Let's play Sherlock Holmes for a bit and see what deductions we can make about the characters in this passage. The "eunuch" was probably either a prisoner of some earlier war, or born as a child into a poverty-stricken family, since those were the people who most usually were subjected to the mutilation he had suffered. However, we see he had risen to a position of high rank in Ethiopia. Obviously, then, he was a bright and highly-motivated man. Yet we find him referred to by vocation but not by name. Members of ethnic minority groups would probably understand some of this man's feelings. For all his achievements, it would appear he still wasn't treated as an equal.

Now we find this man pulled off to the side of the road, reading the Bible. Reference is made to his having attended a worsh…