To the annoyances and difficulties caused by the presence of large bodies of armed peasants, day and night hanging about the outskirts of the camp, were soon added the evils of famine: a small Abyssinian loaf cost a dollar; a salt and a half, a dollar; butter could not by any means be obtained; and hundreds died daily of want and starvation. When the grain plundered at Metraha was consumed, no more could be found; plundering was now quite impossible, and as long as Theodore did not move his camp there was no hope of supplies of any kind being obtained. Almost all the mules, horses, and the few remaining sheep had died from want of food; they could not graze any more in close vicinity to the camp, that pasture being completely eaten up; and as to driving them to some green fields at a distance, that was impossible. The poor animals dropped one after the other, and infected the place by the stench that arose from their dead bodies. The cows had all been killed long before by order of Theodore. One day, when, after one of his first razzias, he had brought back with him to Debra Tabor more than 80,000 cows; at night the peasants came, and from a distance implored him to have pity upon them, and restore them their cattle, without which they were unable to cultivate the soil. Theodore was on the point of acceding to their request, when some of the rascals around him said, "Does not your Majesty know that there is a prophecy in the country, that a king will seize a large amount of cattle, and that the peasants will come and beg him to return them; the king will comply, but soon afterwards die." Theodore replied, "Well, the prophecy will not apply to me." He immediately gave orders for all the cows in camp, those he had lately brought, and all others, to be killed at once; the order was obeyed, and nearly, it is said, 100,000 were killed and left to rot in the plain at a short distance from the camp.
The next day, Theodore, seated outside his hut, perceived a man driving a cow into the fields; he sent for him, and asked him if he had not heard the order. The man replied in the affirmative, but said that he had not killed his cow because his wife having died the day before on giving birth to a child, he had kept that one for the sake of her milk. Theodore told him, "Why did not you know that I would be a father to your child? Kill the man," he said to those around him, "and take care of his child for me."