very well painted and well built, and handsomely ornamented with
many brocades, crimson silks, and Mekkah velvets, and red camlets.
The church in this town is served like that at Barua, only that the
offices are more solemnized because the Barnagais resides here, and
because here there are more clergy and an infinite number of friars.
The church is managed by priests. I saw them make a procession round
the church in the greater circuit, which is of the churchyard. In it
there were many priests, friars, and men and women, because in this
church the women receive the communion in the place where the laity do
so. In that procession I saw the ornaments which I have mentioned: they
must have taken quite thirty turns round the church chaunting like a
litany, and sounding many drums and cymbals, as they sound them when
they make a procession before the effigy of Our Lady on Sundays and
feast days; and they sing and celebrate a feast; and likewise when they
give the communion on feast days. They said that this procession was
made in supplication to God for rain for their sowing. The bells are of
stone, like those of other churches, and the bells badly made. In this
town there is a great fair like that of Barua, and so likewise in all
the places which are chief towns of districts, every week. The fairs
consist of bartering one thing for another, as for instance, an ass for
a cow, and that which is of least value gives to the other two or three
measures of bread. By means of bread they buy stuffs, and with stuffs
they buy mules and cows, and whatever they want, for salt, incense,
pepper, myrrh, camphor, and other small articles.[42] They buy fowls
and capons, and whatever they need or want to buy is all to be found at
these fairs in exchange for others, for there is no current money. The
principal merchants at these fairs are priests, friars, and nuns. The
friars are decent in their habits, which are full, and reaching to the
ground. Some wear yellow habits of coarse cotton stuff, others habits
of tanned goat skins like wide breeches,[43] also yellow. The nuns also
wear the same habits; the friars wear, besides, capes of the fashion of
Dominican friars, of the same yellow skins or stuffs, they wear hats;
and the nuns wear neither capes nor hats, but only the habit, and are
shaven with a razor; and they wear a leather strap wound or fastened
round the head. When they are old women they wear fillets[44] round
their heads over their tonsures. These nuns are not cloistered, nor do
they live together in convents, but in villages, and in the monasteries
of the friars, on account of belonging to those houses and order. The
order is all one, and the nuns give obedience where they receive their
habits. With regard to entering churches and monasteries, the nuns do
not enter except as other women do. There is a great multitude of nuns,
as well as of friars; they say that some of them are very holy women,
and others are not so. The priests show very little difference from
the laity in their dress, because all wear a good cloth wrapped round,
like smart men, and their difference is that they carry a cross in
their hand, and are shaven, and the laity wear long hair. The priests
also have this, that they do not cut their beard, and the laity shave
below the chin and the throat. There are other priests, whom they
call Debeteraas, which means canons; these belong to great churches,
which are like their cathedrals or collegiate churches, and are not
monasteries. These are very well dressed, and at once appear as what
they are: these do not go to the fairs and markets.
CAP. XXX.--_Of the state of the Barnagais and manner of his
house, and how he ordered a proclamation to be made to go
against the Nobiis,[45] and the method of his justice._
The service of this Barnagais is very poor in state, although he
is a great lord and has the title of king. As many times as we
spoke to him we always found him seated on a bedstead beneath a
coverlid, and himself covered with hairy cotton cloths which they
name _basutos_; they are good for the country, and there are
some here of a high price. Behind the sides of the bedstead, walls,
without anything except four swords hung each on a pole, and two great
books, also suspended on poles. In front of the bedstead, mats on the
floor, upon which sit those who come; the houses rarely swept, his
wife always seated on a mat near the head of the bedstead, many people
always before him, the great people seated on mats. In sight of his
bedstead stand four horses, one always saddled, and the others covered,
not caparisoned for war, but as horses are in the stables. In these
houses of his are two inclosures, and each one has its gate, and in
it porters with whips in their hands, and in the one nearest to him
are smarter porters. Between these gates, the inner one and the outer
one, is always his Alicaxi, which means his judge, hearing causes
and administering justice. If the cause is important, he hears the
parties until he has determined upon it, and then he goes and relates
the cause to the Barnagais, who gives the sentence: if it is a small
cause, or if the parties wish it, the Alicaxi gives sentence, and the
cause is concluded. Moreover, in all judgments, whether the Barnagais
or the Alicaxi judges, there must be present an honourable man, whom
they call by the name of his office Malaganha, who is like a tabellion
or notary of Prester John, and if either of the parties wishes to
appeal, he requires from this man the certifying of the cause for
Prester John and his judges. All the lords of the countries of any of
the kingdoms of Prester John have an Alicaxi and a Malaganha appointed
by the Prester; so also have the captains subject to the Barnagais and
to the other great lords. The gentlemen who are about the house of the
Barnagais, and other grandees who come on business, have this manner
of coming from their abodes. Whilst at the place he is living at he
mounts his mule, seven, eight, or ten men on foot go before him as far
as the first gate, and there he dismounts. If he is a person of greater
importance, he takes seven, eight, or ten mules, or else three or four,
according as the person is. So he dismounts at the first gate, and
arrives at the second, after that, if they are bidden at once to enter,
they go in, if not, they sit outside like beehives in the sun, without
any other pastime. All these honourable persons wear sheep skins at
their necks or on their shoulders, and he who wears the skin of a lion,
tiger, or ounce, is more honourable. When they come before the lord
they take off the skin, as we take off our caps. Whilst we were in this
town of Barra on a market day, they made a solemn proclamation that
the Barnagais intended to make war on the Nobiis, five or six days’
journey from the limits of his country, towards Egypt, neighbouring to
the countries of Canfilla and Dafolha,[46] which are subject to the
Barnagais, as I have before mentioned. These Nobiis are neither Moors,
nor Jews, nor Christians. It is said that they had been Christians, and
had lost their faith, and are thus without any faith. They say that
there is among these Nobiis much fine gold. They said that but a short
time ago they had killed a son of the Barnagais, and that he wished to
go and avenge his death. I heard say that in the frontier districts
of these Nobiis there were four or five hundred horsemen, very great
warriors, and that it is a country very well supplied with provisions,
and it cannot be otherwise because it is on this and the further side
of the Nile, which they say is a very fertile country. The proclamation
said that he would set out in fifty days from that time: but up to this
there had been no muster nor movement of arms. This would be because
in the country there are not many, and few people possess them except
the Chavas, who are the men at arms. These men have javelins, bows and
arrows. These great lords have a few swords, hangers, and shirts of
mail (not many of them). On the occasion of this little revolt, the
Barnagais asked the ambassador for swords, and the ambassador gave him
his own, which he wore on the road, and which was very good, and he
still persistently begged another rich sword with ornaments which he
carried with him, saying he wanted it for the war he was going to make,
and the ambassador not being able to excuse himself, it suited him to
buy another from his companions with gilt ends and a velvet scabbard,
which he gave him instead of his own. And in the house where we kept
our goods, and where our Portuguese slept, which was a house without
doors, on the following night they stole from them two swords and a
helmet. All this would be on account of the war.
CAP. XXXI.--_How we departed from Barra to Temei, and of the
quality of the town._
Here we bought mules for our own riding, and the Barnagais gave us
three camels, and with great fatigue we set out from this place, amidst
heavy rains and storms, which harassed us very much; for in this time
the winter was in force; it begins the 15th of June, a little sooner or
later, and ends the 15th of September; whatever it takes more in one
month it gives up in the other. In all this time they do not travel,
and yet we were hurrying on our journey, for we did not know the usage
of the country, nor the danger we were running into. So we began our
journey with a part of our goods, for the rest of them remained at
the said town, and our factor with it. We went and halted at a town
which is named Temeisom, belonging to the district of Maiçada, and
which is about four leagues from the town of Barra, from which we had
set out. We got over this distance in three days on account of the
severe storms; everything that we carried with us getting spoiled.
In this town of Temei, where we arrived, there dwelt a Xuum of this
district of Maiçada, who was first cousin of the Barnagais, a very
honourable man, who used to show us great honour, and who was also a
brother of the mother of Prester John. They say that there are in his
Xumeta or captaincy twenty towns and no more, for this is (as they
say) the smallest district and Xumeta which there is in the kingdom of
the Barnagais. This town is on a high eminence (without rocks), but
all tilled land and plains with small hollows: and on three sides it
has a view over fourteen or fifteen leagues, but on the other, at the
distance of a league, there commence great declivities which descend to
a great river, and in the neighbourhood of this river appear more than
a hundred large villages. It seems to me that in the world there is
not so populous a country, and so abundant in crops, and breeding of
infinite herds, game of all kinds and of the wildest. There is nothing
here but tigers, wolves, foxes, jackals, and other game. Let not this
amaze any one who hears or reads this: that there should be game in a
plain country with so much population: because, as I said before, they
neither kill nor are able to kill anything except some partridges,
which they kill with arrows. Many other kinds of game they do not kill
because they do not eat them, others because they do not know how, and
have no devices for that purpose. So they breed because they do not
kill them. All the game is almost tame, because it is not pursued.
Without dogs we killed and carried away twenty hares with nets in an
hour, and as many partridges with springes, just like piping goats to a
fold, or hens to the roost: so we killed the game that we wanted.
CAP. XXXII.--_Of the multitude of locusts which are in
the country, and of the damage they do, and how we made a
procession, and the locusts died._
In these parts and in all the dominions of Prester John there is a very
great plague of locusts which destroy the fresh crops in a fearful
manner. Their multitude, which covers the earth and fills the air, is
not to be believed; they darken the light of the sun. I say again that
it is not a thing to be believed by any one who has not seen them.
They are not general in all the kingdoms every year, for if they were
so, the country would be a desert in consequence of the destruction
they cause: but one year they are in one part, and another year in
another; as if we said, speaking in Portugal and Spain, one year they
are in the parts of Galicia, another in Entre Douro and Minho, in Traz
os Montes, another year in Beira, another in Estremadura, another in
Andalucia, another in Old Castile, and another in Aragon. Sometimes
they are in two or three parts of these confines. Wherever they come
the earth remains as though it had been set on fire. These locusts are
like large grasshoppers, they are yellow in the wings; when they are
on the way it is known a day before, not because the people see them,
but because they see the sun yellow, and the earth yellow, that is,
the shadow which they cast. Then the people are dismayed, saying we
are lost because the Ambatas are coming, and this is their name among
them. I will relate what I saw on three occasions. The first was in the
town of Barua, we had then been three years in this country, and many
times we had heard say, such a kingdom, such a country is destroyed
by the Ambatas; while we were there, we saw this sign: the sun became
yellow, and the shadow on the earth likewise, and the people were all
dismayed. Next day, it was a thing not to be believed, for they spread
over a width of eight leagues, according to what we learned later: and
when this plague was close by, most of the priests of the town came
to ask me to give them some remedy for it. I answered them that I did
not know of any remedy, except to commend ourselves to God, and pray
Him to drive the plague out of the country. Upon this, I went to the
ambassador to tell him that it seemed to me well that we should make
a procession with the people of the country, and that it might please
the Lord to hear us. This seemed good to the ambassador, and next day
in the morning we caused the people of the country to come together,
and all the priests, and we took our altar stone, and those of the town
theirs after their usage, and our cross and theirs, and singing our
litany we went out from the church, all the Portuguese and the greater
part of the townspeople. I told them not to go in silence, but to cry
out like us, saying in their language, Zio marenos,[47] which means in
our language, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon us. With this cry and
litany we went through a plain of fields of wheat for the space of a
third of a league to a small eminence, and there made an admonition
which I had brought already written out that night with a requisition
and admonition of excommunication[48] on it, that within three hours
they should begin to set out on their way, and go to the sea, or to the
country of the Moors, or to mountains of no profit to the Christians:
and should they not do so, it called upon and invoked the birds of
the air and the animals of the earth, and the stones and tempests to
disperse and break and devour their bodies. For this, I commanded to
catch a quantity of the locusts, and thus made this admonition to those
present, in their names, and those of the absent ones, and ordered them
to be let go in peace. It pleased the Lord to hear the sinners. When
we were returning to the town, because their road was to the sea from
whence they came, there were so many coming after us, that it seemed
as though they would break our ribs and heads driving against us, such
were the thumps they inflicted on us. When we arrived at the town, we
found all the men, women, and children who had remained in it, placed
on the top of the terraces of the houses, giving thanks to God for the
manner in which the locusts went flying before us, and others coming
after us. Meanwhile a great storm arose from the sea, which met them,
confronting them with violent rain and hail, which lasted quite three
hours. The river and streams swelled very much, and when they had ended
running off, it was a wonderful thing that they measured two ells deep
of their dead bodies, on the brink of the water of the great river, and
likewise at the little brooks, a great multitude dead on the edges.
The next day in the morning there was not a single one alive in the
whole country. The people of the towns all round whence the locusts had
arrived, hearing of this, came to see what had happened; some said:
These Portuguese are holy, and by the power of God they have cast
out the Ambatas. Others, and chiefly the priests and friars of the
neighbourhood (not those of this town) said: Rather they are sorcerers,
and by sorcery have cast out the Ambatas; and so they have no fear of
the lions and other animals, on account of the sorceries they work.
Sixteen days after this, there came to me a Xuum, that is, captain of a
town, named Coiberia,[49] with men and priests and friars, to entreat
us for the love of God to succour them, for they were all ruined by the
Ambatas. This town is fully eight leagues and more from Barua towards
the sea. They reached us at the hour of vespers. That same hour we set
out, five Portuguese, and we travelled all night, and arrived an hour
after sunrise. Already the people of the town were collected, and those
of other towns around (in which also there were locusts), to beg us for
the love of God to go there. This town is on a high hill, from which a
great extent of country and many villages were in view, all yellow with
locusts. The church is at the foot of the town; we went to it, and with
our procession went to the town and took a turn round it, and in four
directions and in four villages we made an admonition, having caught
some locusts and letting them loose as we had done the other time.
When the procession was ended, we went to eat, and having finished
eating and gone out of the house, in all the country not a single one
showed itself. The people of the country would not leave us alone,
and insisted that by all means we should go to their villages, and
they would give us whatever we wished for. It did not avail me to say
that they were gone, and that it was not necessary. They persisted in
importuning us to go and give them the blessing, as they were afraid of
their returning. So the people went away in peace, and on the following
day we returned to our resting-place. Here they began to affirm more
strongly, that through devotion and prayer the locusts went away.
CAP. XXXIII.--_Of the damage which we saw in another country
caused by the locusts in two places._
Another time we saw the locusts in another country called Abrigima,
whence the Prester ordered provisions to be given us, in the kingdom of
Angote. This country is distant from Barua, from which place we were
thirty days in travelling the journey. While we were in this country
I went with the ambassador who came from Portugal, and five Genoese
with us, towards a country named Aagao. We travelled five days through
country entirely depopulated, and through maize canes as thick as canes
for propping vines, it cannot be told how they were all cut and bitten,
as if bitten by asses, all done by the locusts. The wheat, barley, and
tafo, as though they had never been sown there, the trees without any
leaves, and the tender twigs all eaten, there was no memory of grass of
any sort, and if we had not been prepared with mules laden with barley
and provisions for ourselves, we and the mules would have perished.
This country was entirely covered with locusts without wings, and they
said these were the seed of those which had been there and destroyed
the country, and they said that as soon as they had wings they would
at once go and seek their country. I am silent as to the multitude of
these without wings, because it is not to be believed, and it is right
that I should relate what more I saw in this country. I saw men, women,
and children, seated horror-struck amongst these locusts. I asked them:
Why do you remain there dying, why do you not kill these animals, and
revenge yourselves for the damage which their parents did you, and at
least the dead ones will do you no further harm. They answered that
they had not the heart to resist the plague which God gave them for
their sins. The people were going away from this country, and we found
the roads full of men, women, and children, on foot, and some in their
arms, with their little bundles on their heads, removing to a country
where they might find provisions (it was a pitiful sight to see them).
When we were in this lordship of Abrigima, in a town named Aquate,
there came travelling thither such a multitude of locusts as cannot be
told, and they began to arrive there one day about the hour of tierce,
and till night they did not cease, and as they arrived they settled
to rest. Next day, at the hour of prime, they began to depart, and at
midday there was not one there; and not a leaf remained upon a tree. At
that moment others began to arrive, and they remained like the others
till next day at the same hour, and these did not leave any crop with a
husk, nor a green blade. In this way they did for five days, one after
the other; and the people said these were the children going in search
of their fathers. They showed the way for the others who had not got
wings. After these had passed we learned the width of the passage of
these locusts, and saw the destruction they had caused. The breadth of
this exceeded three leagues, in which there did not remain a husk or a
tree, and the country did not looked burned, but much snowed with the
whiteness of the sticks and dryness of the grass. God was pleased that
the fruits had already been gathered in. We did not know whence they
came, because they came from towards the sea of the kingdom of Dandali,
which is of hostile Moors; neither did we learn where was the end of
their journey.
CAP. XXXIV.--_How we arrived at Temei, and the ambassador went
in search of Tigrimahom, and sent to call us._
Let us return to our journey: two days after our arrival at this town
of Temei, before our baggage arrived which had remained in Barra, the
ambassador, Don Rodrigo, set out with six men riding, on his way to
the Tigrimahom’s residence. He has the title of King of extensive
countries, and has very great lords under his orders and rule. Don
Rodrigo went to ask him to give us equipment for our journey, as soon
as we should enter his lands. We remained in this town of Temei, Joam
Escolar and I, and two other Portuguese: in this time the factor
arrived with the baggage which had remained in Barra; and so we brought
it all together in this town of Temei, where we had a very hospitable
reception from the first Xuum of the district, who is a brother of
the Barnagais. On the 28th July of the said year of 1520 there came a
message to us from the ambassador, to go with the goods to where he
was staying in the house of the Tigrimahom,[50] with the Portuguese
who had accompanied him. We were still waiting two days for the people
of the country to carry our goods, and then a Xuum arrived who gave
us assistance (and this with heavy squalls, storms, and rains); we
travelled the space of a league through plains, and then began to
descend a very steep road and a very deep descent for the distance of
another league, and we went to sleep within the circuit of a church
from fear of the tigers, and much vexed by the storms. The following
day we went through mountains, both rocky ridges and forests of trees
without fruit, until we came to a very large river, which, as it was
winter, we found very large for passing over: this is the river on
which the town of Barua is situated, and it runs to the Nile, where[51]
the kingdom of the Barnagais ends, and that of Tigrimahom begins. From
where we slept to this river will be two leagues, a little more or
less, and, notwithstanding the mountains and woods, all peopled.
CAP. XXXV.--_How the Tigrimahom sent a captain in search of our
goods, and of the buildings which are in the first town._
On reaching the river, the men who came with us unloaded the baggage,
and from the other side of the river we heard drums and a noise
of people: we asked what it was, and they said that a captain of
Tigrimahom had come for us. We passed over without our goods to the
other side of the river with a good deal of difficulty, on account
of the strong body of water: we found a fine body of people come to
fetch us; they might be five or six hundred men to carry our goods.
There was at once uncertainty between the people of either side of
the river. Those of the country of Tigrimahom said that they had not
got to take the baggage except in their country; and those of the
Barnagais, that they had no obligation except to place it on the shore
close to the water in their country; and they engaged in great shouting
and obstinacy upon this matter. As the water was running high, they
concluded upon passing over the baggage together, in a brotherly way,
so that it should not remain out of doors on one or the other bank, but
that which was just should be done. As soon as the baggage had been
got across, and taken up by the people of Tigrimahom, they travelled
with the baggage as fast as we did with our mules. We still travelled
on, this portion of the day, through mountains like those we had left
behind. On this road we saw herds of wild swine; some passed of fifty
hogs; partridges and other birds covered the ground and the trees.
Here, also, it was said there was every kind of animals, and according
to what the mountains are it could not be otherwise. This night we
slept in the open air, surrounded by fires from fear of the animals.
Here the people began to change, also the country and the trees, and
the costume of the people. Principally here we began to enter amongst
very high peaks, which appear to rise up to the sky, so high are they;
the space at their feet is not extensive, and all are separate one from
another, and they are in a line, and not very wide at the base. All
those that can be ascended, even though there is danger in it, have
chapels on them, most of them of Our Lady. On many of these peaks we
saw chapels, and we could not determine by what way people could go
to them. We went this day to sleep at a town between the peaks called
Abafazem, in which town is a very good church of Our Lady, well built,
with the middle nave raised on two sides or walls, with its windows
very well constructed, and all the church vaulted.[52] We had not seen
any of this fashion in this country: in Portugal, in Entre Douro, and
Minho, there are monasteries of this fashion. Close to the said church
is a very large and handsome tower, both for its height and the good
workmanship of the walls, and for its width, it is already getting
damaged, and yet it has all the look of a regal building, all of well
hewn stone: we have not seen such another building. This tower is
surrounded by houses, which match well with it, with both good walls
and terraces above, like residences of great lords. They said that
these edifices belonged to Queen Candace, and because her house where
she became a christian is very near here, this would be the truth. This
town, church, and country, are situated between these peaks, in very
pretty fields, all irrigated by conduits of water descending from the
highest peaks, artificially made with stone. The sowings which they
irrigate here are wheat, barley, beans, pulse, peas, garlic, onions,
garden rue, much mustard; in the water conduits, many good water
cresses. In this town there are many priests, and well dressed; they
seemed to be good men, and they told us that in the commencement of
christianity in this country seven churches had been built, and that
this was one of them: and there is much appearance of its being so,
because christianity commenced very near here, that is, in the town of
Aquaxumo.
CAP. XXXV.[53]--_How we departed from Bafazem, and went to the
town called Houses of St. Michael._