In Abyssinia, when the prisoner is condemned in capital cases, he

is not again remitted to prison, which is thought cruel, but he is

immediately carried away, and the sentence executed upon him. I have

given several instances of this in the annals of the country. Abba

Salama, the Acab Saat, was condemned by the king the morning he

entered Gondar, on his return from Tigré, and immediately hanged, in

the garment of a priest, on a tree at the door of the king’s palace.

Chremation, brother to the usurper Socinios, was executed that same

morning; Guebra Denghel, Ras Michael’s son-in-law, was likewise

executed that same day, immediately after judgment; and so were

several others. The same was the practice in Persia, as we learn from

Xenophon[61], and more plainly from Diodorus[62].

The capital punishments in Abyssinia are the cross. Socinios[63] first

ordered Arzo, his competitor, who had fled for assistance and refuge

to Phineas king of the Falasha, to be crucified without the camp. We

find the same punishment inflicted by Artaxerxes upon Haman[64], who

was ordered to be affixed to the cross till he died. And Polycrates of

Samos, Cicero tells us[65], was crucified by order of Orætis, prætor of

Darius.

The next capital punishment is flaying alive. That this barbarous

execution still prevails in Abyssinia is already proved by the fate of

the unfortunate Woosheka, taken prisoner in the campaign of 1769 while

I was in Abyssinia; a sacrifice made to the vengeance of the beautiful

Ozoro Esther, who, kind and humane as she was in other respects, could

receive no atonement for the death of her husband. Socrates[66] says,

that Manes the heretic was flayed alive by order of the king of Persia,

and his skin made into a bottle. And Procopius[67] informs us, that

Pacurius ordered Basicius to be flayed alive, and his skin made into a

bottle and hung upon a high tree. And Agathias[68] mentions, that the

same punishment was inflicted upon Nachorages _more majorum_, according

to ancient custom.

Lapidation, or stoning to death, is the next capital punishment in

Abyssinia. This is chiefly inflicted upon strangers called _Franks_,

for religious causes. The Catholic priests in Abyssinia that have

been detected there, in these latter days, have been stoned to death,

and their bodies lie still in the streets of Gondar, in the squares or

waste-places, covered with the heaps of stones which occasioned their

death by being thrown at them. There are three of these heaps at the

church of Abbo, all covering Franciscan friars; and, besides them, a

small pyramid over a boy who was stoned to death with them, about the

first year of the reign of David the IV.[69] This boy was one of four

sons that one of the Franciscan friars had had by an Abyssinian woman

in the reign of Oustas. In Persia we find, that Pagorasus (according

to Ctesias[70]) was stoned to death by the order of the king; and the

same author says, that Pharnacyas, one of the murderers of Xerxes, was

stoned to death likewise.

Among capital punishments may be reckoned likewise the plucking out of

the eyes, a cruelty which I have but too often seen committed in the

short stay that I made in Abyssinia. This is generally inflicted upon

rebels. I have already mentioned, that, after the slaughter of the

battle of Fagitta, twelve chiefs of the Pagan Galla, taken prisoners

by Ras Michael, had their eyes torn out, and were afterwards abandoned

to starve in the valleys below the town. Several prisoners of another

rank, noblemen of Tigré, underwent the same misfortune; and, what is

wonderful, not one of them died in the operation, nor its consequences,

though performed in the coarsest manner with an iron forceps, or

pincers. Xenophon[71] tells us, that this was one of the punishments

used by Cyrus. And Ammianus Marcellinus[72] mentions, that Sapor king

of Persia banished Arsaces, whom he had taken prisoner to a certain

castle, after having pulled out his eyes.

The dead bodies of criminals slain for treason, murder, and violence,

on the high-way at certain times, are seldom buried in Abyssinia. The

streets of Gondar are strewed with pieces of their carcases, which

bring the wild beasts in multitudes into the city as soon as it becomes

dark, so that it is scarcely possible for any to walk in the night.

Too many instances of this kind will be found throughout my narrative.

The dogs used to bring pieces of human bodies into the house, and

court-yard, to eat them in greater security. This was most disgustful

to me, but so often repeated, that I was obliged to leave them in

possession of such fragments. We learn from Quintus Curtius[73], that

Darius having ordered Charidamus to be put to death, and finding

afterwards that he was innocent, endeavoured to stop the executioner,

though it was too late, as they had already cut his throat; but, in

token of repentance, the king allowed him the liberty of burial.

I have taken notice, up and down throughout my history, that the

Abyssinians never fight in the night. This too was a rule among the

Persians[74].

Notwithstanding the Abyssinians were so anciently and nearly connected

with Egypt, they never seem to have made use of paper, or papyrus,

but imitated the practice of the Persians, who wrote upon skins, and

they do so this day. This arises from their having early been Jews.

In Parthia, likewise, Pliny[75] informs us, the use of papyrus was

absolutely unknown; and though it was discovered that papyrus grew

in the Euphrates, near Babylon, of which they could make paper, they

obstinately rather chose to adhere to their ancient custom of weaving

their letters on cloth of which they made their garments. The Persians,

moreover, made use of parchment for their records[76], to which all

their remarkable transactions were trusted; and to this it is probably

owing we have so many of their customs preserved to this day. Diodorus

Siculus[77], speaking of Ctesias, says, he verified every thing from

the royal parchments themselves, which, in obedience to a certain law,

are all placed in order, and afterwards were communicated to the Greeks.

From this great resemblance in customs between the Persians and

Abyssinians following the fashionable way of judging about the origin

of nations, I should boldly conclude that the Abyssinians were a colony

of Persians, but this is very well known to be without foundation.

The customs, mentioned as only peculiar to Persia, were common to all

the east; and they were lost when those countries were over-run and

conquered by those who introduced barbarous customs of their own. The

reason why we have so much left of the Persian customs is, that they

were written, and so not liable to alteration; and, being on parchment,

did also contribute to their preservation. The history which treats of

those ancient and polished nations has preserved few fragments of their

manners entire from the ruins of time; while Abyssinia, at war with

nobody, or at war with itself only, has preserved the ancient customs

which it enjoyed in common with all the east, and which were only lost

in other kingdoms by the invasion of strangers, a misfortune Abyssinia

has never suffered since the introduction of letters.

Before I finish what I have to say upon the manners of this nation,

having shewn that they are the same people with the ancient Egyptians,

I would inquire, whether there is the same conformity of rules in the

dietetique regimen, between them and Egypt, that we should expect to

find from such relation? This is a much surer way of judging than by

resemblance of external customs.

The old Egyptians, as we are told by sacred scripture, did not eat with

strangers; but I believe the observation is extended farther than ever

scripture meant. The instance given of Joseph’s brethren not being

allowed to eat with the Egyptians was, because Joseph had told Pharaoh

that his brethren[78], and Jacob his father, were shepherds, that he

might get from the Egyptians the land of Goshen, a land, as the name

imports, of pasturage and grass, which the Nile never overflowed, and

it was therefore in possession of the shepherds. Now the shepherds, we

are told, were the direct natural enemies of the Egyptians who lived

in towns. The shepherds also sacrificed the god whom the Egyptians

worshipped. We cannot (says Moses[79]) sacrifice in this land the

abomination of the Egyptians, lest they stone us. If the Egyptians

did not eat with them, so neither would they with the Egyptians; but

it is a mistake that the Egyptians did not eat flesh as well as the

shepherds, it was only the flesh of certain animals they differed on,

and did not eat.

The Egyptians worshipped the cow[80], and the shepherds lived upon

her flesh, which made them a separate people, that could not eat nor

communicate together; and the very knowledge of this was, as we are

informed by scripture, the reason why Joseph told Pharaoh, when he

asked him what profession his brethren were of, “Your servants, says

Joseph, are shepherds, and their employment the feeding of cattle;”

and this was given out, that the land of Goshen might be allotted to

them, and so they and their descendents be kept separate from the

Egyptians, and not exposed to mingle in their abominations. Or, though

they had abstained from these abominations, they could not kill cattle

for sacrifice or for food. They would have raised ill-will against

themselves, and, as Moses says, would have been stoned, and so the end

of bringing them to Goshen would have been frustrated, which was to

nurse them in a plentiful land, in peace and security, till they should

attain to be a mighty people, capable of subduing and filling the land

to which, at the end of their captivity, God was to lead them.

The Abyssinians neither eat nor drink with strangers, though they have

no reason for this; and it is now a mere prejudice, because the old

occasion for this regulation is lost. They break, or purify, however,

every vessel a stranger of any kind shall have ate or drank in. The

custom then is copied from the Egyptians, and they have preserved it,

tho’ the Egyptian reason does no longer hold.

Some historians say, the Egyptian women anciently enjoyed a full

liberty of intercourse with the males, which was not the case in the

generality of eastern nations; and we must, therefore, think it was

derived from Abyssinia; for there the women live, as it were, in

common, and their enjoyments and gratification have no other bounds but

their own will. They, however, pretend to have a principle, that, if

they marry, they should be wives of one husband; and yet this principle

does not bind, but, like most of the other duties, serves to reason

upon, and to laugh at, in conversation. Herodotus tells it was the same

with the Egyptians[81].

The Egyptians made no account of the mother what her state was; if the

father was free, the child followed the condition of the father. This

is strictly so in Abyssinia. The king’s child by a negro-slave, bought

with money, or taken in war, is as near in succeeding to the crown, as

any one of twenty children that he has older than that one, and born of

the noblest women of the country.

The men in Egypt[82] did neither buy nor sell; the same is the case

in Abyssinia at this day. It is infamy for a man to go to market to

buy any thing. He cannot carry water or bake bread; but he must wash

the cloaths belonging to both sexes, and, in this function, the women

cannot help him. In Abyssinia the men carried their burdens on their

heads, the women on their shoulders, and this difference, we are told,

obtained in Egypt[83]. It is plain, that this buying, in the public

market, by women, must have ended whenever jealousy or sequestration of

that sex began; for this reason it ended early in Egypt, but, for the

opposite reason, it subsists in Abyssinia to this day.

It was a sort of impiety in Egypt to eat a calf; and the reason was

plain, they worshipped the cow. In Abyssinia, to this day, no man eats

veal, although every one very willingly eats a cow. The Egyptian[84]

reason no longer subsists as in the former case, but the prejudice

remains, though they have forgot the reason.

The Abyssinians eat no wild or water-fowl, not even the goose, which

was a great delicacy in Egypt. The reason of this is, that, upon their

conversion to Judaism, they were forced to relinquish their ancient

municipal customs, as far as they were contrary to the Mosaical law;

and the animals, in their country, not corresponding in form, kind, nor

name, with those mentioned in the Septuagint, or original Hebrew, it

has followed, that there are many of each class that know not whether

they are clean or not; and a wonderful confusion and uncertainty has

followed through ignorance or mistake, being unwilling to violate the

law in any one instance through not understanding it.

The abhorrence of the old Egyptians for the bean is well known, and

many silly reasons have been assigned for it; but that which has most

met the approbation of the most learned men is, in my humble opinion,

the weakest of them all. They say, the aversion to the bean arose from

its resembling the phallus; but the crux ansata, or the cross with the

handle to it, which is put in the hand of every Egyptian hieroglyphic

of Isis, Osiris, or whatever the priests have called them, is likewise

agreed by the learned to represent the phallus; and the figure of these

nudities, without vail or concealment, is plain in all their statues.

Now, I would ask, What is the reason why they abhor a bean because it

represents these parts which, at the same time, by their own option

or choice, are exposed in the hand or person of every figure which

they exhibit to public view? The bean, however, is not cultivated in

Abyssinia, neither is it in Egypt; lupines grow up in both, and lupines

in both are eradicated like a weed, and lupines were what is called

_faba Ægyptiaca_.

Though I cannot pretend to know the true reason of this, yet I will

venture to give a guess:--The origin of great part of religious

observances of Egypt began with the worship of the Nile, and probably

at the head of it. The country of the Agows, as well where the Nile

rises as in parts more distant, is all a honey country; not only their

whole sustenance, but their trade, their tribute to the king, and

the maintenance of a great part of the capital, depends upon honey

and butter, the common food of the better sort of people when they do

not eat flesh; it composes their drink also in mead or hydromel. Now,

this country, when uncultivated, naturally produces lupines, and the

blossoms of these becoming food for the bees, gives the honey such a

bitterness that no person will eat it, or use it any way in food or

for drink.--After the king had bestowed the village of Geesh upon me,

though with the consent of Fasil its governor, that egregious shuffler,

to make the present of no use to me, sent me, indeed, the tribute of

the honey in very large jars, but it all tasted so much of the lupines

that it was of no earthly use whatever. Their constant attention is

to weed out this bitter plant; and, when any of those countries are

desolated by war, we may expect a large crop of lupines immediately

to follow, and, for a time, plenty of bad honey in consequence. It

is, then, this destructive bean that Pythagoras, who, it is said, ate

no flesh, regarded as an object of detestation; it was equally so

among the Abyssinians and Egyptians for the same reason. Both nations,

moreover, have an aversion to hogs flesh, and both avoid the touch of

dogs.

It is here I propose to take notice of an unnatural custom which

prevails universally in Abyssinia, and which in early ages seems to

have been common to the whole world. I did not think that any person of

moderate knowledge in profane learning could have been ignorant of this

remarkable custom among the nations of the east. But what still more

surprised me, and is the least pardonable part of the whole, was the

ignorance of part of the law of God, the earliest that was given to

man, the most frequently noted, insisted upon, and prohibited. I have

said, in the course of the narrative of my journey from Masuah, that,

a small distance from Axum, I overtook on the way three travellers,

who seemed to be soldiers, driving a cow before them. They halted at a

brook, threw down the beast, and one of them cut a pretty large collop

of flesh from its buttocks, after which they drove the cow gently on

as before. A violent outcry was raised in England at hearing this

circumstance, which they did not hesitate to pronounce _impossible_,

when the manners and customs of Abyssinia were to them utterly unknown.

The Jesuits, established in Abyssinia for above a hundred years, had

told them of that people eating, what they call raw meat, in every

page, and yet they were ignorant of this. Poncet, too, had done the

same, but Poncet they had not read; and if any writer upon Ethiopia had

omitted to mention it, it was because it was one of those facts too

notorious to be repeated to swell a volume.

It must be from prejudice alone we condemn the eating of raw flesh; no

precept, divine or human, that I know, forbids it; and if it is true,

as later travellers have discovered, that there are nations ignorant of

the use of fire, any law against eating raw flesh could never have been

intended by God as obligatory upon mankind in general. At any rate, it

is certainly not clearly known, whether the eating raw flesh was not

an earlier and more general practice than by preparing it with fire; I

think it was.

Many wise and learned men have doubted whether it was at first

permitted to man to eat animal food at all. I do not pretend to give

any opinion upon the subject, but many topics have been maintained

successfully upon much more slender grounds. God, the author of life,

and the best judge of what was proper to maintain it, gave this regimen

to our first parents--“Behold, I have given you every herb bearing

seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the

which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for

meat[85].” And though, immediately after, he mentions both beasts and

fowls, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth, he does not say

that he has designed any of these as meat for man. On the contrary,

he seems to have intended the vegetable creation as food for both man

and beast--“And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the

air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein _there

is life_, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so[86].”

After the flood, when mankind began to repossess the earth, God gave

Noah a much more extensive permission--“Every moving thing that liveth

shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all

things[87].”

As the criterion of judging of their aptitude for food was declared

to be their _moving_ and having _life_, a danger appeared of

misinterpretation, and that these creatures should be used living;

a thing which God by no means intended, and therefore, immediately

after, it is said, “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood

thereof, shall you not eat[88];” or, as it is rendered by the best

interpreters, ‘Flesh, or members, torn from living animals having the

blood in them, thou shalt not eat.’ We see then, by this prohibition,

that this abuse of eating living meat, or part of animals while yet

alive, was known in the days of Noah, and forbidden after being so

known, and it is precisely what is practised in Abyssinia to this day.

This law, then, was prior to that of Moses, but it came from the same

legislator. It was given to Noah, and consequently obligatory upon

the whole world. Moses, however, insists upon it throughout his whole

law; which not only shews that this abuse was common, but that it was

deeply rooted in, and interwoven with, the manners of the Hebrews. He

positively prohibits it four times in one chapter in Deuteronomy[89],

and thrice in one of the chapters of Leviticus[90]--“Thou shalt not eat

the blood, for the blood is the life; thou shalt pour it upon the earth

like water.”

Although the many instances of God’s tenderness to the brute creation,

that constantly occur in the Mosaical precepts, and are a very

beautiful part of them, and tho’ the barbarity of the custom itself

might reasonably lead us to think that humanity alone was a sufficient

motive for the prohibition of eating animals alive, yet nothing can

be more certain, than that greater consequences were annexed to the

indulging in this crime than what was apprehended from a mere depravity

of manners. One[91] of the most learned and sensible men that ever

wrote upon the sacred scriptures observes, that God, in forbidding

this practice, uses more severe certification, and more threatening

language, than against any other sin, excepting idolatry, with which

it is constantly joined. God declares, “I will set my face against

him that eateth blood, in the same manner as I will against him that

sacrificeth his son to Moloch; I will set my face against him that

eateth flesh with blood, till I cut him off from the people.”

We have an instance in the life of Saul[92] that shews the propensity

of the Israelites to this crime. Saul’s army, after a battle, _flew_,

that is, fell voraciously upon the cattle they had taken, and threw

them upon the ground to cut off their flesh, and eat them raw, so that

the army was defiled by eating blood, or living animals. To prevent

this, Saul caused roll to him a great stone, and ordered those that

killed their oxen to cut their throats upon that stone. This was the

only lawful way of killing animals for food; the tying of the ox and

throwing it upon the ground was not permitted as equivalent. The

Israelites did probably in that case as the Abyssinians do at this

day; they cut a part of its throat, so that blood might be seen upon

the ground, but nothing mortal to the animal followed from that wound.

But, after laying his head upon a large stone, and cutting his throat,

the blood fell from on high, or was poured on the ground like water,

and sufficient evidence appeared the creature was dead before it was

attempted to eat it. We have seen that the Abyssinians came from

Palestine a very few years after this; and we are not to doubt that

they then carried with them this, with many other Jewish customs, which

they have continued to this day.

The author I last quoted says, that it is plain, from all the books of

the eastern nations, that their motive for eating flesh with the life,

or limbs of living animals cut off with the blood, was from motives

of religion, and for the purposes of idolatry, and so it probably had

been among the Jews; for one of the reasons given in Leviticus for

the prohibition of eating blood, or living flesh, is, that the people

may no longer offer sacrifices to devils, after whom they have gone

a-whoring[93]. If the reader chooses to be further informed how very

common this practice was, he need only read the Halacoth Gedaloth, or

its translation, where the whole chapter is taken up with instances of

this kind.

That this practice likewise prevailed in Europe, as well as in Asia

and Africa, may be collected from various authors. The Greeks had

their bloody feasts and sacrifices where they ate living flesh; these

were called Omophagia. Arnobius[94] says, “Let us pass over the

horrid scenes presented at the Bacchanalian feast, wherein, with a

counterfeited fury, though with a truly depraved heart, you twine a

number of serpents around you, and, pretending to be possessed with

some god, or spirit, you tear to pieces, with bloody mouths, the

bowels of living goats, which cry all the time from the torture they

suffer.” From all this it appears, that the practice of the Abyssinians

eating live animals at this day, was very far from being new, or,

what was nonsensically said, _impossible_. And I shall only further

observe, that those of my readers that wish to indulge a spirit of

criticism upon the great variety of customs, men and manners, related

in this history, or have those criticisms attended to, should furnish

themselves with a more decent stock of reading than, in this instance,

they seem to have possessed; or, when another example occurs of that

kind, which they call _impossible_, that they would take the truth of

it upon my word, and believe what they are not sufficiently qualified

to investigate.

Consistent with the plan of this work, which is to describe the manners

of the several nations through which I passed, good and bad, as I

observed them, I cannot avoid giving some account of this Polyphemus

banquet, as far as decency will permit me; it is part of the history of

a barbarous people; whatever I might wish, I cannot decline it.

In the capital, where one is safe from surprise at all times, or in the

country or villages, when the rains have become so constant that the

valleys will not bear a horse to pass them, or that men cannot venture

far from home through fear of being surrounded and swept away by

temporary torrents, occasioned by sudden showers on the mountains; in a

word, when a man can say he is safe at home, and the spear and shield

is hung up in the hall, a number of people of the best fashion in the

villages, of both sexes, courtiers in the palace, or citizens in the

town, meet together to dine between twelve and one o’clock.

A long table is set in the middle of a large room, and benches beside

it for a number of guests who are invited. Tables and benches the

Portugueze introduced amongst them; but bull hides, spread upon the

ground, served them before, as they do in the camp and country now. A

cow or bull, one or more, as the company is numerous, is brought close

to the door, and his feet strongly tied. The skin that hangs down under

his chin and throat, which I think we call the dew-lap in England, is

cut only so deep as to arrive at the fat, of which it totally consists,

and, by the separation of a few small blood-vessels, six or seven drops

of blood only fall upon the ground. They have no stone, bench, nor

altar upon which these cruel assassins lay the animal’s head in this

operation. I should beg his pardon indeed for calling him an assassin,

as he is not so merciful as to aim at the life, but, on the contrary,

to keep the beast alive till he be totally eat up. Having satisfied

the Mosaical law, according to his conception, by pouring these six or

seven drops upon the ground, two or more of them fall to work; on the

back of the beast, and on each side of the spine they cut skin-deep;

then putting their fingers between the flesh and the skin, they begin

to strip the hide of the animal half way down his ribs, and so on to

the buttock, cutting the skin wherever it hinders them commodiously to

strip the poor animal bare. All the flesh on the buttocks is cut off

then, and in solid, square pieces, without bones, or much effusion of

blood; and the prodigious noise the animal makes is a signal for the

company to sit down to table.

There are then laid before every guest, instead of plates, round

cakes, if I may so call them, about twice as big as a pan-cake, and

something thicker and tougher. It is unleavened bread of a sourish

taste, far from being disagreeable, and very easily digested, made of a

grain called teff. It is of different colours, from black to the colour

of the whitest wheat-bread. Three or four of these cakes are generally

put uppermost, for the food of the person opposite to whose seat they

are placed. Beneath these are four or five of ordinary bread, and of a

blackish kind. These serve the master to wipe his fingers upon; and

afterwards the servant, for bread to his dinner.

Two or three servants then come, each with a square piece of beef in

their bare hands, laying it upon the cakes of teff, placed like dishes

down the table, without cloth or any thing else beneath them. By this

time all the guests have knives in their hands, and their men have the

large crooked ones, which they put to all sorts of uses during the time

of war. The women have small clasped knives, such as the worst of the

kind made at Birmingham, sold for a penny each.

The company are so ranged that one man sits between two women; the

man with his long knife cuts a thin piece, which would be thought a

good beef-steak in England, while you see the motion of the fibres

yet perfectly distinct, and alive in the flesh. No man in Abyssinia,

of any fashion whatever, feeds himself, or touches his own meat. The

women take the steak and cut it length-ways like strings, about the

thickness of your little finger, then crossways into square pieces,

something smaller than dice. This they lay upon a piece of the teff

bread, strongly powdered with black pepper, or Cayenne pepper, and

fossile-salt, they then wrap it up in the teff bread like a cartridge.

In the mean time, the man having put up his knife, with each hand

resting upon his neighbour’s knee, his body stooping, his head low and

forward, and mouth open very like an idiot, turns to the one whose

cartridge is first ready, who stuffs the whole of it into his mouth,

which is so full that he is in constant danger of being choked. This is

a mark of grandeur. The greater the man would seem to be, the larger

piece he takes in his mouth; and the more noise he makes in chewing

it, the more polite he is thought to be. They have, indeed, a proverb

that says, “Beggars and thieves only eat small pieces, or without

making a noise.” Having dispatched this morsel, which he does very

expeditiously, his next female neighbour holds forth another cartridge,

which goes the same way, and so on till he is satisfied. He never

drinks till he has finished eating; and, before he begins, in gratitude

to the fair ones that fed him, he makes up two small rolls of the same

kind and form; each of his neighbours open their mouths at the same

time, while with each hand he puts their portion into their mouths. He

then falls to drinking out of a large handsome horn; the ladies eat

till they are satisfied, and then all drink together, “Vive la Joye et

la Jeunesse!” A great deal of mirth and joke goes round, very seldom

with any mixture of acrimony or ill-humour.

All this time, the unfortunate victim at the door is bleeding indeed,

but bleeding little. As long as they can cut off the flesh from his

bones, they do not meddle with the thighs, or the parts where the

great arteries are. At last they fall upon the thighs likewise; and

soon after the animal, bleeding to death, becomes so tough that the

canibals, who have the rest of it to eat, find very hard work to

separate the flesh from the bones with their teeth like dogs.

In the mean time, those within are very much elevated; love lights all

its fires, and every thing is permitted with absolute freedom. There is

no coyness, no delays, no need of appointments or retirement to gratify

their wishes; there are no rooms but one, in which they sacrifice both

to Bacchus and to Venus[95]. The two men nearest the vacuum a pair have

made on the bench by leaving their seats, hold their upper garment

like a skreen before the two that have left the bench; and, if we may

judge by sound, they seem to think it as great a shame to make love in

silence as to eat.--Replaced in their seats again, the company drink

the happy couple’s health; and their example is followed at different

ends of the table, as each couple is disposed. All this passes without

remark or scandal, not a licentious word is uttered, nor the most

distant joke upon the transaction.

These ladies are, for the most part, women of family and character,

and they and their gallants are reciprocally distinguished by the

name _Woodage_, which answers to what in Italy they call Cicisbey;

and, indeed, I believe that the name itself, as well as the practice,

is Hebrew; _schus chis beiim_, signifies _attendants_ or _companions

of the bride_, or _bride’s man_, as we call it in England. The only

difference is, that in Europe the intimacy and attendance continues

during the marriage, while, among the Jews, it was permitted only the

few days of the marriage ceremony. The aversion to Judaism, in the

ladies of Europe, has probably led them to the _prolongation_ of the

term.

It was a custom of the ancient Egyptians to purge themselves monthly

for three days; and the same is still in practice in Abyssinia. We

shall speak more of the reason of this practice in the botanical part

of our work, where a drawing of a most beautiful tree[96], used for

this purpose, is given.

Although we read from the Jesuits a great deal about marriage and

polygamy, yet there is nothing which may be averred more truly than

that there is no such thing as marriage in Abyssinia, unless that

which is contracted by mutual consent, without other form, subsisting

only till dissolved by dissent of one or other, and to be renewed or

repeated as often as it is agreeable to both parties, who, when they

please, cohabit together again as man and wife, after having been

divorced, had children by others, or whether they have been married, or

had children with others or not. I remember to have once been at Koscam

in presence of the Iteghè, when, in the circle, there was a woman of

great quality, and seven men who had all been her husbands, none of

whom was the happy spouse at that time.

Upon separation they divide the children. The eldest son falls to the

mother’s first choice, and the eldest daughter to the father. If there

is but one daughter, and all the rest sons, she is assigned to the

father. If there is but one son, and all the rest daughters, he is

the right of the mother. If the numbers are unequal after the first

election, the rest are divided by lot. There is no such distinction as

legitimate and illegitimate children from the king to the beggar; for

supposing any one of their marriages valid, all the issue of the rest

must be adulterous bastards.

One day Ras Michael asked me, before Abba Salama, (the Acab Saat)

Whether such things as these promiscuous marriages and divorces were

permitted and practised in my country? I excused myself till I was no

longer able; and, upon his insisting, I was obliged to answer, That

even if scripture had not forbid to us as Christians, as Englishmen the

law restrained us from such practices, by declaring polygamy felony, or

punishable by death.

The king in his marriage uses no other ceremony than this:--He sends an

Azage to the house where the lady lives, where the officer announces to

her, It is the king’s pleasure that she should remove instantly to the

palace. She then dresses herself in the best manner, and immediately

obeys. Thenceforward he assigns her an apartment in the palace, and

gives her a house elsewhere in any part she chuses. Then when he

makes her Iteghé, it seems to be the nearest resemblance to marriage;

for, whether in the court or the camp, he orders one of the judges to

pronounce in his presence, That he, the king, has chosen his hand-maid,

naming her for his queen; upon which the crown is put upon her head,

but she is not anointed.

The crown being hereditary in one family, but elective in the person,

and polygamy being permitted, must have multiplied these heirs very

much, and produced constant disputes, so that it was found necessary

to provide a remedy for the anarchy and effusion of royal blood, which

was otherwise inevitably to follow. The remedy was a humane and gentle

one, they were confined in a good climate upon a high mountain, and

maintained there at the public expence. They are there taught to read

and write, but nothing else; 750 cloths for wrapping round them, 3000

ounces of gold, which is 30,000 dollars, or crowns, are allowed by the

state for their maintenance. These princes are hardly used, and, in

troublesome times, often put to death upon the smallest misinformation.

While I was in Abyssinia their revenue was so grossly misapplied, that

some of them were said to have died with hunger and of cold by the

avarice and hard-heartedness of Michael neglecting to furnish them

necessaries. Nor had the king, as far as ever I could discern, that

fellow-feeling one would have expected from a prince rescued from that

very situation himself; perhaps this was owing to his fear of Ras

Michael.

However that be, and however distressing the situation of those

princes, we cannot but be satisfied with it when we look to the

neighbouring kingdom of Sennaar, or Nubia. There no mountain is trusted

with the confinement of their princes, but, as soon as the father dies,

the throats of all the collaterals, and all their descendents that

can be laid hold of, are cut; and this is the case with all the black

states in the desert west of Sennaar, Dar Fowr, Selé, and Bagirma.

Great exaggerations have been used in speaking of the military force of

this kingdom. The largest army that ever was in the field (as far as I

could be informed from the oldest officers) was that in the rebellion

before the battle of Serbraxos. I believe, when they first encamped

upon the lake Tzana, the rebel army altogether might amount to about

50,000 men. In about a fortnight afterwards, many had deserted; and

I do not think (I only speak by hearsay) that, when the king marched

out of Gondar, they were then above 30,000. I believe when Gojam

joined, and it was known that Michael and his army were to be made

prisoners, that the rebel army increased to above 60,000 men; cowards

and brave, old and young, veteran soldiers and blackguards, all came

to be spectators of that desirable event, which many of the wisest had

despaired of living to see. I believe the king’s army never amounted to

26,000 men; and, by desertion and other causes, when we retreated to

Gondar, I do not suppose the army was 16,000, mostly from the province

of Tigré. Fasil, indeed, had not joined; and putting his army of 12,000

men, (I make no account of the wild Galla beyond the Nile) I do not

imagine that any king of Abyssinia ever commanded 40,000 effective men

at any time, or upon any cause whatever, exclusive of his household

troops.

Their standards are large staves, surmounted at the top with a hollow

ball; below this is a tube in which the staff is fixed; and immediately

below the ball, a narrow stripe of silk made forked, or swallow-tailed,

like a vane, and seldom much broader. In the war of Begemder we

first saw colours like a flag hoisted for king Theodorus. They were

red, about eight feet long and near three feet broad; but they never

appeared but two days; and the success that attended their first

appearance was such that did not bid fair to bring them into fashion.

The standards of the infantry have their flags painted two colours

crossways--yellow, white, red, or green. The horse have all a lion upon

their flag[97], some a red, some a green, and some a white lion. The

black horse have a yellow lion, and over it a white star upon a red

flag, alluding to two prophecies, the one, “Judah is a young lion,”

and the other, “There shall come a star out of Judah.” This had been

discontinued for want of cloth till the war of Begemder, when a large

piece was found in Joas’s wardrobe, and was thought a certain omen of

his victory, and of a long and vigorous reign. This piece of cloth was

said to have been brought from Cairo by Yasous II. for the campaign of

Sennaar, and, with the other standards and colours, was surrendered to

the rebels when the king was made prisoner.

The king’s household troops should consist of about 8000 infantry, 2000

of which carry firelocks, and supply the place of archers; bows have

been laid aside for near a hundred years, and are only now used by the

Waito Shangalla, and some other barbarous inconsiderable nations.

These troops are divided into four companies, each under an officer

called Shalaka, which answers to our colonel. Every twenty men have

an officer, every fifty a second, and every hundred a third; that is,

every twenty have one officer who commands them, but is commanded

likewise by an officer who commands the fifty; so that there are three

officers who command fifty men, six command a hundred, and thirty

command five hundred, over whom is the Shalaka; and this body they

call Bet, which signifies a _house_, or _apartment_, because each of

them goes by the name of one of the king’s apartments. For example,

there is an apartment called Anbasa Bet, or the _lion’s house_, and a

regiment carrying that name has the charge of it, and their duty is

at that apartment, or that part of the palace where it is; there is

another called Jan Bet, or the _elephant’s house_, that gives the name

to another regiment; another called Werk Sacala, or the _gold house_,

which gives its name to another corps; and so on with the rest; as for

the horse, I have spoken of them already.

There are four regiments, that seldom, if ever, amounted to 1600 men,

which depend alone upon the king, and are all foreigners, at least

the officers; these have the charge of his person while in the field.

In times when the king is out of leading-strings, they amount to

four or five thousand, and then oppress the country, for they have

great privileges. At times when the king’s hands are weak, they are

kept incomplete out of fear and jealousy, which was the case in my

time;--these have been already sufficiently described.

Three proclamations are made before the king marches. The first is,

“Buy your mules, get ready your provision, and pay your servants, for,

after such a day, they that seek me here shall not find me.” The second

is about a week after, or according as the exigency is pressing; this

is, “Cut down the kantuffa in the four quarters of the world, for I do

not know where I am going.” This kantuffa is a terrible thorn which

very much molests the king and nobility in their march, by taking hold

of their long hair, and the cotton cloth they are wrapped in. The

third and last proclamation is, “I am encamped upon the Angrab, or

Kahha; he that does not join me there, I will chastise him for seven

years.” I was long in doubt what this term of seven years meant, till I

recollected the jubilee-year of the Jews, with whom seven years was a

prescription of offences, debts, and all trespasses.

The rains generally cease the eighth of September; a sickly season

follows till they begin again about the 20th of October; they then

continue pretty constant, but moderate in quantity, till Hedar St

Michael, the eighth of November. All epidemic diseases cease with the

end of these rains, and it is then the armies begin to march.

CHAP. XII.

_State of Religion--Circumcision, Excision, &c._

There is no country in the world where there are so many churches as

in Abyssinia. Though the country is very mountainous, and consequently

the view much obstructed, it is very seldom you see less than five or

six churches, and, if you are on a commanding ground, five times that

number. Every great man that dies thinks he has atoned for all his

wickedness if he leaves a fund to build a church, or has built one

in his lifetime. The king builds many. Wherever a victory is gained,

there a church is erected in the very field stinking with the putrid

bodies of the slain. Formerly this was only the case when the enemy was

Pagan or Infidel; now the same is observed when the victories are over

Christians.

The situation of a church is always chosen near running water, for the

convenience of their purifications and ablutions, in which they observe

strictly the Levitical law. They are always placed upon the top of some

beautiful, round hill, which is surrounded entirely with rows of the

oxy-cedrus, or Virginia cedar, which grows here in great beauty and

perfection, and is called Arz[98]. There is nothing adds so much to the

beauty of the country as these churches and the plantations about them.

In the middle of this plantation of cedars is interspersed, at proper

distances, a number of those beautiful trees called Cusso, which grow

very high, and are all extremely picturesque.

All the churches are round, with thatched roofs; their summits are

perfect cones; the outside is surrounded by a number of wooden pillars,

which are nothing else than the trunks of the cedar-tree, and are

placed to support the edifice, about eight feet of the roof projecting

beyond the wall of the church, which forms an agreeable walk, or

colonade, around it in hot weather, or in rain. The inside of the

church is in several divisions, according as is prescribed by the law

of Moses. The first is a circle somewhat wider than the inner one;

here the congregation sit and pray. Within this is a square, and that

square is divided by a veil or curtain, in which is another very small

division answering to the holy of holies. This is so narrow that none

but the priests can go into it. You are bare-footed whenever you enter

the church, and, if bare-footed, you may go through every part of it,

if you have any such curiosity, provided you are pure, _i. e._ have

not been concerned with women for twenty-four hours before, or touched

carrion or dead bodies, (a curious assemblage of ideas) for in that

case you are not to go within the precincts, or outer circumference of

the church, but stand and say your prayers at an awful distance among

the cedars.

All persons of both sexes, under Jewish disqualifications, are obliged

to observe this distance; and this is always a place belonging to

the church, where, unless in Lent, you see the greatest part of

the congregation; but this is left to your own conscience, and, if

there was either great inconvenience in the one situation, or great

satisfaction in the other, the case would be otherwise.

When you go to the church you put off your shoes before your first

entering the outer precinct; but you must leave a servant there with

them, or else they will be stolen, if good for any thing, by the

priests and monks before you come out of the church. At entry you

kiss the threshold, and two door-posts, go in and say what prayer you

please, that finished, you come out again, and your duty is over.

The churches are full of pictures, painted on parchment, and nailed

upon the walls, in a manner little less slovenly than you see paltry

prints in beggarly country ale-houses. There has been always a sort of

painting known among the scribes, a daubing much inferior to the worst

of our sign-painters. Sometimes, for a particular church, they get a

number of pictures of saints, on skins of parchment, ready finished

from Cairo, in a stile very little superior to these performances of

their own. They are placed like a frize, and hung in the upper part

of the wall. St George is generally there with his dragon, and St

Demetrius fighting a lion. There is no choice in their saints, they are

both of the Old and New Testament, and those that might be dispensed

with from both. There is St Pontius Pilate and his wife; there is St

Balaam and his ass; Samson and his jaw-bone; and so of the rest. But

the thing that surprised me most was a kind of square-miniature upon

the front of the head-piece, or mitre, of the priest, administering the

sacrament at Adowa, representing Pharaoh on a white horse plunging in

the Red Sea, with many guns and pistols swimming upon the surface of it

around him.

Nothing embossed, nor in relief, ever appears in any of their churches;

all this would be reckoned idolatry, so much so that they do not wear a

cross, as has been represented, on the top of the ball of the sendick,

or standard, because it casts a shade; but there is no doubt that

pictures have been used in their churches from the very earliest age of

Christianity.

The Abuna is looked upon as the patriarch of the Abyssinian church, for

they have little knowledge of the coptic patriarch of Alexandria. We

are perfectly ignorant of the history of these prelates for many years

after their appointment. The first of these mentioned is Abuna Tecla

Haimanout, who distinguished himself by the restoration of the royal

family, and the regulations he made both in church and state, as we

have seen in the history of those times: a very remarkable, but wise

regulation was then made, that the Abyssinians should not have it in

their power to choose one of their own countrymen as Abuna.

Wise men saw the fallen state of literature among them; and unless

opportunity was given, from time to time, for their priests to go

abroad to Jerusalem for their instruction, and for the purpose of

bringing the Abuna, Tecla Haimanout knew that very soon no set of

people would be more shamefully ignorant than those priests, even in

the most common dogmas of their profession. He hoped therefore, by a

considerable stipend, to tempt some men of learning to accept of this

place, to give his countenance to learning and religion among them.

The Arabic canon[99], which is preserved by the Abyssinian church,

and said to be of the council of Nice, should certainly be attributed

to this Abuna, and is a forgery in, or very soon after, his time; for

it is plain this canon took place about the year 1300, that it was

lawful to elect an Abuna, who was a native of Abyssinia before this

prohibition, otherwise it would not have applied. Abuna Tecla Haimanout

was an Abyssinian by birth, and he was Abuna; the prohibition therefore

had not then taken place: but, as no Abyssinian was afterwards chosen,

it must certainly be a work of his time, for it is impossible a canon

should be made by the council of Nice, settling the rank of a bishop in

a nation which, for above 200 years after that general council, were

not Christians.

As the Abuna very seldom understands the language, he has no share of

the government, but goes to the palace on days of ceremony, or when

he has any favour to ask or complaint to make. He is much fallen

in esteem from what he was formerly, chiefly from his own little

intrigues, his ignorance, avarice, and want of firmness. His greatest

employment is in ordinations. A number of men and children present

themselves at a distance, and there stand, from humility, not daring to

approach him. He then asks who these are? and they tell him that they

want to be deacons. On this, with a small iron cross in his hand, after

making two or three signs, he blows with his mouth twice or thrice

upon them, saying, “Let them be deacons.” I saw once all the army of

Begemder made deacons, just returned from shedding the blood of 10,000

men, thus drawn up in Aylo Meidan, and the Abuna standing at the church

of St Raphael, about a quarter of a mile distant from them. With these

were mingled about 1000 women, who consequently, having part of the

same blast and brandishment of the cross, were as good deacons as the

rest.

The same with regard to monks. A crowd of people, when he is riding,

will assemble within 500 yards of him, and there begin a melancholy

song. He asks who these men with beards are? they tell him they want

to be ordained monks. After the same signs of the cross, and three

blasts with his mouth, he orders them to be monks. But in ordaining

priests, they must be able to read a chapter of St Mark, which they

do in a language he does not understand a word of. They then give the

Abuna a brick of salt, to the value of perhaps sixpence, for their

ordination; which, from this present given, the Jesuits maintained to

be Simoniacal.

The Itchegué is the chief of the monks in general, especially those

of Debra Libanos. The head of the other monks, called those of St

Eustathius, is the superior of the convent of Mahebar Selassé, on the

N. W. corner of Abyssinia, near Kuara, and the Shangalla, towards

Sennaar and the river Dender. All this tribe is grossly ignorant, and

through time, I believe, will lose the use of letters entirely.

The Itcheguè is ordained by two chief priests holding a white cloth,

or veil, over him, while another says a prayer; and they then lay all

their hands on his head, and join in psalms together. He is a man,

in troublesome times, of much greater consequence than the Abuna.

There are, after these, chief priests and scribes, as in the Jewish

church: the last of these, the ignorant, careless copiers of the holy

scriptures.

The monks here do not live in convents, as in Europe, but in separate

houses round their church, and each cultivates a part of the property

they have in land. The priests have their maintenance assigned to them

in kind, and do not labour. A steward, being a layman, is placed among

them by the king, who receives all the rents belonging to the churches,

and gives to the priests the portion that is their due; but neither the

Abuna, nor any other churchman, has any business with the revenues of

churches, nor can touch them.

The articles of the faith of the Abyssinians have been inquired into

and discussed with so much keenness in the beginning of this century,

that I fear I should disoblige some of my readers were I to pass this

subject without notice.

Their first bishop, Frumentius, being ordained about the year 333, and

instructed in the religion of the Greeks of the church of Alexandria by

St Athanasius, then sitting in the chair of St Mark, it follows that

the true religion of the Abyssinians, which they received on their

conversion to Christianity, is that of the Greek church; and every rite

or ceremony in the Abyssinian church may be found and traced up to its

origin in the Greek church while both of them were orthodox.

Frumentius preserved Abyssinia untainted with heresy till the day

of his death. We find, from a letter preserved in the works of St

Athanasius, that Constantius, the heretical Greek emperor, wished St

Athanasius to deliver him up, which that patriarch refused to do:

indeed at that time it was not in his power.

Soon after this, Arianism, and a number of other heresies, each in

their turn, were brought by the monks from Egypt, and infected the

church of Abyssinia. A great part of these heresies, in the beginning,

were certainly owing to the difference of the languages in those times,

and especially the two words Nature and Person, than which no two words

were ever more equivocal in every language in which they have been

translated. Either of these words, in our own language, is a sufficient

example of what I have said; and in fact we have adopted them from the

Latin. If we had adopted the signification of these words in religion

from the Greek, and applied the Latin words of Person and Nature to

common and material cases, perhaps we had done better. Neither of

them hath ever yet been translated into the Abyssinian, so as to be

understood to mean the same thing in different places. This for a time

was, in a certain degree, remedied, or understood, by the free access

they had, for several ages, both to Cairo and Jerusalem, where their

books were revised and corrected, and many of the principal orthodox

opinions inculcated. But, since the conquest of Arabia and Egypt by

Sultan Selim, in 1516, the communication between Abyssinia and these

two countries hath been very precarious and dangerous, if not entirely

cut off; and now as to doctrine, I am perfectly convinced they are

in every respect to the full as great heretics as ever the Jesuits

represented them. And I am confident, if any Catholic missionaries

attempt to instruct them again, they will soon lose the use of letters,

and the little knowledge they yet have of religion, from prejudice

only, and fear of incurring a danger they are not sufficiently

acquainted with to follow the means of avoiding it.

The two natures in Christ, the two persons, their unity, their

equality, the inferiority of the manhood, doctrines, and definitions

of the time of St Athanasius, are all wrapt up in tenfold darkness,

and inextricable from amidst the thick clouds of heresy and ignorance

of language. Nature is often mistaken for person, and person for

nature; the same of the human substance. It is monstrous to hear their

reasoning upon it. One would think, that every different monk, every

time he talks, purposely broached some new heresy. Scarce one of them

that ever I conversed with, and those of the very best of them, would

suffer it to be said, that Christ’s body was perfectly like our’s. Nay,

it was easily seen that, in their hearts, they went still further, and

were very loth to believe, if they did believe it at all, that the body

of the Virgin Mary and St Anne were perfectly human.

Not to trouble the reader further with these uninteresting particulars

and distinctions, I shall only add, that the Jesuits, in the account

they give of the heresies, ignorance, and obstinacy of the Abyssinian

clergy, have not misrepresented them, in the imputations made against

them, either in point of faith or of morals. Whether, this being the

case, the mission they undertook of themselves into that country, gave

them authority to destroy the many with a view to convert the few, is a

question to be resolved hereafter; I believe it did not; and that the

tares and the wheat should have been suffered to grow together till a

hand of more authority, guided by unerring judgment, pulled them, with

that portion of safety he had pre-ordained for both.

The Protestant writers again unfairly triumph over their adversaries,

the Catholics, by asking, Why all that noise about the two natures in

Christ? It is plain, say they, from passages in the Haimanout Abou, and

their other tracts upon orthodox belief, that they acknowledge that

Christ was perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and human

flesh subsisting, and that all the confessions of unity, co-equality,

and inferiority, are there expressed in the clearest manner as received

in the Greek church. What necessity was there for more; and what need

of disputing upon these points already so fully settled?

This, I beg leave to say, is unfair; for though it is true that, at the

time of collecting the Haimanout Abou, and at the time St Athanasius,

St Cyril, and St Chrysostom wrote, the explanation of these points was

uniform in favour of orthodoxy, and that while access could easily

be had to Jerusalem or Alexandria, then Greek and Christian cities,

difficulties, if any arose, were easily resolved; yet, at the time

the Jesuits came, those books were very rare in the country, and the

contents of them so far from being understood, that they were applied

to the support of the grossest heresies, from the misinterpretation of

the ignorant monks of these latter times. That the Abyssinians _had

been_ orthodox availed nothing: they _were then_ become as ignorant of

the doctrines of St Athanasius and St Cyril, as if those fathers had

never wrote; and it is their religion at this period which the Jesuits

condemn, not that of the church of Alexandria, when in its purity under

the first patriarchs; and, to complete all their misfortunes, no access

to Jerusalem is any longer open to them, and very rarely communication

with Cairo.

On the other hand, the Jesuits, who found that the Abyssinians were

often wrong in some things, were resolved to deny that they could

be right in any thing; and, from attacking their tenets, they fell

upon their ceremonies received in the Greek church at the same time

with Christianity; and in this dispute they shewed great ignorance

and malevolence, which they supported by the help of falsehood and

invention. I shall take notice of only one instance in many, because it

has been insisted upon by both parties with unusual vehemence, and very

little candour.

It was settled by the first general council, that one baptism only was

necessary for the regeneration of man, for freeing him from the sin of

our first parents, and lifting him under the banner of Christ,--“I

confess one baptism for the remission of sins,” says the Symbol. Now it

was maintained by the Jesuits, that in Abyssinia, once every year, they

baptised all grown people, or adults. I shall, as briefly as possible,

set down what I myself saw while on the spot.

The small river, running between the town of Adowa and the church,

had been dammed up for several days; the stream was scanty, so that

it scarcely overflowed. It was in places three feet deep, in some,

perhaps, four, or little more. Three large tents were pitched the

morning before the feast of the Epiphany; one on the north for the

priests to repose in during intervals of the service, and beside this

one to communicate in; on the south there was a third tent for the

monks and priests of another church to rest themselves in their turn.

About twelve o’clock at night the monks and priests met together, and

began their prayers and psalms at the water-side, one party relieving

each other. At dawn of day the governor, Welleta Michael, came thither

with some soldiers to raise men for Ras Michael, then on his march

against Waragna Fasil, and far down on a small hill by the water-side,

the troops all skirmishing on foot and on horseback around them.

As soon as the sun began to appear, three large crosses of wood were

carried by three priests dressed in their sacerdotal vestments,

and who, coming to the side of the river, dipt the cross into the

water, and all this time the firing, skirmishing, and praying went on

together. The priests with the crosses returned, one of their number

before them carrying something less than an English quart of water in a

silver cup or chalice; when they were about fifty yards from Welleta

Michael, that general stood up, and the priest took as much water as

he could hold in his hands and sprinkled it upon his head, holding the

cup at the same time to Welleta Michael’s mouth to taste; after which

the priest received it back again, saying, at the same time, “Gzier

y’barak,” which is simply, “May God bless you.” Each of the three

crosses were then brought forward to Welleta Michael, and he kissed

them. The ceremony of sprinkling the water was then repeated to all the

great men in the tent, all cleanly dressed as in gala. Some of them,

not contented with aspersion, received the water in the palms of their

hands joined, and drank it there; more water was brought for those that

had not partaken of the first; and, after the whole of the governor’s

company was sprinkled, the crosses returned to the river, their bearers

singing _hallelujahs_, and the skirmishing and firing continuing.

Janni, my Greek friend, had recommended me to the priest of Adowa;

and, as the governor had placed me by him, I had an opportunity, for

both these reasons, of being served among the first. My friend the

priest sprinkled water upon my head, and gave me his blessing in

the same words he had used to the others; but, as I saw it was not

necessary to drink, I declined putting the cup to my lips, for two

reasons; one, because I knew the Abyssinians have a scruple to eat or

drink after strangers; the other, because I apprehended the water was

not perfectly clean; for no sooner had the crosses first touched the

pool, and the cup filled from the clean part for the governor, than

two or three hundred boys, calling themselves _deacons_, plunged in

with only a white cloth, or rag, tied round their middle; in all other

respects they were perfectly naked. All their friends and relations

(indeed everybody) went close down to the edge of the pool, where

water was thrown upon them, and first decently enough by boys of the

town, and those brought on purpose as deacons; but, after the better

sort of people had received the aspersion, the whole was turned into

a riot, the boys, muddying the water, threw it round them upon every

one they saw well-dressed or clean. The governor retreated first, then

the monks, and then the crosses, and left the brook in possession of

the boys and blackguards, who rioted there till two o’clock in the

afternoon.

I must, however, observe, that, a very little time after the governor

had been sprinkled, two horses and two mules, belonging to Ras Michael

and Ozoro Esther, came and were washed. Afterwards the soldiers went

in and bathed their horses and guns; those who had wounds bathed them

also. I saw no women in the bath uncovered, even to the knee; nor did I

see any person of the rank of decent servants go into the water at all

except with the horses. Heaps of platters and pots, that had been used

by Mahometans or Jews, were brought thither likewise to be purified;

and thus the whole ended.

I saw this ceremony performed afterwards at Kahha, near Gondar, in

presence of the king, who drank some of the water, and was sprinkled by

the priests; then took the cup in his hand, and threw the rest that was

left upon Amha Yasous[100], saying, “I will be your deacon;” and this

was thought a high compliment, the priest giving him his blessing at

the same time, but offering him no more water.

I shall now state, in his own words, the account given of this by

Alvarez, chaplain to the Portuguese embassy, under Don Roderigo de Lima.

The king had invited Don Roderigo de Lima, the Portuguese ambassador,

to be present at the celebration of the festival of the Epiphany. They

went about a mile and a half from their former station, and encamped

upon the side of a pond which had been prepared for the occasion.

Alvarez says, that, in their way, they were often asked by those they

met or overtook, “Whether or not they were going to be baptized?” to

which the chaplain and his company answered in the negative, as having

been already once baptized in their childhood.

“In the night, says he, a great number of priests assembled about the

pond, roaring and singing with a view of blessing the water. After

midnight the baptism began. The Abuna Mark, the king and queen, were

the first that went into the lake; they had each a piece of cotton

cloth about their middle, which was just so much more than the rest of

the people had. At the sun-rising the baptism was most thronged; after

which, when Alvarez[101] _came_, the lake was full of holy water, into

which they had poured oil.”

It should seem, from this outset of his narrative, that he was not

at the lake till the ceremony was half over, and did not see the

benediction of the water at all, nor the curious exhibition of

the King, Queen, and Abuna, and their cotton cloths. As for the

circumstance of the oil being poured into the water, I will not

positively contradict it, for, though I was early there, it might

have escaped me if it was done in the dark. However, I never heard it

mentioned as part of the ceremony; and it is probable I should, if any

such thing was really practised; neither was I in time to have seen it

at Kahha.

“Before the pond a scaffold was built, covered round with planks,

within which sat the king looking towards the pond, his face covered

with blue taffeta, while an old man, who was the king’s tutor, was

standing in the water up to the shoulders, naked as he was born, and

half dead with cold, for it had _frozen_ violently in the night. All

those that came near him he took by the head and plunged them in the

water, whether men or women, saying, in his own language, I baptize

thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Now Shoa, where the king was then, is in lat. 8° N. and the sun was

in 22° south declination, advancing northward, so the sun was, on the

day of the Epiphany, within 30° of the zenith of the bathing-place.

The thermometer of Fahrenheit rises at Gondar about that time to 68°,

so in Shoa it cannot rise to less than 70°, for Gondar is in lat. 12°

N. that is 4° farther northward, so it is not possible water should

freeze, nor did I ever see ice in Abyssinia, not even on the highest

or coldest mountains. January is one of the hottest months in the

year, day and night the sky is perfectly serene, nor is there there a

long disproportioned winter night. At Shoa the days are equal to the

nights, at least as to sense, even in the month of January.

The baptism, Alvarez says, began at midnight, and the old tutor dipt

every person under water, taking him by the head, saying, ‘I baptise

thee in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ It

was most thronged at sun-rise, and ended about nine o’clock; a long

time for an old man to stand in frozen water.

The number (as women were promiscuously admitted) could not be

less than 40,000; so that even the nine hours this baptist-general

officiated, he must have had exercise enough to keep him warm, if

40,000, (many of them naked beauties) passed through _his hands_.

The women were stark naked before the men, not even a rag about them.

Without some such proper medium as frozen water, I fear it would not

have contributed much to the interests of religion to have trusted

a priest (even an old one) among so many bold and naked beauties,

especially as he had the first six hours of them in the dark.

The Abuna, the king, and queen, were the three first baptised, all

three being absolutely naked, having only a cotton cloth round their

middle. I am sure there never could be a greater deviation from the

manners of any kingdom, than this is from those of Abyssinia. The king

is always covered; you seldom see any part of him but his eyes. The

queen and every woman in Abyssinia, in public and private, (I mean

where nothing is intended but conversation) are covered to the chin.

It is a disgrace to them to have even their feet seen by strangers;

and their arms and hands are concealed even to their nails. A curious

circumstance therefore it would have been for the king to be so liberal

of his queen’s charms, while he covers his own face with blue taffeta;

but to imagine that the Abuna, a coptish monk bred in the desert of

St Macarius, would expose himself naked among naked women, contrary

to the usual custom of the celebration he observes in his own church,

is monstrous, and must exceed all belief whatever. As the Abuna Mark

too was of the reasonable age of 110 years, he might, I think, have

dispensed at that time of life with a bathing gown, especially as it

was _frost_.

The old man in the pond repeated the formula, “I baptise you in

the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” in his

own language; and Alvarez, it is plain, understood not one word of

Abyssinian. Yet, on the other hand, he speaks Latin to the king, who

wonderfully understands him, and answers as decisively on the merits

of the dispute as if he had been educated in the Sorbonne. “Confiteor

unum baptizma” says Alvarez[102], was a constitution of the Nicene

council under Pope Leo. Right, says the king, whose church, however,

anathematized Leo and the council he presided at, which both the king

and Alvarez should have known was not the Nicene council, though the

words of the symbol quoted are thought to be part of a confession

framed by that assembly.

“Qui crediderit et baptizatus fuerit salvus erit,” says Alvarez. “You

say right, answers the king, as to baptism; these are the words of our

Saviour; but this present ceremony was lately invented by a grandfather

of mine, in favour of such as have turned Moors, and are desirous again

of becoming Christians.”

I should think, in the first place, this answer of the king, should

have let Alvarez see no baptism was intended there; or, if it was a

re-baptism, it only took place in favour of those who had turned Moors,

and must therefore have been but partial. If this was really the case,

what had the king, queen, and Abuna to do in it? Sure they had neither

apostatized nor was the company of apostates a very creditable society

for them.

Alvarez, to persuade us this is real baptism, says that oil was thrown

into the pond before he came. He will not charge himself with having

seen this, and it is probably a falsehood. But he knew it was an

essential in baptism in all the churches in the east; so indeed is

salt, which he should have said was here used likewise: then he would

have had all the materials of Greek baptism, and this salt might have

contributed to cooling the water, that had frozen under the rays of a

burning sun.

Alvarez must have seen, that not only men and women go to be washed in

the pool, but horses, cows, mules, and a prodigious number of asses.

Are these baptised? I would wish to know the formula the reverend

baptist-general used on their occasion.

There is but one church where I ever saw sacred rites, or something

like baptism, conferred upon asses; it is, I think, at Rome on St

Andrew’s or St Patrick’s day. It should be St Balaam’s, if he was in

the Roman kalendar as high as he is in the Abyssinian. In that church

(it is I think on Monte Cavallo) all sorts of asses, about and within

Rome, are gathered together, and showers of holy water and blessings

rained by a priest upon them. What is the formula I do not know;

although it is a joke put upon strangers, especially of one nation, to

assemble them there; or whether the two churches of Rome and Abyssinia

differ so much in this as in other points of discipline, I am not

informed; but the rationality and decency of such a ceremony being the

same in all churches, the service performed at the time should be the

same likewise.

I will not then have any scruple to say, that this whole account of

Alvarez is a gross fiction; that no baptism, or any thing like baptism,

is meant by the ceremony; that a man is no more baptised by keeping the

anniversary of our Saviour’s baptism, than he is crucified by keeping

his crucifixion. The commemoration of our Saviour’s baptism on the

epiphany, and the blessing the waters that day, is an old observance

of the eastern church, formerly performed in public in Egypt as now in

Ethiopia. Since that of Alexandria fell into the hands of Mahometans,

the fear of insult and profanation has obliged them to confine this

ceremony, and all other processions, within the walls of their

churches, in each of which there is constantly a place devoted to this

use. Those that cannot attend the ceremony of aspersion in the church,

especially sick or infirm people, have the water sent to them, and a

large contribution is made for the patriarch, or bishop; yet nobody

ever took it into their heads to tax either Greek or Armenian with a

repetition of baptism.

Monsieur de Tournefort[103], in his travels through the Levant, gives

you a figure of the Greek priest, who blesses the water in a peculiar

habit, with a pastoral staff in his hand.

But, besides this, various falsehoods have likewise been propagated

about the manner of baptism practiced in Abyssinia, all in order to

impugn the validity of it, and to excuse the rash conduct of the

Jesuits for re-baptising all the Abyssinians, as if they had been

a Jewish and Pagan people that never had been baptised at all. The

violation of this article of the creed, or confession of Nice, was a

cause of great offence to the Abyssinians, and of the misfortunes that

happened afterwards. The whole of the Abyssinian service of baptism is

in their liturgy. The Jesuits had plenty of copies in their hands, and

could have pointed out the part of the service that was heretical, if

they had pleased; they did not pretend, however, to do this, and their

silence condemns them.

As for the idle stories that are told of the words pronounced, such

as,--“I baptize you in the name of the Holy Trinity,”--“In the name

of Peter and Paul,”--“I baptize you in the water of Jordan,”--“May

God baptise you,”--“May God wash you,” and many others, they are

all invented by the Jesuits, to excuse the repetition of baptism in

Abyssinia, which there was no sort of occasion for, as they might

have examined the words and form in the liturgies, which are in every

church; and I must here only observe, that if, as the chaplain of

Alvarez says, the priest in the pool, on the festival of the Epiphany,

was so fond of the proper words as even, at that time, to say, “I

baptise you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy

Ghost,” the words he quotes to shew this immersion in water on the

Epiphany, is a real baptism, I cannot comprehend why they should vary

them to other words, when nothing but baptism is meant. But this I can

bear evidence of, that, in no time when I was present, as I have above

a hundred times been at the baptism both of adults and infants, aye,

and of apostates too, I never heard other words pronounced than the

orthodox baptismal ones, “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, of

the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” immerging the child in pure water,

into which they first pour a small quantity of oil of olives, in the

form of a cross.

The Abyssinians receive the holy sacrament in both kinds in unleavened

bread, and in the grape bruised with the husk together as it grows,

so that it is a kind of marmalade, and is given in a flat spoon:

whatever they may pretend, some mixture seems necessary to keep it from

fermentation in the state that it is in, unless the dried cluster is

fresh bruised just before it is used, for it is little more fluid than

the common marmalade of confectioners; but it is perfectly the grape as

it grew, bruised stones and skin together. Some means, however, have

been used, as I suppose, to prevent fermentation, and make it keep;

and, though this is constantly denied, I have often thought I tasted a

flavour that was not natural to the grape itself.

It is a mistake that there is no wine in Abyssinia, for a quantity of

excellent strong wine is made at Dreeda, south-west from Gondar about

thirty miles, which would more than supply the quantity necessary for

the celebration of the eucharist in all Abyssinia twenty times over.

The people themselves are not fond of wine, and plant the vine in one

place only; and in this they have been imitated by the Egyptians,

their colony; but a small black grape, of an excellent flavour, grows

plentifully wild in every wood in Tigré.

Large pieces of bread are given to the communicants in proportion to

their quality; and I have seen great men, who, though they open their

mouths as wide as conveniently a man can do, yet from the respect the

priest bore him, such a portion of the loaf was put into his mouth that

water ran from his eyes, from the incapacity of chewing it, which,

however, he does as indecently, and with full as much noise, as he eats

at table.

After receiving the sacrament of the eucharist in both kinds, a pitcher

of water is brought, of which the communicant drinks a large draught;

and well he needs it to wash down the quantity of bread he has just

swallowed. He then retires from the steps of the inner division upon

which the administering priest stands, and, turning his face to the

wall of the church, in private says some prayer with seeming decency

and attention.

The Romanists doubt of the validity of the Abyssinian consecration of

the elements, because in their liturgy it is plainly said, “Lord, put

thy hand upon this cup, and bless it, and sanctify it, and purify it,

that in it may be made thy holy blood;” and of the bread they say,

“Bless this saucer, or plate, that in it may be made thy holy body.”

And in their prayer they say, “Change this bread that it may be made

thy pure body which is joined with this cup of thy precious blood.” The

Jesuits doubt of the validity of this consecration, because it is said,

“this _bread_ is my body,” and over the wine, “this _cup_ is my blood;”

whereas, to operate a true transubstantiation, they should say over the

bread, “this is my body.”

For my own part, I leave it to the reverend fathers, who are

the best judges, what is necessary to operate this miracle of

transubstantiation. The reality of the thing itself is denied by

all Protestant churches, has been often doubted by others, has been

ridiculed by lay-writers, and can never be a matter, I believe, of

thorough conviction, much less of proof to any. The dignity of the

subject, on which it touches nearly, as well as tenderness for our

brethren on the continent, an article of whose faith it is, should

always screen it from being treated with pleasantry, whatever we

believe, or whether we believe it or not.

M. Ludolf thinks, that the words I have set down are a proof the

Abyssinians do not believe in transubstantiation. For my part, from

those very words, I cannot think any thing is clearer than that they

do; the bread is upon the plate; they pray that that plate may be

blessed, “That in it the bread may be made God’s holy body[104];”

and of the wine they say, “That it may be made thy holy blood:” and

in their prayer they say, “Change this bread that it may be made thy

body;” and again, “May the Holy Ghost shine upon this bread, that

it may be made the body of Christ our God, and that this cup may be

changed and become the blood, not the _symbol_, of the blood of Christ

our God.” With all respect to Mr Ludolf’s opinion, I must think that,

though the benediction prayed upon the patine, spoon, and chalice,

is but an aukward expression, yet, if I understand the language,

“converte” and “immutetur” are literal translations of the Ethiopic,

and seem to pray for a transubstantiation as directly as words will

admit, whether they believe in it or not; nor, as far as I know, can

any stronger or more expressive be found to substitute in their place.

I shall finish this subject (which is not of my province, and which I

have mentioned, because I know it is a matter which some of my readers

desire information upon) by an anecdote that happened a few months

before my coming into Abyssinia, as it was accidentally told me by the

priest of Adowa the very day of the Epiphany, and which Janni vouched

to be true, and to have seen.

The Sunday before Ras Michael’s departure for Gondar from Adowa, he

went to church in great pomp, and there received the sacrament. There

happened to be such a crowd to see him, that the wine, part of the

consecrated elements, was thrown down and spilt upon the steps whereon

the communicants stood at receiving. Some straw or hay was instantly

gathered and sprinkled upon it to cover it, and the communicants

continued the service till the end, treading that grass under foot.

This giving great offence to Janni, and some few priests that lived

with him, it was told Michael, who, without explaining himself, said

only, “As to the fact of throwing the hay, they are a parcel of hogs,

and know no better.” These few words had stuck in the stomach of the

priest of Adowa, who, with great secrecy, and as a mark of friendship,

begged I would give him my opinion what he should have done, or rather,

what would have been done in my country? I told him, “That the answer

to his question depended upon two things, which, being known, his

difficulties would very easily be solved. If you do believe that the

wine spilt by the mob upon the steps, and trod under foot afterwards,

was really the blood of Jesus Christ, then you was guilty of a most

horrid crime, and you should cry upon the mountains to cover you; and

ages of atonement are not sufficient to expiate it. You should, in the

mean time, have railed the place round with iron, or built it round

with stone, that no foot, or any thing else but the dew of heaven,

could have fallen upon it, or you should have brought in the river upon

the place that would have washed it all to the sea, and covered it

ever after from sacrilegious profanation. But if, on the contrary, you

believe, (as many Christian churches do) that the wine (notwithstanding

consecration) remained in the cup nothing more than wine, but was only

the symbol, or type, of Christ’s blood of the New Testament, then the

spilling it upon the steps, and the treading upon it afterwards, having

been merely accidental, and out of your power to prevent, being so far

from your wish that you are heartily sorry that it happened, I do not

reckon that you are further liable in the crime of sacrilege, than if

the wine had not been consecrated at all. You are to humble yourself,

and sincerely regret that so irreverent an accident happened in your

hands, and in your time, but as you did not intend it, and could

not prevent it; the consequence of an accident, where inattention is

exceedingly culpable, will be imputed to you, and nothing further.”

The priest declared to me, with great earnestness, that he never

did believe that the elements in the eucharist were converted by

consecration into the real body and blood of Christ. He said, however,

that he believed this to be the Roman Catholic faith, but it never

was his; and that he conceived the bread was bread, and the wine was

wine, even after consecration. From this example, which occurred merely

accidentally, and was not the fruit of interrogation or curiosity,

it appears to me, whatever the Jesuits say, some at least among the

Abyssinians do not believe the real presence in the eucharist; but

further I am not enough informed to give a positive opinion. To follow

this investigation more curiously would have been attended with a

considerable degree of danger; and therefore I have stated my only

means of knowledge, and leave my readers entirely to the freedom of

their own opinion, and to after inquiry and information.

The Abyssinians are not all agreed about the state of souls before

the resurrection of the body. The opinion which generally prevails

is, that there is no third state; but that, after the example of the

thief, the souls of good men enjoy the beatific vision immediately

upon the separation from the body. But I must here observe, that their

practice and books do both contradict this; for, as often as any person

dies, alms are given, and prayers are offered for the souls of those

departed, which would be vain did they believe they were already in

the presence of God, and in possession of the greatest bless possible,

wanting nothing to complete it. “Remember, (says their liturgy) O Lord!

the souls of thy servants, our father Abba Matthias, and the rest of

our saints, Abba Salama, and Abba Jacob.” In another place, “Remember,

O Lord! the kings of Ethiopia, Abreha, and Atzbeha, Caleb, and Guebra

Mascal.” And again, “Release, O Lord! our father Antonius, and Abba

Macarius.” If this is not directly acknowledging a separate state, it

can have no meaning at all.

I have already said, that the Agaazi, the predecessors of those people

that settled in Tigrè from the mountains of the Habab, were shepherds

adjoining to the Red Sea; that they speak the language _Geez_, and

are the only people in Abyssinia in possession of letters; that these

are all circumcised, both men and women. The former term, as applied

to men, is commonly known to every one the least acquainted with the

Jewish history. The latter is, as far as I know, a rite merely Gentile,

although in Africa, at least that part adjoining to Egypt and the Red

Sea, it is much more known and more universally practised than the

other. This I shall call _excision_, that I may express this uncommon

operation by as decent a word as possible. The Falasha likewise submit

to both.

These nations, however they agree in their rite, differ in their

accounts of the time they received this ceremony, as well as the manner

of performing it. The Abyssinians of Tigré say, that they received it

from Ishmael’s family and his descendants, with whom they were early

connected in their trading voyages. They say also, that the queen

of Saba, and all the women of that coast, had suffered excision at

the usual time of life, before puberty, and before her journey to

Jerusalem. The Falasha again declare, that their circumcision was that

commonly practised at Jerusalem in the time of Solomon, and in use

among them when they left Palestine, and came into Abyssinia.

The circumcision of the Abyssinians is performed with a sharp knife, or

razor. There is no laceration with the nails, no formula or repetition

of words, nor any religious ceremony at the time of the operation, nor

is it done at any particular age, and generally it is a woman that is

the surgeon. The Falasha say, they perform it sometimes with the edge

of a sharp stone; sometimes with a knife or razor, and at other times

with the nails of their fingers; and for this purpose they have the

nails of their little fingers of an immoderate length: at the time of

the operation the priest chants a hymn, or verse, importing, “Blessed

art thou, O Lord, who hast ordained circumcision!” This is performed

on the eighth day, and is a religious rite, according to the first

institution by God to Abraham.

The Abyssinians pretend theirs is not so; and, being pressed for the

reason, they tell you it is because Christ and the apostles were

circumcised, though they do not hold it necessary to salvation. But

it is the objection they constantly make against eating out of the

same plate, or drinking out of the same cup with strangers, that they

are uncircumcised, while, with the Egyptians or the Cophts, though

equally strangers, they make no such difficulty. In the time of the

Jesuits, when the Roman Catholic religion was abolished, and liberty

given them to return to their old worship, their priests proclaimed

a general circumcision; and the populace, in the first days of their

fury, or triumph, murdered many Catholics, by stabbing them with a

lance in that part, as they met them, repeating in derision the

Jewish hymn, or ejaculation, “Blessed is the Lord that hath ordained

circumcision!” so that, I believe, their indifference in this article

is rather owing to not being contradicted; just as they are careless

about every other parts of religion, unless such as have been revived

in their minds by disputes with the Jesuits, and kept up since in part

among their clergy. But none of them pretend that circumcision arises

from necessity of any kind, or from any obstruction or impediment to

procreation, or that it becomes necessary for cleanliness, or from the

heat of climate.

None of these reasons, constantly alledged in Europe, are ever to be

heard of here, nor do I believe they have the smallest foundation

any where; and this, I think, should weigh strongly in favour of the

account scripture gives of it. Examining the origin of this ceremony,

independent of this revelation, I will never believe that man, or

nations of men, rashly submitted to a disgraceful, sometimes dangerous,

and always painful operation, unless there had been proposed, as a

consequence, some reward for submitting to, or some punishment for

refusing it, which balanced in their minds the pain and danger, as well

as disgrace, of that operation.

All the inhabitants of the globe agree in considering it shameful to

expose that part of their body, even to men; and in the east, where,

from climate, you are allowed, and from respect to your superiors, the

generality of men are forced to go naked, all agree in covering their

waist, which is called their _nakedness_, though it is really the only

part of their body that is covered. We see even that there was a

curse[105] attended the mere seeing that part of the body of a parent,

and not instantly throwing a covering over it.

I do not propose discussing at large the arguments for or against the

time of the beginning to circumcise. The scripture has given such an

account of it, that, when weighed with the promise so exactly kept to

the end, seems to me to be a very rational one. But, considering all

revelation out of the question, I think there is no room to institute

any free or fair inquiry. I give no pre-eminence to Moses nor his

writings. I suppose him a profane author; but, till those that argue

against his account, and maintain circumcision was earlier than

Abraham, shall shew me another profane writer as old as Moses, as

near the time they say it began as Moses was to the time of Abraham,

I will not argue with them in support of Moses against Herodotus,

nor discuss who Herodotus’s Phenicians, and who his Egyptians

were that circumcised. Herodotus knew not Abraham nor Moses, and,

compared to their days, he is but as yesterday. Those Phenicians and

Egyptians might, for any thing he knew at his time, have received

circumcision from Abraham or Ishmael, or some of their posterity, as

the Abyssinians or Ethiopians, whom he refers to, actually say they

did, which Herodotus did not know, it is plain, though he mentions

they were circumcised. This tradition of the Abyssinians merits some

consideration from what they say of it themselves, that they were, in

the earliest time, circumcised before they left their native country,

and settled in Tigrè. From this they derive no honour, nor do they

pretend to any. It would have been otherwise, if the æra fixed upon

had been the reign of Menilek, son of Solomon, when they first embraced

Judaism under a monarch. This would have made a much more brilliant

epoch in their history, whilst it was probable that they adopted

circumcision under the countenance of Azarias, the son of Zadok, the

high priest, and the representatives of the twelve tribes who came with

him at that time from Jerusalem.

It seems to me very extraordinary, that, if circumcision was originally

a Jewish invention, all those nations to the south should be absolutely

ignorant of it, while others to the northward were so early acquainted

with it; for none of those nations up the Nile (excepting the

Shepherds) either know or practise it to this day; though, ever since

the 1400th year before Christ, they have been in the closest connection

with the Jews. This would rather make me believe, that the rite of

circumcision went northward from the plain of Mamrè, for it certainly

made no progress southward from Egypt. We see it obtained in Arabia, by

Zipporah[106], Moses’s wife, circumcising her son upon their return to

Egypt. Her great anxiety to have that operation immediately performed,

shews that her’s was a Judaical circumcision; there was no sin that

attended the omission of this operation in Egypt, but God had said to

Abraham[107], “The soul that is not circumcised shall be cut off from

Israel.”

The Tcheratz Agows, who live between Lasta and Begemder, in an

exceedingly fertile country, are not circumcised; and, therefore, if

this nation left Palestine upon Joshua passing Jordan, circumcision

was not known there, for the Agows to this day are uncircumcised. The

same may be said of the Agows of Damot, who are settled at the head

of the Nile. It will be seen by the two specimens of their different

languages that they are different nations, as I have alledged. Next

to these are the Gafat, in a plain open country, who do not use

circumcision; none of them were ever converted to Judaism, and but few

of them to Christianity. The next are the people of Amhara who did not

use circumcision, at least few of them, till after the massacre of the

princes by Judith in the year 900, when the remaining princes of the

line of Solomon fled to Shoa, and the court was established there. The

last of these nations that I shall mention are the Galla, who are not

circumcised; of this nation we have said enough.

On the north, a black, woolly-headed nation, called the Shangalla,

already often mentioned, bounds Abyssinia, and serves like a string to

the bow made by these nations of Galla. Who they are we know perfectly,

being the Cushite Troglodytes of Sofala, Saba, Axum and Meroë; shut up,

as I have already mentioned, in those caves, the first habitations of

their more polished ancestors. Neither do these circumcise, though they

immediately bordered upon Egypt, while the Cushite, adjoining to the

peninsula of Africa certainly did. As then so many nations contiguous

to Egypt never received circumcision from it, it seems an invincible

argument, that this was no endemial rite or custom among the Egyptians,

and I have before observed, that it was of no use to this nation,

as the reasons mentioned by Philo, and the rest, of cleanliness and

climate, are absolute dreams, and now, exploded; and that they are so

is plain, because, otherwise, the nations more to the southward would

have adopted it, as they have universally done another custom, which I

shall presently speak of.

Circumcision, then, having no natural cause or advantage, being in

itself repugnant to man’s nature, and extremely painful, if not

dangerous, it could never originate in man’s mind wantonly and out

of free-will. It might have done so indeed from imitation, but with

Abraham it had a cause, as God was to make his private family in a few

years numerous, like the sands of the sea. This mark, which separated

them from all the world, was an easy way to shew whether the promise

was fulfilled or not. They were going to take possession of a land

where circumcision was not known, and this shewed them their enemy

distinct from their own people. And it would be the grossest absurdity

to send Samson to bring, as tokens of the slain, so many foreskins or

prepuces of the Philistines, if, as Herodotus says, the Philistines had

cut off their prepuces a thousand years before.

I must here take notice that this custom, filthy and barbarous as it

is, has been adopted by the Abyssinians of Tigrè, who have always been

circumcised, from a knowledge that the nations about them were not

circumcised at all. It is true they do not content themselves with the

foreskin, and I doubt very much if this was not the case with the Jews

likewise. On the contrary, in place of the foreskin they cut the whole

away, scrotum and all, and bring this to their superiors, as a token

they have killed an enemy.

Although it then appears that the nations which had Egypt between

Abraham and them, that is, were to the southward, did not follow the

Egyptians in the rite of circumcision, yet in another, of excision,

they all concurred. Strabo[108] says, the Egyptians circumcised both

men and women, _like the Jews_. I will not pretend to say that any

such operation ever did obtain among the Jewish women, as scripture

is silent upon it; and indeed it is nowhere ever pretended to have

been a religious rite, but to be introduced from necessity, to avoid

a deformity which nature has subjected particular people to, in

particular climates and countries.

We perceive among the brutes, that nature, creating the animal with

the same limbs or members all the world over, does yet indulge itself

in a variety, in the proportion of such limbs or members. Some are

remarkable for the size of their heads, some for the breadth and

bigness of the tail, some for the length of their legs, and some for

the size of their horns. There is a district in Abyssinia, within the

perpetual rains, where cows, of no greater size than ours, have horns,

each of which would contain as much water as the ordinary water-pail

used in England does; and I remember on the frontiers of Sennaar, near

the river Dender, to have seen a herd of many hundred cows, everyone of

which had the apparent construction of their parts almost similar with

that of the bull; so that, for a considerable time, I was persuaded

that these were oxen, their udders being very small, until I had seen

them milked.

This particular appearance, or unnecessary appendage, at first made me

believe that I had found the real cause of circumcision from analogy,

but, upon information, this did not hold. It is however otherwise in

the excision of women. From climate, or some other cause, a certain

disproportion is found generally to prevail among them. And, as the

population of a country has in every age been considered as an object

worthy of attention, men have endeavoured to remedy this deformity by

the amputation of that redundancy. All the Egyptians, therefore, the

Arabians, and nations to the South of Africa, the Abyssinians, Gallas,

Agows, Gafats, and Gongas, make their children undergo this operation,

at no fixed time indeed, but always before they are marriageable.

When the Roman Catholic priests first settled in Egypt, they did not

neglect supporting their mission by temporal advantages, and small

presents given to needy people their proselytes; but mistaking this

excision of the Coptish women for a ceremony performed upon Judaical

principles, they forbade, upon pain of excommunication, that excision

should be performed upon the children of parents who had become

Catholics. The converts obeyed, the children grew up, and arrived at

puberty; but the consequences of having obeyed the interdict were, that

the man found, by chusing a wife among Catholic Cophts, he subjected

himself to a very disagreeable inconveniency, to which he had conceived

an unconquerable aversion, and therefore he married a heretical wife,

free from this objection, and with her he relapsed into heresy.

The missionaries therefore finding it impossible that ever their

congregation could increase, and that this accident did frustrate all

their labours, laid their case before the College of Cardinals _de

propaganda fide_, at Rome. These took it up as a matter of moment,

which it really was, and sent over visitors skilled in surgery, fairly

to report upon the case as it stood; and they, on their return,

declared, that the heat of the climate, or some other natural cause,

did, in that particular nation, invariably alter the formation so as to

make a difference from what was ordinary in the sex in other countries,

and that this difference did occasion a disgust, which must impede the

consequences for which matrimony was instituted. The college, upon this

report, ordered that a declaration, being first made by the patient and

her parents that it was not done from Judaical intention, but because

it disappointed the ends of marriage, “Si modo matrimonii fructus

impediret id omnino tollendum esset:” that the imperfection was, by

all manner of means, to be removed; so that the Catholics, as well as

the Cophts, in Egypt, undergo excision ever since. This is done with a

knife, or razor, by women generally when the child is about eight years

old[109].

There is another ceremony with which I shall close, and this regards

the women also, and I shall call it _incision_. This is an usage

frequent, and still retained among the Jews, though positively

prohibited by the law: “Thou shalt not cut thy face for the sake of,

or on account of the dead[110].” As soon as a near relation dies in

Abyssinia, a brother or parent, cousin-german or lover, every woman in

that relation, with the nail of her little finger, which she leaves

long on purpose, cuts the skin of both her temples, about the size of a

sixpence; and therefore you see either a wound or a scar in every fair

face in Abyssinia; and in the dry season, when the camp is out, from

the loss of friends they seldom have liberty to heal till peace and the

army return with the rains.

The Abyssinians, like the ancient Egyptians, their first colony,

in computing their time, have continued the use of the solar year.

Diodorus Siculus says, “They do not reckon their time by the moon, but

according to the sun; that thirty days constitute their month, to which

they add five days and the fourth part of a day, and this completes

their year.”

These five days were, by the Egyptians, called Nici, and, by the

Greeks, Epagomeni, which signifies, days added, or superinduced, to

complete a sum. The Abyssinians add five days, which they call Quagomi,

a corruption from the Greek Epagomeni, to the month of August, which

is their Nahaassé. Every fourth year they add a sixth day. They begin

the year, like all the eastern nations, with the 29th or 30th day of

August, that is the kalends of September, the 29th of August being the

first of their month Mascaram.

It is uncertain whence they derived the names of their months; they

have no signification in any of the languages of Abyssinia. The name of

the first month among the old Egyptians has continued to this day. It

is Tot, probably so called from the first division of time among the

Egyptians, from observation of the helaical rising of the dog-star. The

names of the months retained in Abyssinia are possibly in antiquity

prior to this; they are probably those given them by the Cushite,

before the Kalendars at Thebes and Meroë, their colony, were formed.

The common epoch which the Abyssinians make use of is from the creation

of the world; but in the quantity of this period they do not agree with

the Greeks, nor with other eastern nations, who reckon 5508 years from

the creation to the birth of Christ. The Abyssinians adopt the even

number of 5500 years, casting away the odd eight years; but whether

this was first done for ease of calculation, or some better reason,

there is neither book nor tradition that now can teach us. They have,

besides this, many other epochs, such as from the council of Nice and

Ephesus. There is likewise to be met with in their books a portion of

time, which is certainly a cycle; the Ethiopic word is kamar, which,

literally interpreted, is an arch, or circle. It is not now in use

in civil life among the Abyssinians, and therefore was mentioned as

containing various quantities from 100 years to 19; and there are

places in their history where neither of these will apply, nor any even

number whatever.

They make use of the golden number and epact constantly in all their

ecclesiastic computations: the first they call Matqué, the other

Abacté. Scaliger, who has taken great pains upon this confused subject,

the computation of time in the church of Abyssinia, without having

succeeded in making it much clearer, tells us, that the first use

or invention of epacts was not earlier than the time of Dioclesian;

but this is contrary to the positive evidence of Abyssinian history,

which says expressly, that the epact was invented by Demetrius[111],

patriarch of Alexandria. “Unless, says the poet in their liturgy,

Demetrius had made this revelation by the immediate influence of the

Holy Ghost, how, I pray you, was it possible that the computation of

time, called Epacts, could ever have been known?” And, again, “When you

meet, says he, you shall learn the computation by epacts, which was

taught by the Holy Ghost to father Demetrius, and by him revealed to

you.” Now Demetrius was the twelfth patriarch of Alexandria, who was

elected about the 190th year of Christ, or in the reign of the emperor

Severus, consequently long before the time of Dioclesian.

It seems the reputation the Egyptians had from very old time for their

skill in computation and the division of time, remained with them

late in the days of Christianity. Pope Leo the Great, writing to the

emperor Marcian, confesses that the fixing the time of the moveable

feasts was always an exclusive privilege of the church of Alexandria;

and therefore, says he, in his letter about reforming the kalendar,

the holy fathers endeavoured to take away the occasion of this error,

by delegating the whole care of this to the bishop of Alexandria,

because the Egyptians, from old times, seem to have had this gift of

computation given them; and when these had signified to the apostolic

See the days upon which the moveable feasts were to happen, the church

of Rome then notified this by writing to churches at a greater distance.

We are not to doubt that this privilege, which the church of Alexandria

had been so long in possession of, contributed much to inflame the

minds of the Abyssinians against the Roman Catholic priests, for

altering the time of keeping Easter, by appointing days of their own;

for we see violent commotions to have arisen every year upon the

celebration of this festival.

The Abyssinians have another way of describing time peculiar to

themselves; they read the whole of the four evangelists every year in

their churches. They begin with Matthew, then proceed to Mark, Luke,

and John, in order; and, when they speak of an event, they write and

say it happened in the days of Matthew, that is, in the first quarter

of the year, while the gospel of St Matthew was yet reading in the

churches.

They compute the time of the day in a very arbitrary, irregular

manner. The twilight, as I have before observed, is very short, almost

imperceptible, and was still more so when the court was removed

farther to the southward in Shoa. As soon as the sun falls below the

horizon, night comes on, and all the stars appear. This term, then,

the twilight, they choose for the beginning of their day, and call it

Naggé, which is the very time the twilight of the morning lasts. The

same is observed at night, and Meset is meant to signify the instant

of beginning the twilight, between the sun’s falling below the horizon

and the stars appearing. Mid-day is by them called _Kater_, a very old

word, which signifies _culmination_, or a thing’s being arrived or

placed at the middle or highest part of an arch. All the rest of times,

in conversation, they describe by pointing at the place in the heavens

where the sun then was, when what they are describing happened.

I shall conclude what further I have to say on this subject, by

observing, that nothing can be more inaccurate than all Abyssinian

calculations. Besides their absolute ignorance in arithmetic, their

excessive idleness and aversion to study, and a number of fanciful,

whimsical combinations, by which every particular scribe or monk

distinguishes himself, there are obvious reasons why there should be a

variation between their chronology and ours. I have already observed,

that the beginning of our years are different; ours begin on the 1st

of January, and theirs on the 1st day of September, so that there are

8 months difference between us. The last day of August may be the year

1780 with us, and 1779 only with the Abyssinians. And in the reign of

their kings they very seldom mention either month or day beyond an even

number of years. Supposing, then, it is known that the reign of ten

kings extended from such to such a period, where all the months and

days are comprehended, when we come to assign to each of these an equal

number of years, without the correspondent months and days, it is plain

that, when all these separate reigns come to be added together, the

one sum-total will not agree with the other, but will be more or less

than the just time which that prince reigned. This, indeed, as errors

compensate full as frequently as they accumulate, will seldom amount to

a difference above three years; a space of time too trivial to be of

any consequence in the history of barbarous nations.

However, it will occur that even this agreement is no positive evidence

of the exactness of the time, for it may so happen that the sum-totals

may agree, and yet every particular sum constituting the whole may be

false, that is, if the quantity of errors which are too much exactly

correspond with the quantity of errors that are too little; to obviate

this as much as possible, I have considered three eclipses of the sun

as recorded in the Abyssinian annals. The first was in the reign of

David III. the year before the king marched out to his first campaign

against Maffudi the Moor, in the unfortunate war with Adel. The year

that the king marched into Dawaro was the 1526, after having dispatched

the Portuguese ambassador Don Roderigo de Lima, who embarked at Masuah

on the 26th of April on board the fleet commanded by Don Hector de

Silveyra, who had come from India on purpose to fetch him; and the

Abyssinian annals say, that, the year before the king marched, a

remarkable eclipse of the sun had happened in the Ethiopic month Ter.

Now, in consulting our European accounts, we find that, on the second

of January, answering to the 18th day of Ter, there did happen an

eclipse of the sun, which, as it was in the time of the year when the

sky is cloudless both night and day, must have been visible all the

time of its duration. So here our accounts do agree precisely.

The second happened on the 13th year of the reign of Claudius, as the

Abyssinian account states it. Claudius succeeded to the crown in the

1540, and the 13th year of his reign will fall to be on the 1553. Now

we find this eclipse did happen in the same clear season of the year,

that is, on the 24th of January 1553, so in this second instance our

chronology is perfectly correct.

The third eclipse of the sun happened in the 7th year of the reign of

Yasous II. in Magabit, the seventh month of the Abyssinians. Now Yasous

came to the crown in 1729, so that the 7th year of his reign will be

in 1736, and on the 4th day of October, answering to the 8th day of

the month Tekemt, N. S. in that year, we see this eclipse observed in

Europe.

As a further confirmation of this, we have dated the particulars of a

comet which, the Abyssinian annals say, appeared at Gondar in the month

of November, in the 9th year of the reign of Yasous I. and as this

comet was observed in Europe to have come to its perihelion in December

1689, and as that year, according to our account, was really the 9th of

that king’s reign, no further proof of the exactness of our chronology

can possibly be required. By means of these observations, counting

backward to the rime of Icon Amlac, and again forward to the death of

Joas, which happened in 1768, and assigning to each prince the number

of years that his own historians say he reigned, I have, in the most

unexceptionable manner that I can devise, settled the chronology of

this country; and the exact agreement it hath with all the remarkable

events, regularly and sufficiently vouched, plainly shews the accuracy

of this method. If, therefore, in a few cases, I differ two or three

years from the Jesuits in their first account of this country, I do

not in any shape believe the fault to be mine, because there are,

at all these periods, errors in point of fact, both in Alvarez and

Tellez, much more material and unaccountable than the mistake of a few

years; and these errors have been adopted with great confidence in the

Hispania Illustrata, and some of the best books of Portuguese history

which have made mention of this country.

TRAVELS

TO DISCOVER

THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.