"So those radiant and handsome young men explained to me about that tollhouse as we approached it along the road which we were ascending, and we found its official in charge most savage and unbending ... His attendants and terrible tax collectors, who were most harsh and merciless, came out to meet us swarming like ants, and gnashing and grinding their teeth at me. They were carrying many documents in their hands, questioning, interrogating, and investigating carefully the charges against me, to see if they could find the deeds of heartlessness which they needed to drag me down into their harsh dungeons. By Christ's grace they did not find anything against me that they hoped for, but rather goodness toward everyone and fairness, compassion and abundant alms-giving. For if ever I gave someone a piece of bread, or an obol, or a cup of wine or even of water, or I brought a stranger into my room, or shared another’s grief, or mourned with someone in mourning, and visited the sick, or went to a jail to visit the brethren dreadfully confined in it, and encouraged them with words of exhortation to bear their miseries with patience, or in short if I acted as my will and my hand enabled me, my good protectors and guides pointed all these charitable deeds out to them. When those bloodsucking and harsh Ethiopians saw this evidence, they were completely overcome with shame and, letting us go, disappeared from sight."