Probably (?) 19th century. Rubricated and with decorations and miniatures in red, black and green. Contains a number of small tracts in 3 or 4 different hands bound together between wooden boards, as follows: (a) blank, f. 1: trials of the pen (fatina bere) in red and black, f.2r; a charm? ff.2v-4r with a magic diagram on f.4v. (b) Golgota (Salot), prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on Mount Golgotha, ff.5r-32r; blank, f.32v (only the stub of f. 32 remains) (c) Various prayers and incantations, beginning "'Esaged lamalakoteka" and ending with an invocation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, ff.334-50r, with a sketch for a miniature of St George and the dragon on f.45r; a miniature of the archangels Michael and Gabriel shown as the protectors of a holy Theodore (qedus Tiwoderos), not further identified, on f.45v; a miniature of St. George slaying the dragon (the background painted in blood) on f.50r; blank f.50v (d) Prayers and incantations, beginning "Basam abe wawalid wamanfas kidusam" and in most of which the Blessed Virgin Mary is invoked (her name has been written in over an erasure in many of the rubrics towards the end), ff.51r-86v. See Rene Basset: Les Prieres de la Vierge a Bartos et au Golgotha. Paris, 1895. (Les Apocryphes ethiopiens, 5) Deborah Lifchitz: Textes ethiopiens magico-religieux. Paris, 1940. (Institut d'Ethnologie. Travaux et memoires, 38) p. 15. Accompanied by a card (5 x 8 cm.) in German. A translation follows: "Abyssinian magic and prayerbook from the year ca. 800. H Selata Egzitina / Mariam gologota Prayer to the Virgin Mary to be prayed in Jerusalem in addition to a few incantations (formulas of magic). 86 leaves. Amhara. Acquired 1904. It is said to have been decorated with human blood. The imperial royal court library wants to acquire (bids) this book for 900 Kcrowns. It is one of the oldest books known to date. M. R. Schmerha"
Thirty-two blank pages of a total of 110 p. Boards with clasp First thirty-two pages, June 12, 1835-Dec. 27, 1837, are accounts of several trips to the United Kingdom in which he describes his social life, journeys, dinners, theaters, opera, othersocial engagements, and visits with his sisters, one of whom took care of his two sons. The first journey was made on the ocean going ship "Johnstone" which left Demerara on June 12, 1835, for Liverpool arriving in Ireland on July 27 and by means of a fishing boat landed him at Galley Head. On Aug. 30, 1835, he left for Madeira where he had friends and business acquaintances in connection with the emigration of labor to his and his friends' plantations in Demerara (now Georgetown) British Guiana. He departed for London on November 11, 1835, in the brig "Dart" and arrived at his destination nineteen days later. On Dec. 21, 1835, he rented Brookfield House at Teignmouth, Devon. A party of nineteen, which included his sistersr and his sons, embarked on Apr. 9, 1836 on board the barque "Usk" at Torquay for Quebec. On Aug. 1, 1836, he purchased Mr. Stewart's undivided half of the plantation Arcadia and he notes in some detail the financial arrangements. He departed for Demerara on Apr. 5, 1837, in the barque "Nautilius" and arrived there on May 3. Jan. 27, 1841, he left Demerara on a political mission at the request of members of the court in the "Eliza Miller" steamer for Trinidad--returned Feb. 6 "having satisfactorily arranged in it Sir Hy MacLeod the Governor of Trinidad." Between 1834 and 1841 numberous memorandums were made on a variety of subject which included finances, a scale of food allowances for one hundred men on a voyage from Madeira for about twenty-five days. Since slavery was terminated in British possessions on Aug. 1, 1834, Butts noted large sums due him in compensation and described the method of arriving at it--"Mode and manner of the Appraisement of Negroes of British Guiana August 1834." Applying these principles, he then gives a detailed appraisement of plantation Thomas.