celebrating the end of the rainy season, were repeatedly driven indoors by a violent tropical storm which raged around His Majesty with shrill tempest screeches until the ground was covered with three inches of water and pasteboard coronation emblems were washed from the Triumphal Arch...
...Addis Ababa two Sundays ago the Abuna, "Father of Peace" to the Coptic Christians of Ethiopia, donned a black cassock, long cape and purple cap. As nominal head of the Church, Emperor Haile Selassie arose early, stepped into his automobile which took him up a hill to the octagonal, ornate Cathedral of St. Ghiorghis. He took off his wing-tipped sport shoes, padded into the gold-veiled sanctuary. Empress Waizeru Menen, who dearly loves the Christian solace of confession, and 70 plump brown Ethiopian ladies entered the Cathedral by another door. In concentric circles according to rank squatted court functionaries...
...Pride of Collector Charbneau's midget world is a wiliwili seed inside which fit 33 carved ivory elephants obtained from the Mayor of Bombay. There used to be 36 elephants but once, while Mr. Charbneau was showing them to Samaeka Pasha, president of the Coptic Museum of Cairo, all of them fell on the soft carpet. Though Samaeka Pasha, his wife and Collector Charbneau searched diligently, even using Mr. Charbneau's 2-in. Hoover vacuum cleaner, the three missing elephants were never recovered...