SARWE YASOUS.

This prince was son of Tecla Mariam, he reigned only four months; his

inauguration name was Maharak Nanya. He has been omitted in some of the

lists of kings.

[Illustration]

AMDA YASOUS.

Sarwe Yasous was succeeded by his brother Amda Yasous, whose

inauguration name was Badel Nanya. He was second son of Tecla Mariam,

and reigned nine months.

[Illustration]

ZARA JACOB.

From 1434 to 1468.

_Sends Ambassadors from Jerusalem to the Council of

Florence--First Entry of the Roman Catholics into Abyssinia,

and Dispute about Religion--King persecutes the Remnants of

Sabaism and Idolatry--Mahometan Provinces rebel, and are

subdued--The King dies._

These very short reigns were followed by one of an extraordinary

length. Zara Jacob, fourth son of David II. succeeded his nephew,

and reigned 34 years, and, at his inauguration, took the name of

Constantine. He is looked upon in Abyssinia to have been another

Solomon; and a model of what the best of sovereigns should be. From

what we know of him, he seems to have been a prince who had the best

opportunity, and with that the greatest inclination to be instructed in

the politics, manners, and religion of other countries.

A convent had been long before this established at Jerusalem for the

Abyssinians, which he in part endowed, as appears by his letters still

extant[10], written to monks of that convent. He also obtained from

the Pope[11] a convent for the Abyssinians at Rome, which to this day

is appropriated to them, though it is very seldom that either there,

or even at Jerusalem, there are now any Abyssinians. By his desire,

and in his name, ambassadors (_i. e._ priests from Jerusalem) were

sent by Abba Nicodemus, the then Superior, who assisted at the council

of Florence, where, however, they adhered to the opinion of the Greek

church about the proceeding of the Holy Ghost, which created a schism

between the Greek and Latin churches. This embassy was thought of

consequence enough to be the subject of a painting in the Vatican, and

to this picture we owe the knowledge of such an embassy having been

sent.

The mild reign of the last Soldan of Egypt seems greatly to have

favoured the disposition of Zara Jacob, in maintaining an intercourse

with Europe and Asia. And it is for the first time now in this reign

that we read of a dispute upon religion with the Franks, or Frangi,

a name which afterwards became more odious and fatal to whomsoever

it was applied. Abba George is said to have disputed before the king

upon some point of his religion, and to have confuted his opponent

even to conviction. We are not informed of the name of Abba George’s

antagonist, but he is thought to have been a Venetian painter[12], who

lived many years after in Abyssinia, and, it is believed, died there.

From this time, however, in almost every reign, there appear marks of

a party formed in favour of the church of Rome, which probably had its

first rise from the Abyssinian embassy to the council of Florence.

Although the established religion in Abyssinia was that of the Greek

church of Alexandria, yet many different superstitions prevailed in

every part of the country. On the coast of the Red Sea, as well as

the Ocean, that is in the low provinces adjoining to the kingdom of

Adel, the greatest part of the inhabitants were Mahometans; and the

conveniencies of trade had occasioned these to disperse themselves

through many villages in the high country, especially in Woggora, and

in the neighbourhood of Gondar. Dembea on the south, and the rugged

district of Samen on the east, were crowded with many deformed sects,

while the people of the low valleys, towards Nubia, the Agows at the

head of the Nile, and those of the same name, though of a different

nation and language, at the head of the Tacazzé, in Lasta, were, for

the greatest part, Pagans, _i. e._ of the old religion of Sabeans,

worshipping the planets, stars, the wind, trees, and such like. But a

more abominable worship than this seemed especially predominant among

some of the Agows at the source of the Nile, and the people bordering

upon Nubia, as they adored the cow and serpents for their gods, and

supposed that, by the latter, they could divine all that was to happen

to them in futurity.

Whether it was that a long war had thrown a veil over these abuses,

or whether (which is more probable) a spirit of toleration had still

prevailed in this country, which had at first been converted to

Christianity without blood-shed, it is not easy at this time to say.

Only their history does not mention, that, before the reign of this

prince, idolatry had been considered as a capital crime, or judicially

inquired into, and tried as such. An accusation, however, at this time,

being brought against some families for worshipping the cow and the

serpent, they were, by the king’s orders, seized and brought before

himself sitting in judgment, with the principal of his clergy, and

with his officers of state, with whom he associated some strangers,

lately come from Jerusalem; a custom which prevails to this day. These

criminals were all capitally convicted, and executed. A proclamation

from the king followed, declaring, That any person who did not, upon

his right hand, carry an amulet, with these words, _I renounce the

devil for Christ our Lord_, should forfeit his personal estate, and be

liable to corporal punishment.

It has been the custom of all Pagan nations to wear amulets upon their

arms, and different parts of their bodies. From the Gentiles this usage

was probably first learned by the Jews. Amulets were adopted by the

Mahometans, but, till now, not worn in Abyssinia by any Christians.

These executions, which at first consisted of seven people only, began

to be repeated in different places, and at different times. The person

employed as inquisitor, and the manner this examination was made,

tended to make it still more odious. Amda Sion, the Acab Saat, was the

man to whom this persecution was committed. He was the king’s principal

confident; of very austere manners: he neither shaved his head nor

changed his cloaths; had no connection with women, nor with any great

man in court; never saw the king but alone, and, when he appeared

abroad, was constantly attended by a number of soldiers, with drums and

trumpets, and other equipage, not at all common for a clergyman. He

had under him a number of spies, who brought him intelligence of any

steps taken in idolatry or treason; and, after being, as he supposed,

well informed, he went to the house of the delinquent, where he

first refreshed himself and his attendants, then ordered those of the

house he came for, and all that were with them, to be executed in his

presence.

Among those that suffered were the king’s two sons-in-law, married to

his daughters Medehan Zamidu, and Berhan Zamidu, having been accused

by their wives, the one of adultery, the other of incest: they were

both put to death in their own houses, in a very private and suspicious

manner. This execution being afterwards declared by the king in an

assembly of the clergy and states, certain priests, or others, from

Jerusalem, in public, condemned this procedure of the king, as contrary

to law, sound policy, and the first principles of justice, which seems

to have had such an effect that we hear no more of these persecutions,

nor of Amda Sion the persecutor, during the whole of this reign.

The king now turned his thoughts upon a nobler object, which was that

of dividing his country into separate governments, assigning to each

the tax it should pay, at what time, and in what manner, according to

the situation and capacity of each province. The prosperity of the

Moorish states, from the extensive trade constantly carried on there,

the bad use they made of their riches by employing them in continual

rebellions, made it necessary that the king should see and inquire into

each person’s circumstances, which he proposed to do, as was usual,

before the time of their several investitures.

The chief of the rich district of Gadai, was the first called on by the

king, as it is on this occasion that considerable presents (seldom

less than two years rent of the province) are given, about one half to

the king, the other among his courtiers. There was, at this period, a

Moorish woman of quality in court, called the queen of Zeyla. She had

been brought to the palace with a view that the king should marry her,

but he disliking her for the length, as is said, or some other defect,

in her foreteeth, had married her to a nobleman.

This injury had sunk very deep in the breast of the queen of Zeyla,

though she was only nominally so, having been expelled from her kingdom

before her coming into Abyssinia. But it happened that she was sister

to Mihico son of Mahomet, chief of Gadai, whom she earnestly persuaded

to stay at home, and she succeeded so far, as not only to prevail

upon him to be absent, but also to withdraw himself entirely from his

allegiance.

At this very time, the king was informed by a faithful servant, a

nobleman of Hadea, that the chief of Gadai had long been meditating

mischief, and endeavouring to prevail with the king of Adel to march

with his army, while great part of the principal people of Hadea, whom

he had seduced, were to fall, on the opposite side, upon Dawaro and

Bali.

The king, however, received certain accounts from Adel, that all was

quiet there; and inquiring who of his Moorish servants were of the

conspiracy in Hadea, he found them to be Goodalu, Alarea, Ditho, Hybo,

Ganzè, Saag, Gidibo, Kibben, Gugulé, and Haleb. As there were still

forces enough in the province to resist this confederacy, the king,

instead of levying an army against them, thought the proper way was

to send them a governor, who should divide the interest and strength

of the enemy. There was then an uncle of Mihico remaining in exile at

Dejan[13], whither he had been sent formerly into banishment at the

instance of his nephew, but he still preserved the command of a small

district called Bomo, as well as the good inclinations of his own

subjects of Gadai, who held his memory in great veneration. The king,

therefore, sent for this governor of Bomo, and, setting before him the

behaviour of his nephew, he gave him the investiture of his government,

with many presents both useful and honourable; and, having ordered some

troops from Amhara to attend him, he dismissed him, to punish and expel

his nephew from the province of Gadai.

The fair of Adel was nigh, and thither all the inhabitants of Bali

and Dawaro go. It was at this time the conspirators of Hadea had

agreed to fall upon the provinces; while, probably, those at the fair

had been likewise destined to cut off the inhabitants which might be

found there. To counteract these designs, the king, by proclamation,

expressly forbade any of the inhabitants of Bali or Dawaro to go to the

fair, but all to join the governor of Bomo, who no sooner presented

himself in his district, than the people of all ranks flocked to him

and submitted.

Mihico saw himself undone by this address of the king, of which he was

quite uninformed. He fled immediately with his family, endeavouring,

if possible, to reach Adel; and having come the length of Bawa Amba,

a high mountain, where is one of the narrowest and most difficult

passes between the high country and the Kolla, here he strowed about,

in different places, all the riches that he had brought along with

him, in hopes that his pursuers, wearied by the time they came there,

should, by the difficulty of the ground, and the booty everywhere to

be found, be induced to proceed no further. But this stratagem did

not succeed; for he was so closely followed that he was overtaken and

slain, his head, hands, and feet were cut off, and immediately sent

to the king, who, after public rejoicings, gave the government of

Gadai to the person who first informed him of Mihico’s conspiracy, and

confirmed the governor of Bomo in the province of Hadea likewise, which

he made hereditary in his family. In order also to be more in readiness

to suppress such insurrections for the future, he gave his Christian

soldiers lands adjacent to each other, forming a line all along the

frontiers of the Mahometan provinces of Bali, Fatigar, Wadge, and

Hadea, that they might be ready at an instant to suppress any tumult in

the provinces themselves, or resist any incursions from the kingdom of

Adel.

The king now set about fulfilling another duty of his reign, that of

repairing the several churches in Abyssinia which had been destroyed

in the late war by the Mahometans, and of building new ones, which it

is their constant custom to vow and to erect where victories had been

obtained over an infidel enemy. While thus employed, news were sent him

from the patriarch of Alexandria, that the church of the Virgin had

been destroyed at that city by fire. Full, therefore, of grief for this

misfortune, he immediately founded another in Abyssinia, to repair

that loss which Christianity had suffered in Egypt.

Being now advanced in life, he would willingly have dedicated the

remainder of it to these purposes, when he was awakened from his

religious employments by an alarm of war. The rebels of Hadea, by

changing their chief, had not altered their dispositions to rebel,

and, seeing the king given to other pursuits, they began to associate

and to arm. The governor, whom the king had created after the death of

Mihico, gave the king a very late notice of this, which he dissembled,

as he was the queen Helena’s father: but having, under pretence of

consecrating the church of St Cyriacos, assembled a sufficient number

of men whom he could trust, he made a sudden irruption into the rebel

provinces before they had united their forces. The first that the king

met to oppose him was an officer of the rebel governor of Fatigar,

who imagined he was engaging only the van of a separate body of Zara

Jacob’s troops, not believing him to be yet come up in person with

so small a number: But being undeceived, he bestirred himself so

courageously, that he reached the king’s person, and broke his lance

upon him; but, in return, received a blow from the lance of the king

which threw him to the ground; at the sight of which his whole party

took flight, but were overtaken and put to the sword almost to a man;

nor was the king’s loss considerable, his number being so small.

Upon this defeat, Hiradin, the governor’s brother, declared his revolt,

and advanced to fight the king at the passage of the river Hawash. Zara

Jacob, much offended at this fresh delinquency, sent an officer, called

Han Degna, who found him at the watering-place unsuspecting an enemy;

and, before he could put his army in order, he was surrounded, slain,

and his head sent to the king, who rejoiced much at the sight, it being

brought him on Christmas day.

After this the king collected his dead, and buried them with great

honour and shew of grief. He then summoned the governor of Hadea,

who professed himself willing to submit his loyalty and conduct to

the strictest inquiry. Above all the reasons which hindered him from

attending the king, one was known to be, that the queen was not without

reason suspected to favour the Mahometans, being originally of that

faith herself, and, therefore, for fear of revealing his secret to the

enemy, the king did not choose to make her father, the governor of

Hadea, partaker in his expedition, but, from jealousy to the queen,

ordered him to stay at home. Notwithstanding which it was found, that

all in his government were in their allegiance, and ready to march upon

the shortest notice had the king required it; therefore he extended his

command over the conquered provinces, in room of the rebel governors

whom he had removed.

[Illustration]

BÆDA MARIAM.

From 1468 to 1478.

_Revives the Banishment of Princes to the Mountain--War with

Adel--Death of the King--Attempts by Portugal to discover

Abyssinia and the Indies._

Bæda Mariam succeeded to the throne (as his historian says) against his

father’s inclination, after having received much ill usage during the

earlier part of his life, of which this was the occasion. His mother

took so violent and irregular a longing to see her son king, that

she formed a scheme, by the strength of a party of her relations and

friends, trusting to the weakness of an old man, to force him into a

partnership with his father. Examples of two kings, at the same time,

and even in this degree of relation, were more than once to be found

in the Abyssinian annals, but those times were now no more. A strong

jealousy had succeeded to an unreasonable confidence, and had thrown

both the person and pretensions of the heirs-apparent of this age to as

great a distance as was possible.

The queen, whose name was Sion Magass, or the Grace of Sion, first

began to tamper with the clergy, who, though they did not absolutely

join her in her views, shewed her, however, more encouragement than was

strictly consistent with their allegiance. From these she applied to

some of the principal officers of state, and to those about the king,

the best affected to her son and his succession. These, aware of the

evil tendency of her scheme, first advised her, by every means, to lay

it aside; and afterwards, seeing she still persisted, and afraid of a

discovery that would involve her accomplices in it, they disclosed the

matter to the king himself, who resented the intention so heinously,

that he ordered the queen to be beaten with rods till she expired.

Her body afterwards was privately buried in a church dedicated to the

Virgin Mary, not far from Debra Berhan[14].

Nothing had hitherto appeared to criminate the young prince. But it

was soon told the king, that, after the death of the queen, her son

Bæda Mariam had taken frankincense and wax-tapers from the churches,

which he employed, at stated times, in the observation of the usual

solemnities over his mother’s grave. The king, having called his son

before him, began to question him about what he had heard; while

the prince, without hesitation, gave him a full account of every

circumstance, glorying in what, he said, was his duty, and denying that

he was accountable to any man on earth for the marks of affection which

he shewed to his mother.

The king, considering his son’s justification as a reproach made to

himself for cruelty, ordered the prince, and, with him, his principal

friend Meherata Christos, to be loaded with irons, and banished to

the top of a mountain; and it is hard to say where this punishment

would have ended, had not the monks of Debra Kosso and Debra Libanos,

and all those of the desert, (who thought themselves in some measure

accomplices with his mother), by exhortations, pretended prophecies,

dreams and visions, convinced the king, that Providence had decreed

unalterably, that none but his son, Bæda Mariam, should succeed him.

To this ordinance the old king bowed, as it gave him a prospect of the

long continuance of his family on the throne of Abyssinia.

Zara Jacob was no sooner dead, than his son, Bæda Mariam, who succeeded

him, began to apply himself seriously to the affairs of government.

From the reign of Judith, (in the tenth century), when so many of the

princes of the royal family were massacred, the custom of sending

the royal children to confinement on the top of a mountain had been

discontinued. These children all lived at home with their respective

fathers and mothers, like private persons; and the kings seemed to

connive at abolishing their former practice, for no mountain had been

yet chosen as a substitute to the unfortunate Damo. The disagreement

between Zara Jacob and his queen, with the cause of it, and the

prince’s frankness and resolution, seemed to point out the necessity of

reviving the salutary severity of the ancient laws. Bæda Mariam gave

orders, therefore, to arrest all his brethren, and send them prisoners

for life to the high mountain of _Geshen_, on the confines of Amhara

and Begemder, which ever after continued the state-prison for the royal

children, till a slaughter, like to that made upon mount Damo, was the

occasion, as we shall see, of deserting Geshen likewise.

The king applied himself next to measures for the better government

of his country. He ordered a general pardon to be proclaimed to all

who, by the severity of the late reign, lay under sentence of death,

banishment, or any other punishment; and, convoking the states of the

kingdom, he met them with a chearfulness and openness which inspired

confidence into every rank, while, at the same time, he filled all the

places he found vacant, or that he thought proper to change, with men

of the greatest integrity. He then reviewed the whole cavalry that were

in his service, which he distributed into bodies, and stationed them in

places where they could be readiest called, to execute those designs he

had then in contemplation.

The next year the king went to Debra Libanos in Shoa. It was, however,

observed, that his preparations were not such as were usual in these

short journies, nor such as were made in peaceable times. On the

contrary, orders were sent to the borders of Tigré to receive the

royal army, which was soon to arrive in those parts. The rumour of

this was quickly spread abroad, and affected all the neighbouring

states, according to their several interests. Mahomet king of Adel was

the first that took the alarm. Tho’ a kind of peace had subsisted for

several years between Adel and Abyssinia, yet inroads had been made

from each country into the other; and these might have served them as

pretexts for war, had that been the inclination of the times. Yet, as

both countries happened to be disposed for peace, these outrages passed

unnoticed.

But, to prevent surprise upon this last movement of the troops, the

king of Adel thought he had a right to be informed of Bæda Mariam’s

intentions, and, with this view, he sent some of the principal people

of his country as ambassadors, under pretext of congratulating the king

upon his accession to the throne. They met the king in Shoa, and had

carried with them very considerable presents. They were received in a

very distinguished manner; and the presents which Bæda Mariam returned

to the king of Adel were nothing inferior to those he accepted. After

having entertained the ambassadors several days with feasting and

diversions, he confirmed a peace under the same duties upon trade that

had formerly subsisted.

The king of Dancali also, old, infirm, yet constant in his attachment

to the Abyssinians, was not without his inquietudes, though he was

not afraid they intended to attack his poor territory with an army.

He dreaded lest the army in its march should drink up that little

quantity of water which remained to him in summer, and, without which,

his kingdom would become uninhabited. It is a low, sandy district,

lying on the Red Sea, just where the coast, after bearing a little to

the east of north from Suez to Dancali, makes an elbow, and stretches

nearly east, as far as the Straits of Babelmandeb. It has the mines of

fossile-salt immediately on the north and north-west, a desert part of

the province of Dawaro to the south, and the sea on the north. But it

has no port, excepting a spacious bay, with tolerable anchorage, called

_the Bay of Bilur_[15], in lat. 13° 3´, and, corruptly in vulgar maps

and writings, the Bay of Bayloul.

The kingdom of Dancali is bounded on the east at Azab by part of the

kingdom of Adel, and the myrrh country. The king is a Mahometan, as

are all his subjects. They are called Taltal, are all black, and only

some of them woolly-headed; a circumstance which probably arises from

a mixture with the Abyssinians, whose hair is long. There are but two

small rivers of fresh water in the whole kingdom; and even these are

not visible above ground in the hot season, but are swallowed up in the

sand, so as to be dug for when water is wanted. In the rainy season,

these are swollen by rain falling from the sides of the mountains and

from the high lands of Abyssinia, and then only they run with a current

into the sea. All the rest of the water in this country is salt, or

brackish, and not fit for use, unless in absolute necessity and dry

years. Even these sometimes fail, and they are obliged to seek, far off

in the rainy frontiers of Abyssinia, water for themselves, and pasture

for their miserable goats and sheep.

When the Indian trade flourished, this prince’s revenue arose chiefly

from furnishing camels for the transport of merchandise to all parts

of Africa. Their commerce is now confined to the carrying bricks of

solid, or fossile salt, dug from pits in their own country, which,

in Abyssinia, pass instead of silver currency; these they deliver at

the nearest market in the high lands at a very moderate profit, after

having carried them from the sea-side through the dry and burning

deserts of their own country, at the great risk of being murdered by

Galla.

The presents sent to Bæda Mariam from Dancali did not make a great

figure when compared with those of Adel. They consisted of one horse,

a mule, a shield of elephant’s hide, a poisoned lance, two swords, and

some dates. Poor as these presents were, they were much more respected

than those of Adel, because they came from a loyal heart; while the

others were from a nation distinguished every year by some premeditated

action of treachery and bloodshed. The king, having first sent for

the Abuna, Imaranha Christos, and called the ambassadors of Dancali

and Adel into his presence, declared to them, that neither of these

states was to be the scene of war, but that he was instantly to march

against the Dobas[16], whose constant inroads into his country, and

repeated cruelties, he was resolved no longer to suffer. He required

the ambassadors to warn their masters to keep a strict neutrality,

otherwise they would be infallibly involved in the same calamities with

that nation.

Lent being now near, the king returned to Ifras, there to keep his

fast, and distributed his horse on the side of Ambasanet, having sent

orders to the governor of Amhara to join him immediately, who was

then at Salamat besieging a party of rebels upon Mount Gehud, which

signifies the _Mountain of Manifestation_. It was the intention of the

king, that the troops of Amhara, Angot, and Tigré should press upon

the enemy from the high country, while he with his own troops (chiefly

horse) should cut off their retreat to the plains of salt; and it was

here that the king of Dancali was afraid that they would interfere with

his fresh water.

This prince kept strictly his promise of secrecy made to Bæda Mariam,

while the king of Adel observed a very different line of conduct; for

he not only discovered the king’s intention, but he invited the Dobas

to send their wives, children, and effects into Adel, while his troops

should cut off the king’s provision, and fight him wherever they saw

that it could be done with advantage. The plan was speedily embraced.

Twelve clans of Dobas marched with their cattle, as privately as

possible, for Adel; but the king’s intelligence was too good, and his

motions too rapid, to allow their schemes to be carried into execution.

With a large body of horse, he took possession of a strong pass, called

Fendera; and when that unhappy people, fatigued with their march, and

incumbered with baggage, arrived at this spot, they were cut to pieces

without resistance, and without distinction of age or sex.

The king, at the beginning of this campaign, declared, that his

intention was not to carry on war with the Dobas as with an ordinary

enemy, but totally to extirpate them as a nuisance; and, to shew

himself in earnest in the declaration, he now made a vow never to

depart from the country till he had plowed and sown the fields, and ate

the crop on the spot with his army. He, therefore, called the peasants

of two small neighbouring districts, Wadge and Ganz, and ordered them

to plow and sow that part; which having seen done, the king went to

Axum, but returned again to the Dobas, by the feast of the Epiphany.

That cruel, restless nation, saw now the king’s real intent was their

utter destruction, and that there was no possibility of avoiding it

but by submission. This prudent conduct they immediately adopted; and,

great part of them renouncing the Pagan religion, they so satisfied

Bæda Mariam that he decamped from their country, after having, at his

own expence, restored to them a number of cattle equal to that which

he had taken away, having also given up, untouched, the crop which had

been sown, and recompensed the peasants of Wadge and Ganz for their

corn and labour.

Having resolved to chastise the king of Adel for his treacherous

conduct, he retired southward into the provinces Dawaro and Ifat; and,

as if he had had no other views but those of peace, he crossed over

to Begemder, where he directed the Abuna to meet him with his young

son Iscander, of whom his queen, Romana Werk[17], had been lately

delivered. From this he proceeded to Gojam, everywhere leaving orders

with the proper officers to have their troops in readiness against his

return; and having delivered the young prince to Ambasa David, governor

of that province, he proceeded to Gimbota, a town lying on the banks

of the Nile, which, in honour of his son’s governor, he changed to

David Harasa[18]. Having thus settled the prince to his mind, he sent

orders to the army in Tigré and Dawaro to advance into the southernmost

frontier of Adel. He himself returned by the way he went to Gojam, and

collecting the troops, and the nobility who flocked to him on that

occasion, he marched straight for the same country.

Whilst the king was occupied in these warlike preparations, a violent

commotion arose among his clergy at home. In the reign of Zara Jacob,

a number of strangers, after the council of Florence, had come into

Abyssinia with the Abuna Imaranha Christos. Among these were some monks

from Syria, or Egypt, who had propagated a heresy which had found many

disciples. They denied the consubstantiality of Christ, whom they

admitted to be perfect God and likewise perfect man, but maintained

that what we call his _humanity_ was a precious substance, or nature,

not composed of flesh, blood, and arteries, (like ours), but infinitely

more noble, perfect, peculiar to, and only existing in himself. An

assembly of the clergy was called, this heresy condemned, and those

who had denied the perfect manhood of our Saviour were put to death by

different kinds of torture. Some were sent to die in the Kolla, others

exposed, without the necessaries of life, to perish with cold on the

tops of the highest mountains.

There was another motive of discontent which appeared in that assembly,

and which affected the king himself. A Venetian, whose name was

Branca Leon, was one of the strangers that arrived in Ethiopia at the

time above mentioned. He was a limner by profession, and exceedingly

favoured by the late king, for whom he had painted, with great

applause, the pictures of Abyssinian saints for the decoration of the

churches. It happened that this man was employed for an altar-piece of

Atronsa Mariam; the subject was a common one in Italy, Christ in his

mother’s arms; where the child, according to the Italian mode, is held

in his mother’s left arm. This is directly contrary to the usage of

the East, where the left hand is reserved for the purpose of washing

the body when needful, and is therefore looked upon with dishonour, so

much, indeed, that at table the right hand only is put into the plate.

The fanatic and ignorant monks, heated with the last dispute, were

fired with rage at the indignity which they supposed was offered to

our Saviour. But the king, struck with the beauty of the picture, and

thinking blood enough had been already shed upon religious scruples,

was resolved to humour the spirit of persecution no farther. Some of

the ringleaders of these disturbances privately disappearing, the

rest saw the necessity of returning to their duty; and the picture

was placed on the altar of Atronsa Mariam, and there preserved,

notwithstanding the devastation of the country by the Moors under the

reigns of David III. and Claudius, till many years afterwards, together

with the church, it was destroyed by an inroad of the Galla.

In the mean time, the army from Dawaro had entered the kingdom of Adel

under Betwudet[19] Adber Yasous, and, expecting to find the Moors quite

unprepared, they had begun to waste every thing with fire and sword.

But it was not long before they found the inhabitants of Adel ready to

receive them, and perfectly instructed of the king’s intentions, from

the moment he left Dawaro, to go to meet his son in Gojam. Indeed,

it could not be otherwise, from the multitude of Moors constantly in

his army, who, though they put on the appearance of loyalty, never

ceased to have a warm heart towards their own religion and countrymen.

Advanced parties appeared as soon as the Abyssinian army entered the

frontiers; and these were followed by the main body in good order,

determined to fight their enemy before they had time to ravage the

country.

A battle immediately followed, very bloody, as might be expected from

the mutual hatred of the soldiers, from the equality in numbers, and

the long experience each had in the other’s manner of fighting. The

battle, often on the point of being lost, was as often retrieved by

the personal exertion of the Moorish officers, upon whom the loss

principally fell. Sidi Hamet, the king’s son, the chiefs of Arar,

Nagal, Telga, Adega, Hargai, Gadai, and Kumo, were slain, with

several other principal men, who had either revolted from the king of

Abyssinia, or whom friendship to the king of Adel had brought from the

opposite coast of Arabia.

The king was still advancing with diligence, when he was overtaken

by an express, informing him that his queen Romana was delivered of

another prince, christened by the name of Anquo Israel. Upon which

good tidings he halted at once to rest and feast his army; and, in

the middle of the festivity, an express from Adber Yasous brought him

news of the complete victory over the Moors, and that there was now

no army in Adel of consequence enough to keep the field. Hereupon the

king detached a sufficient number of troops to reinforce Adber Yasous

in Adel, and continued himself recruiting his army, and making greater

preparations than before, that, during the first of the season, he

might utterly lay waste the whole Moorish country, or so disable them

that they might, for many years, be content to enjoy peace under the

condition of becoming his tributaries.

While planning these great enterprises, the king was seized with a pain

in his bowels, whether from poison or otherwise is not known, which

occasioned his death. Having, a few moments before he died, recollected

that his face was turned on a different side from the kingdom of Adel,

he ordered himself to be shifted in his bed, and placed so as to look

directly towards it, (a token how much his heart was set upon its

destruction) and in that posture he expired.

He was a prince of great bravery and conduct; very moderate in all his

pleasures; of great devotion; zealous for the established church, but

steady in resisting the monks and other clergy in all their attempts

towards persecution, innovation, and independency. Many stories have

been propagated of his inclination to the Catholic religion, and of his

aversion to having an Abuna from Egypt; and it is said, that, during

his whole reign, he obstinately persisted in refusing to suffer any

Abuna in his kingdom. But these are fables invented by the Portuguese

priests, who came into Abyssinia some time afterwards, and forged

anecdotes to serve their own purposes; for, unless we except the

story of the Venetian, Branca Leon, there is not a word said of any

connection Bæda Mariam ever had with the few Catholics that then were

in his country, and even that was a connection of his father’s. And

as to the other story, we find in history, that the Abuna had been in

the country ever since his father Zara Jacob’s time; and that, at his

desire, the Abuna, Imaranha Christos, came and received, in the field

of battle, large donations in gold, almost as often as the king gained

a victory. Bæda Mariam died at the age of forty, after reigning ten

years, which were spent in continual war; during the whole course of

which he was successful, and might (if he had lived) have very much

weakened the Moorish states, and prevented the terrible retaliation

that fell afterwards from that quarter upon his country.--It will be

proper now to look back into the transactions in Europe, which are

partly connected with the history of this kingdom.

The conquest of the north part of Africa followed the reduction of

Egypt, and the whole coast of Barbary was crowded with Mahometans, from

Alexandria to the western ocean, and from the Mediterranean to the edge

of the desert. Even the desert itself was filled with them; and trade,

security, and good faith, were now everywhere disseminated in regions,

a few years before the seat of murder and pillage.

Tarik and his Moors had invaded Spain; Musa followed him, and conquered

it. The history of Count Julian is in every one’s hand; unfortunate

in having had the provocation, still more so in having had the power

to revenge it, by sacrificing at once his sovereign, his country,

religion, and life, to the private injuries done to his daughter. As

often as I have read the history of this catastrophe, so often have I

regretted to see with how little ceremony this young lady hath been

treated by authors of all languages and nations. They call her _Caaba_,

with the same ease and indifference as they would have called her Anne,

or Margaret. This must be from mere ignorance. Caaba could not be

the name of the daughter of Count Julian before her seduction. Caaba

means _Harlot_, in the broadest way possible to express the term, and

very cruelly and improperly, it seems to be given her, even after her

misfortune; for she was a daughter of the first family in Spain, of

unexceptionable virtue. She was not seduced, but _forced_ by the king,

while in the palace, and under protection of the queen.

A great influx of trade followed the conquest; and the religion, that

contained little restraint and great indulgence, was every where

embraced by the vanquished, who long had been Christians in name only.

On the other side, the conquerors were now no longer that brutish set

of madmen, such as they were under the Khalifat of the fanatic Omar.

They were now men eminent for their rank and attainments in every

species of learning. This was a dangerous crisis for Christianity,

and nothing else was threatened than its total subversion. The whole

world, without the help of England, had not virtue enough to withstand

this torrent. That nation, the favourite weapon in the hand of Heaven

for chastising tyranny and extirpating false religion, now lent its

assistance, and the scale was quickly turned.

At that time Europe saw with surprise an inconsiderable number of

fishermen, very inconveniently placed at the farthest end of the

Adriatic Gulf, applying themselves with unwearied care and patience to

cultivate, gather together, and improve the remnants and gleanings of

the Indian trade by Alexandria, under all the cruelties and oppressions

of those ignorant and barbarous conquerors the Turks, whom no prospect

of gain, no change of place, no frequency of commerce, could ever

civilize or subject to the rules of justice. Venice became at once

the great market for spices and perfumes, and consequently the most

considerable maritime power that had appeared in Europe for ages.

Genoa followed, but sunk, after great efforts, under the power of her

rival; while Venice remained mistress of the sea, of a large dominion

upon the continent, and of the Indian spice trade, the origin and

support of all her greatness.

Rhodes, and the ships of the Military Order of St John of Jerusalem, to

whom that island belonged, greatly harrassed the maritime trade carried

on by the Moors in their own vessels from Alexandria, who were every

day more discouraged by the unexpected progress of these _once petty_

Christian states. Trade again began to be carried on by caravans in the

desert. Large companies of merchants from Arabia, passed in safety to

the western ocean, and were joined by other traders from the different

parts of Barbary while passing to the southward of them, and that with

such security and expedition, that the Moors began to set little value

on their manner of trading by sea, content now again with the labours

and conveniencies of their ancient, faithful friend, and servant, the

camel.

Ormus, a small island in the Persian Gulf, had, by its convenient

situation, become the market for the spice trade, after the

discouragements it had received in the Mediterranean. All Asia was

supplied from thence, and vessels, entering the Straits of Babelmandeb,

had renewed the old resort to the temple of Mecca. From hence all

Africa, too, was served by caravans, that never since have forsaken

that trade, but continue to this day, and cross the continent, in

various directions.

John I. king of Portugal, after many successful battles with the Moors,

had at last forced them to cross the sea, and return vanquished to

their native country. By this he had changed his former dishonourable

name of _bastard_ to the more noble and much more popular one of John

the _avenger_. This did not satisfy him. Assisted by some English

navigators, he passed over to Barbary, laid siege to Ceuta, and

speedily after made himself master of the city. This early connection

with the English arose by his having married Philipina of Lancaster,

sister of Henry IV. king of England, by whom he had five sons, all

of them heroes, and, at the taking of Ceuta, capable of commanding

armies. Henry, the youngest, scarce twenty years of age, was the first

that mounted the walls of that city in his father’s presence, and was

thereupon created Master of the Order of Christ, a new institution,

whose sole end and view was the extirpation of the Mahometan religion.

Although every thing promised fair to John in the war of Africa, yet

it early occurred to prince Henry, that a small kingdom like Portugal

never could promise to do any thing effectual against the enormous

power of the Mahometans, then in possession of extensive dominions in

the richest parts of the globe. The sudden rise of Venice was before

his eyes, and almost happened in his own time. By applying to trade

alone, she had acquired a power sufficient to cope with the stoutest of

her enemies. Portugal, small as it was, merited quite another degree of

respect; but poverty, ignorance, pride, and idleness prevailed among

the poor people; even agriculture itself was in a manner abandoned

since the expulsion of the Moors.

Prince Henry, from his early years, had been passionately addicted to

the study of what is generally known by the name of _mathematics_,

that is, geometry, astronomy, and consequently arithmetic. He was of a

liberal turn of mind, devoid of superstition, haughtiness, or passion;

the Arab and the Jew were admitted to him with great freedom, as the

only masters who were capable of instructing him in those sciences.

It was in vain to attempt to rival Venice in possession of the

Mediterranean trade: no other way remained but to open the commerce to

India by the Atlantic Ocean, by sailing round the point of Africa to

the market of spices in India. Full of this thought, he retired to a

country palace, and there dedicated the whole of his time to deliberate

inquiry. The ignorance and prejudices of the age were altogether

against him. The only geography then known was that of the poets. It

was the opinion of the Portuguese, that the regions within the tropics

were totally uninhabited, scorched by eternal sun-beams, while boiling

oceans wasted these burning coasts; and, therefore, they concluded,

that every attempt to explore them was little better than downright

madness, and a braving, or tempting, of Providence.

But, on the other hand, he found great materials to comfort him, and

to make him persist in his resolution. For Greek history, to which he

then had access, had recorded two instances, which shewed that the

voyage was not only possible, but that it had been actually performed,

first by the Phœnicians, under Necho king of Egypt, then by Eudoxus,

during the time of Ptolemy Lathyrus, who, after doubling the southern

Cape of Africa, arrived in safety at Cadiz. Hanno, too, had sailed from

Carthage through the Straits, and reached to 25° of north latitude

in the Atlantic Ocean. In more modern times, even in the preceding

century, Macham, an Englishman, returning from a voyage on the west

coast of Africa, was shipwrecked on the island of Madeira, together

with a woman whom he tenderly loved. After her death he became weary

of solitude; and having constructed a bark, or canoe, with which he

paddled over to the opposite coast, he was taken by the natives, and

presented to the Caliph as a curiosity. And the Normans of Dieppe had,

as a company, traded in 1364, not fourscore years from prince Henry’s

time, as far as Sierra de Leona, only 7° from the Line.

The prince’s humanity to his Moorish prisoners had likewise been

rewarded by substantial information; they reported that some of their

countrymen of the kingdom of Sus had advanced far into the desert,

carrying their water and provisions along with them on camels; that,

after many days travel, they came to mines of salt, and, having loaded

their cargoes, they proceeded till they came within the limits of the

rains; there they found large and populous towns, inhabited by a people

totally black and woolly-headed, who reported that there were many

countries even beyond them, occupied by numerous and warlike tribes.

To complete all, Don Pedro, Henry’s brother, returning from Venice,

brought along with him from that city a map, on which the whole coast

of the Atlantic Ocean was distinctly traced, and the southern extremity

of Africa was represented to be a cape surrounded with the sea, which

joined with the Indian Ocean.

No sooner was the prince thus satisfied of the possibility of a passage

to India round Africa, than he set about constructing the necessary

instruments for navigation. He corrected the solar tables of the Arabs,

and made some alterations in the astrolabe: For, strange to tell!

the quadrant was not then known in Portugal, though, a hundred years

before, Ulughbeg had measured the sun’s height at Samarcand in Persia,

with a quadrant of about 400 feet radius, the largest ever constructed,

if, indeed, the size of this be not exaggerated.

Henry, who, by his liberality and affability, had drawn together the

most learned mathematicians and ablest pilots of the age, now proposed

to reduce his speculations to practice. Many ships had sailed in the

course of his disquisitions, and ten years had now elapsed before

the prince, after all his encouragement, could induce the captains

to proceed farther than Cape Non, or, thirty leagues further, to

Cape Bojador. To this their courage held good; after which, the fear

of fiery oceans reviving in their minds, they returned exceedingly

satisfied with their own perseverance and abilities. Henry, though

greatly hurt at this behaviour, dissembled the low opinion which

he had formed of both. He contented himself with proposing to them

different reasons and rewards; and urged them to repeat their voyages,

which, however, constantly ended in the same disappointment. And

it is probable a much longer time might have been spent in these

miscarriages, had not accident, or rather providence, stept in to his

assistance.

John Gonsalez, and Tristan Vaz, two gentlemen of his bed-chamber,

seeing the impression this behaviour had made on the prince, and having

obtained a small ship from him, resolved to double Cape Bojador, and

discover the coast beyond it. Whether the fiery oceans might not have

presented themselves to these gentlemen, I know not; but a violent

storm forced them to sea. After being tossed about in perpetual fear

of shipwreck for several days, they at last landed on a small island,

which they called Port Santo. These two navigators possessed the true

spirit of discovery. Far from giving themselves up for lost in a new

world, or content with what they had already done, they set about

making the most diligent observation of every thing remarkable in this

small spot. The island itself was barren; but, examining the horizon

all around, they observed a black fixed spot there, which never either

changed its place or dimensions. Satisfied, therefore, that this

was land, they returned to the Infant with the news of this double

discovery.

Three vessels were speedily equipped by the prince; two of them given

to Vaz and Arco, and the third to Bartholomew Perestrello, gentleman

of the bed-chamber to Don John his brother. These adventurers were

far from disappointing his expectations; they arrived at Port Santo,

and proceeded to the fixed spot, which they found to be the island of

Madeira, wholly covered with wood; an island that has ever since been

of the greatest use to the trade of both Indies, and which has remained

to the crown of Portugal, after the greatest part of their other

conquests in the east are lost. John I. was now dead, and Edward had

succeeded him. The infant Henry, however, still continued the pursuit

of his discoveries with the greatest ardour.

Giles D’Anez, stimulated by the success of the last adventures, put

to sea with a resolution to double Cape Bojador close in shore, so as

to make his voyage a foundation for pushing farther the discovery;

and, being lucky in good weather, he fairly doubled the Cape; and,

continuing some leagues farther into the bay to the south of it, he

returned with the same good fortune to Portugal, after having found

the ocean equally as navigable on the other side as on this; and that

there was no foundation for those monstrous appearances or difficulties

mariners till now had expected to find there.

The successful expedition round Cape Bojador being soon spread abroad

through Europe, excited a spirit of adventure in all foreigners;

the most capable of whom resorted immediately to prince Henry, from

their different countries, which further increased the spirit of the

Portuguese, already raised to a very great height. But there still

was a party of men, who, not susceptible of great actions themselves,

dedicated their time with some success to criticising the enterprises

of others. These blamed prince Henry, because, when Portugal was

exhausted both of men and money by a necessary war in Africa, he

should have chosen that very time to launch out into expences and vain

discoveries of countries, in an immense ocean, which must be useless,

because incapable of cultivation. And though they did not advance,

as formerly, that the ocean was boiling among burning sands, they

still thought themselves authorised to assert, that these countries

must, from their situation under the sun, be so hot as to turn all

the discoverers black, and also to destroy all vegetation. Futile as

these reasons were, at another time they would have been sufficient to

have blasted all the designs of prince Henry, had they made half the

impression upon the king that they did upon the minds of the people.

Portugal was then only _growing_ to the pitch of heroism to which it

soon after arrived, their spirit being continually fostered by a long

succession of wise, brave, and well-informed princes.

Edward, the reigning prince, disdained to give any answer to such

objections, otherwise than by doubling his respect and attention for

his uncle Henry. To encourage him still further, he conferred upon

him for life the sovereignty of Madeira, Port Santo, and all the

discoveries he should make on the coast of Africa; and the spiritual

jurisdiction of the island of Madeira, upon his new Order of Christ,

for ever.

These voyages of discovery were constantly persevered in. Nugno Tristan

doubled Cape Blanco, and came to a small river, which, from their

finding gold in the hands of the natives, was afterwards called _Rio

del Oro_; and here a fort was afterwards built by the Portuguese,

called _Arguim_. I would not, however, have it supposed, that gold is

the produce of any place in the latitude of Cape Blanco. It was brought

here from the black nations, far to the southward, to purchase salt

from the mines which are in this desert near the Cape. The sight of

gold, better than any argument, served to calm the fears, and overcome

the scruples, of those who hitherto had been adversaries to these

discoveries.

In the year 1445, Denis Fernandes first discovered the great river

Senega, the northern banks of which are inhabited by Asenagi Moors,

whose colour is tawny, while the southern, or opposite banks, belong

to the Jaloffes, or Negro nation, the chief market for the gum-arabic.

Passing this river he discovered Cape Verde; and, to his inexpressible

satisfaction, though now in the midst of the torrid zone, he found

the country abounded with large rivers, and with the most luxuriant

verdure. He found a civil war in the nation of Jaloffes. Bemoy, a

prince of that nation, had, in a minority, intruded himself into

the throne of his brothers, (to whom he was but half blood), by the

address of his mother. The eldest of the three brothers preserved the

shadow of government, and seemed to favour the usurpation. Bemoy had

improved that interval by cultivating the Portuguese friendship to the

uttermost. He promised every thing; a place to build their city on the

continent, which the king very much desired; and to be a convert to

Christianity, the only thing the king wished still more. His eldest

brother dying, the king was briskly pressed by the two younger, and

steadily supported by the Portuguese, from whom he had borrowed large

sums; but still appearing to trifle with the day of his conversion, and

the day of his payment, the king ordered the Portuguese to withdraw

from his country, and leave him to his fortune. The loss of a battle

with his brothers soon reduced him to the necessity of flying across

the deserts to Arguim, and thence to Portugal, with a number of his

followers. He was received by the king of Portugal with all the honours

due to a sovereign prince, and baptised at Lisbon, the king and queen

being his sponsors.

Great festivals and illuminations were made at this acquisition to

Christianity; and Bemoy appeared at those festivals as the greatest

ornament of them, performing feats of horsemanship never before

practised in Portugal. The modesty and propriety of his conversation

and behaviour in private, and the great dignity and eloquence which he

displayed in public, began to give the Portuguese a very different idea

of his clan from that which they had formerly entertained.

In the mean time the king went rapidly on with the preparations

that were to establish Bemoy in his kingdom; and the festivals

were no sooner terminated, than Bemoy found a large army and fleet

ready to sail with him, the command of which, unhappily for him

and the expedition, was given to Tristan d’Acugna, a soldier of

great experience and courage, but proud, passionate, and cruel; the

disagreeable name of Bisagudo[20] had already been fixed upon him by

his countrymen.

The fleet performed the voyage, and the troops landed happily.

They were, by their number and valour, far from any apprehension

of opposition. The general began immediately to lay the foundation

of a fort, without having sufficiently attended to its unhealthy

situation. The spot which was chosen being low and marshy, fevers began

early to make havock among his men, and the work of course went on

proportionably slower. The murmurs of the army against his obstinacy

in adhering to the choice of this place, and his fear that he himself

should be left alone governor of it, made D’Acugna desperate; when one

day, taking his pleasure on board a ship, and having had some words

with Bemoy, he stabbed him with his dagger to the heart, so that he

fell dead without uttering a word. The fort was abandoned, and the army

returned to Portugal, after having cost little less than all prince

Henry’s discoveries together had done.

But Heaven rewarded the wisdom of the king by a discovery, the

consequences of which more than overpaid him, in his mind, for his

loss. Prince Henry’s principal view was to discover the way to India

by the southern Cape of Africa; but this as yet was not known to be

possible. In order to remedy a disappointment, if any such happened

in this sea-voyage, another was attempted by land. We have seen that

the common track for the Indian trade was from the east to the west

sea, through the desert, the whole breadth of Africa. Prince Henry

had projected a route parallel to this to the southward, through a

Christian country: For it had been long reported by the Christians

from Jerusalem, that a number of monks resorted thither, subjects of

a Christian prince in the very heart of Africa, whose dominions were

said to reach from the east to the west sea. Several of these monks had

been met at Alexandria, whose patriarch had the sole right to send a

metropolitan into that country. These facts, though often known, had

been as often forgot by the western Christians. Marco Paulo[21], a

Venetian traveller, had much confused the story, by saying he had met,

in his travels through Tartary, with this prince, who they all agreed

was a priest, and was called Joannes Presbyter Prete Janni, or Prester

John.

The king of Portugal, therefore, chose Peter Covillan and Alphonso

de Paiva for his ambassadors. Covillan was a man qualified for the

undertaking. He had several times been employed by the late king in

very delicate affairs, out of which he extricated himself with great

credit by his address and secrecy. He was, besides this, in the

vigour of his age, bold, active, and perfectly master of all sorts of

arms; modest and chearful in conversation, and, what crowned all, had

happily a great readiness in acquiring languages, which enabled him to

explain himself wherever he went, without an interpreter; an advantage

to which, above all others, we are to ascribe the success of such a

journey.

It was at the court of Bemoy that the first certain account of the

existence of this Christian prince was procured. This people, on the

west coast of Africa, reported, that, inland to the eastward, were many

powerful nations and cities, governed by princes totally independent

of each other; that the eastermost of these princes was called prince

of the Mosaical people, who were neither Pagans nor Idolaters, but

professed a religion compounded of the Christian and Jewish.

It seems plain that this intelligence must have been brought by the

caravans; or, indeed, the case may have been that the language of the

Negroes had, of old, been a dialect of Abyssinian. The black Ethiopians

above Thebes are reported to have bestowed much care upon letters; and

they certainly reformed the hieroglyphics, and probably invented the

Syllabic alphabet, which we know is used in Abyssinia to this day,

and which was probably the first among the nations. Be that as it

will, the various names which the Senega went by were all Abyssinian

words. Senega comes from Asenagi, which is Abyssinian, and signifies

_carriers_, or _caravans_; Dengui, _a stone_, or _rock_; Angueah, a

tree of that name; Anzo, _a crocodile_; and, at the same time, all

these are names of Abyssinian rivers.

It was at Benin, another Negro country, that the king again received

a confirmation of the existence of a Christian prince, who was said

to inhabit the heart of Africa to the south-east of this state. The

people of Benin reported him to be a prince exceedingly powerful; that

his name was Ogané, and his kingdom about 250 leagues to the eastward.

They added, that the kings of Benin received from him a brass cross and

a staff as their investiture. It should seem that this Ogané is but a

corruption of Jan, or Janhoi, which title the eastern Christians had

given to the king of Abyssinia. But it is very difficult to account for

the knowledge of Abyssinia in the kingdom of Benin, not only on account

of the distance, but likewise, because several of the most savage

nations of the world, the Galla and Shangalla, occupy the intervening

space.

The court of Abyssinia, as we shall see afterwards, did, indeed,

then reside in Shoa, the south-east extremity of the kingdom, and,

by its power and influence, probably might have pushed its dominion

through these barbarians, down to the neighbourhood of Benin on the

western ocean. But all this I must confess to be a simple conjecture

of mine, of which, in the country itself, I never found the smallest

confirmation.

Amha Yasous (prince of Shoa) being at court, on a visit to the king

at Gondar, in the years 1770 and 1771, and the strictest friendship

subsisting between us, every endeavour possible was used on my part to

examine this affair to the bottom. A number of letters were written,

and messengers sent; and, at this prince’s desire, his father directed,

that all the records of government should be consulted to satisfy me.

But never any thing occurred which gave room to imagine the prince of

Shoa had ever been sovereign of Benin, nor was the western ocean, or

that state, known to them in my time. Yet the country alluded to could

be no other than Abyssinia; and, indeed, the crooked staff, as well as

the cross, corroborate this opinion, unless the whole was an invention

of the Negroes, to flatter the king of Portugal.

That prince was resolved no longer to delay the discovery of the

markets of the spice-trade in India, and the passage over land,

through Abyssinia, to the eastern ocean. He, therefore, as has been

before said, dispatched Covillan and de Paiva to Alexandria, with the

necessary letters and credit. They had likewise a map, or chart, given

them, made under the direction of prince Henry, which they were to

correct, or to confirm, according as it needed. They were to enquire

what were the principal markets for the spice, and particularly the

pepper-trade in India; and what were the different channels by which

this was conveyed to Europe; whence came the gold and silver, the

medium of this trade; and, above all, they were to inform themselves

distinctly, whether it was possible to arrive in India by sailing round

the southern promontory of Africa.

From Alexandria these two travellers proceeded to Cairo, thence to

Suez, the port on the bottom of the Red Sea, where joining a caravan

of western Moors, they continued their route to Aden, a rich trading

town, without the Straits of Babelmandeb. Here they separated:

Covillan set sail for India, De Paiva for Suakem, a small trading

town and island in Barbaria, or Barabra of the ancients. What other

circumstances occurred we know not, only that De Paiva, attempting his

journey this way, lost his life, and was never more heard of.

Covillan, more fortunate, passed over to Calicut and Goa in India;

then crossed the Indian Ocean to Sofala, to inspect the mines; then

he returned to Aden, and so to Cairo, where he expected to meet his

companion De Paiva; but here he heard of his death. However, he was

there met by two Jews with letters from the king of Abyssinia, the one

called Abraham, the other Joseph. Abraham he sent back with letters,

but took Joseph along with him again to Aden, and thence they both

proceeded to Ormus in the Persian Gulf. Here they separated, and the

Jew returned home by the caravans that pass along the desert to Aleppo.

Covillan, now solely intent upon the discovery of Abyssinia, returned

to Aden, and, crossing the Straits of Babelmandeb, landed in the

dominions of that prince, whose name was Alexander, and whom he found

at the head of his army, levying contributions upon his rebellious

subjects. Alexander received him kindly, but rather from motives of

curiosity than from any expectation of advantage which would result

from his embassy. He took Covillan along with him to Shoa, where the

court then resided.

Covillan returned no more to Europe. A cruel policy of Abyssinia

makes this a favour constantly denied to strangers. He married, and

obtained large possessions; continued greatly in the favour of several

succeeding princes, and was preferred to the principal offices, in

which, there is no doubt, he appeared with all the advantage a polished

and instructed mind has over an ignorant and barbarous one. Frequent

dispatches from him came to the king of Portugal, who, on his part,

spared no expence to keep open the correspondence. In his journal,

Covillan described the several ports in India which he had seen; the

temper and disposition of the princes; the situation and riches of the

mines of Sofala: He reported that the country was very populous, full

of cities both powerful and rich; and he exhorted the king to pursue,

with unremitting vigour, the passage round Africa, which he declared

to be attended with very little danger; and that the Cape itself was

well known in India. He accompanied this description with a chart, or

map, which he had received from the hands of a Moor in India, where the

Cape, and cities all around the coast, were exactly represented.

Upon this intelligence the king fitted out three ships under

Bartholomew Dias, who had orders to inquire after the king of Abyssinia

on the western ocean. Dias passed on to lat. 24½ deg. south, and there

set up the arms of the king of Portugal in token of possession. He then

sailed for the harbour of the Herdsmen, so called from the multitude

of cows seen on land; and, as it should seem, not knowing whither he

was going, came to a river which he called _Del Infante_, from the

captain’s name that first discovered it, having, without dreaming of

it, passed that formidable Cape, the object so much desired by the

Portuguese. Here he was tossed for many days by violent storms as he

came near land, being more and more in the course of variable winds,

but, obstinately persisting to discover the coast, he at last came

within sight of the Cape, which he called the _Cape of Tempests_, from

the rough treatment his vessel had met in her passage round it.

The great end was now obtained. Dias and his companions had really

suffered much, and, upon their return, they did not fail to do ample

justice to their own bravery and perseverance; in doing this, they had

conjured up so many storms and dreadful sights, that, all the remaining

life of king John, there was no more talk but of this Cape: Only the

king, to hinder a bad omen, instead of the Cape of Tempests, ordered it

to be called the Cape of Good Hope.

Although the discovery now was made, there were not wanting a

considerable number of people of the greatest consequence who were for

abandoning it altogether; one of their reasons was curious, and what,

if their behaviour afterwards had not been beyond all instance heroic,

would have led us to imagine their spirit of religion and conquest

had both cooled since the days of prince Henry. They were afraid,

lest, after having discovered a passage to India, the depriving the

Moorish states of their revenues from the spice-trade, should unite

these powers to their destruction. Now, to destroy their revenues

effectually, and thereby ruin their power, was the very motive which

set prince Henry upon the discovery, as worthy the Grand Master of the

Order of Christ; an order founded in the blood of unbelievers, and

devoted particularly to the extirpation of the Mahometan religion.

Don Emmanuel, then king, having no such apprehensions, resolved to

abide the consequences of a measure the most arduous ever undertaken

by any nation, and which, though it had cost a great deal of time and

expence, had yet succeeded beyond their utmost expectations. It was not

till after long deliberation that he fixed upon Vasques de Gama, a man

of the first distinction, remarkable for courage and great presence of

mind. Before his departure, the king put into his hands the journal

of Peter Covillan, with his chart, and letters of credit to all the

princes in India of whom he had obtained any knowledge.

The behaviour of Vasques de Gama, at parting, was far from being

characteristic of the soldier or great man: his processions and

tapers favoured much more of the ostentatious devotion of a bigotted

little-minded priest, and was much more calculated to depress the

spirits of his soldiers, than to encourage them to the service they

were then about to do for their country. It served only to revive in

their minds the hardships that Dias had met off the Terrible Cape,

and persuade them there was in their expedition much more danger than

glory. I would not be understood as meaning to condemn all acts of

devotion before military expeditions, but would have them always short,

ordinary, and uniform. Every thing further inspires in weak minds a

sense of danger, and makes them despond upon any serious appearance of

difficulty.

July 4th, 1497, Vasques, with his small fleet, sailed from Lisbon; and,

as the art of navigation was considerably improved, he stood out to sea

till he made the Canary Islands, and then those of Cape de Verde, where

he anchored, took in water and other refreshments. After which he was

four months struggling with contrary winds and blowing weather, and at

last obliged, through perfect fatigue, to run into a large bay called

_St Helena_[22], in lat. 32° 32´ south. The inhabitants of this bay

were black, of low stature, and their language not understood, though

it afterwards was found to be the same with that of the Cape. They were

cloathed with skins of antelopes, which abounded in the country, since

known to be that of the Hottentots; their arms were the horns and bones

of beasts and fishes, for they had no knowledge of iron.

The Portuguese were unacquainted with the trade-winds in those southern

latitudes; and Vasques had departed for India, in a most unfavourable

season of the year. The 16th of November they sailed for the Cape with

a south-west wind; but that very day, the weather changing, a violent

storm came on, which continued increasing; so, although on the 18th

they discovered their long-desired Cape, they did not dare or attempt

to pass it. Then it was seen how much stronger the impressions were

that Dias had left imprinted in their minds, than those of duty,

obedience, and resignation, which they had so pompously vowed at the

chapel, or hermitage. All the crew mutinied, and refused to pass

farther; and it was not the common sailors only; the pilots and masters

were at their head. Vasques, satisfied in his mind that there was

nothing extraordinary in the danger, persevered to pass the Cape in

spite of all difficulties; and the officers, animated with the same

ardour, seized the most mutinous of their masters and pilots, and

confined them close below in heavy irons.

Vasques himself, taking hold of the rudder, continued to steer the ship

with his own hand, and stood out to sea, to the astonishment of the

bravest seaman on board. The storm lasted two days, without having in

the least shaken the resolution of the admiral, who, on the 20th of

November, saw his constancy rewarded by doubling that Cape, which he

did, as it were, in triumph, sounding his trumpets, beating his drums,

and permitting to his people all sorts of pastimes which might banish

from their minds former apprehensions, and induce them to agree with

him, that the point had very aptly been called the Cape of Good Hope.

On the 25th they anchored in a creek called _Angra de Saint Blaze_.

Soon after their arrival there appeared a number of the inhabitants on

the mountains, and on the shore. The general, fearing some surprise,

landed his men armed. But, first, he ordered small brass bells, and

other trinkets, to be thrown out of the boats on shore, which the

blacks greedily took up, and ventured so near as to take one of them

out of the general’s own hand. Upon his landing, he was welcomed with

the sound of flutes and singing. Vasques, on his part, ordered his

trumpets to sound, and his men to dance round them.

ALL along from St Blaze, for more than sixty leagues, they found the

coast remarkably pleasant, full of high and fair trees. On Christmas

day they made land, and entered a river which they called _the river of

the kings_; and all the distance between this and St Blaze they named

_Terra de Natal_. The weather being mild, they took to their boats

to row along the shore, on which were observed both men and women of

a large stature, but who seemed to be of quiet and civil behaviour.

The general ordered Martin Alonzo, who spoke several languages of

the Negroes, to land; and he was so well received by the chief, or

king, that the admiral sent him several trifles, with which he was

wonderfully pleased, and offered, in return, any thing he wanted of the

produce of his country.

On the 15th of January, in the year 1498, having taken in plenty of

water, which the Negroes, of their own accord, helped them to put on

board, they left this civil nation, steering past a length of coast

terminated by a Cape called the _Cape of Currents_. There the coast of

Natal ends, and that of Sofala begins, to the northward of the Cape. At

this place, Gama from the south joined Covillan’s track from the north,

and these two Portuguese had completely made the circuit of Africa.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

ISCANDER, OR ALEXANDER.

From 1478 to 1495.

_Iscander declares War with Adel--Good Conduct of the King--Betrayed

and murdered by Za Saluce._

As soon as the king Bæda Mariam was dead, the history of Abyssinia

informs us, that a tumultuous meeting of the nobles brought from the

mountain of Geshen the queen Romana, with her son Iscander, who upon

his arrival was crowned without any opposition.

It is to be observed in the Abyssinian annals, that very frequent

minorities happen. A queen-mother, or regent, with two or three of the

greatest interest at court, are, during the minority, in possession of

the king’s person, and govern in his name. The transactions of this

minority, too, are as carefully inserted in the annals of the kingdom

as any other part of the subsequent government, but as the whole of

these minorities are but one continued chain of quarrels, plots, and

treachery, as soon as the king comes of age, the greatest part of this

reign of his ministers is cancelled, as being the acts of subjects,

and not worthy to be inserted in their histories; which they entitle

_Kebra Za Negust_, the greatness or atchievements of their kings.

This, however political in itself, is a great disadvantage to history,

by concealing from posterity the first cause of the most important

transactions.

For several years after Iscander ascended the throne, the queen his

mother, together with the Acab Saat, Tesfo Georgis, and Betwudet Amdu,

governed the kingdom despotically under the name of the young king.

Accordingly, after some years sufferance, a conspiracy was formed,

at the head of which were two men of great power, Abba Amdu and Abba

Hasabo, but the conspirators proving unsuccessful, some of them were

imprisoned, some put to death, and others banished to unwholesome

places, there to perish with hunger and fevers.

The king from his early age had shewn a passionate desire for a war

with Adel, and that prince, whose country had been so often desolated

by the Abyssinian armies, omitted no opportunity of creating an

interest at that court, that should keep things in a quiet state. In

this, however, he was much interrupted at present by a neighbouring

chief of Arar, named Maffudi. This man, exceedingly brave, capable

of enduring the greatest hardships, and a very great bigot to the

Mahometan religion, had made a vow, that, every Lent, he would spend

the whole forty days in some part of the Abyssinian kingdom; and

to this purpose he had raised, at his own expence, a small body of

veteran troops, whom he inspired with the same spirit and resolution.

Sometimes he fell on one part of the frontier, sometimes upon another;

slaying, without mercy, all that made resistance, and driving off

whole villages of men, women, and children, whom he sent into Arabia,

or India, to be sold as slaves.

It was a matter of great difficulty for the king of Adel to persuade

the Abyssinians that Maffudi acted without his instigation. The young

king was one who could not distinguish Adel from Arar, or Mahomet’s

army from Maffudi’s. He bore with very great impatience the excesses

every year committed by the latter; but he was over-ruled by his

nobility at home, and his thoughts turned as much as possible to

hunting, to which he willingly gave himself up; and, tho’ but fifteen

years of age, was the person, in all Abyssinia, most dexterous at

managing his arms. At last, being arrived at the age of seventeen,

and returning from having observed a very successful expedition made

by Maffudi against his territories, he ordered Za Saluce, his first

minister, commander in chief, and governor of Amhara, to raise the

whole forces to the southward, while he himself collected the nobility

in Angot and Tigré. With those, as soon as the rainy season was over,

he descended into the kingdom of Adel.

The king of Adel had been forced into this war, yet, like a wise

prince, he was not unprepared for it. He had advanced directly towards

the king, but had not passed his frontiers. Some inhabitants of a

village called _Arno_, all Mahometans, but tributary to the king of

Abyssinia, had murdered the governor the king had set over them.

Iscander marched directly to destroy it, which he had no sooner

accomplished, than the Moorish army presented itself. The battle was

maintained obstinately on both sides, till the troops under Za Saluce

withdrew in the heat of the engagement, leaving the king in the midst

of his enemies. This treason, however, seemed to have inspired the

small army that remained with new courage, so that the day was as yet

dubious, when Iscander, being engaged in a narrow pass, and seeing

himself close pressed by a Moor who bore in his hand the green standard

of Mahomet, turned suddenly upon him, and slew him with a javelin; and,

having wrested the colours from him as he was falling, he, with the

point of the spear that bore the ensign, struck the king of Adel’s son

dead to the ground, which immediately caused the Moors to retreat.

The young prince was too prudent to follow this victory in the state

the army then was; for that of Adel, though it had retreated, did not

disperse. Za Saluce was returning by long marches to Amhara, exciting

all those in his way to revolt; and it was high time, therefore, for

the king to follow him. But, unequal as he was in strength to the

Moors, he could not reconcile it with his own honour to leave their

army masters of the field. He, therefore, first consulted the principal

officers of his troops, then harangued his men, which, the historian

says, he did in the most pathetic and masterly manner; so that, with

one voice, they desired instantly to be led to the Moors. The king

is said to have ranged his little army in a manner that astonished

the oldest officers. He then sent a defiance to the Moors, by several

prisoners whom he released. They, however, more desirous to keep him

from ravaging the country than to fight another battle, continued

quiet in their tents; and the king, after remaining on the field till

near noon, drew off his troops in the presence of his enemy, making a

retreat which would not have been unworthy of the hero whose name he

bore.

The king, in his return to Shoa, left his troops, which was the

northern army, in the northern provinces, as he passed; so that he

came to Shoa with a very small retinue, hearing that Za Saluce had

gone to Amhara. This traitor, however, had left his creatures behind

him, after instructing them what they were to do. Accordingly, the

second day after Iscander’s arrival in Tegulat, the capital of Shoa,

they set upon him, during the night, in a small house in Aylo Meidan,

and murdered him while he was sleeping. They concealed his body for

some days in a mill, but Taka Christos, and some others of the king’s

friends, took up the corpse and exposed it to the people, who, with one

accord, proclaimed Andreas, son of Iscander, king; and Za Saluce and

his adherents, traitors.

In the mean time, Za Saluce, far from finding the encouragement he

expected in Amhara, was, upon his first appearance, set upon by the

nobility of that province; and, being deserted by his troops, he was

taken prisoner; his eyes were put out, and, being mounted on an ass, he

was carried amidst the curses of the people through the provinces of

Amhara and Shoa.

Iscander was succeeded by his son Andreas, or Amda Sion, an infant, who

reigned seven months only.

A wonderful confusion seems to be introduced at this time into history,

by the Portuguese writers. Iscander is said to die in the 1490. He

began, as they say, to reign in 1475, and this is confirmed by Ludolf;

and, on all hands, it is allowed he reigned 17 years, which would

have brought the last year of his reign to 1492. It seems also to be

agreed by the generality of them, that Covillan saw and conversed with

this prince, Iscander, some time before his death: this he very well

might have done, if that prince lived to the 1492, and Peter Covillan

came into Abyssinia in 1490, as Galvan says in his father’s memoirs.

But then Tellez informs us expressly, that Iscander was dead 6 months

before the arrival of Peter Covillan in that country: If Peter Covillan

arrived 6 months after the death of Iscander, it must have been in the

end of his son’s reign, Amda Sion, who was an infant, and reigned only

7 months.

Alvarez omits this king, Amda Sion, altogether, and so does Tellez; and

there is a heap of mistakes here that shew these Portuguese historians

paid very little attention to the chronology of these reigns. They

call Alexander the father of Naod, when he was really but his brother;

and Helena, they say, was David’s mother, when, in fact, she was his

grandmother, or rather his grandfather’s wife; for Helena, who was

Iteghé in the time of David the III. had never either son or daughter.

So that if I differ, as in fact I do, 4 years, or thereabout, in this

account, I do not think in those remote times, when the language and

manner of accounting was so little known to these strangers, that I,

therefore, should reject my own account and servilely adopt theirs,

and the more so, because, as we shall see in its proper place, by the

examination and comparison made by help of an eclipse of the sun in

the 13th year of Claudius’ reign in the 1553, and counting from that

downwards to my arrival in Abyssinia, and backwards to Iscander, that

that prince must have begun his reign in 1478, and reigning 17 years,

did not die till the year 1495, and therefore must have seen Peter

Covillan, and conversed with him, if he had arrived in Abyssinia so

early as the 1490.

[Illustration]

NAOD.

From 1495 to 1508.

_Wise Conduct of the King--Prepares far a War with the Moors--Concludes

an honourable Peace with Adel._

After the unfortunate death of the young king Alexander, the people

in general, wearied of minorities, unanimously chose Naod for their

king. He was Alexander’s younger brother, the difference of ages

being but one year, though he was not by the same mother, but by the

king’s second wife Calliope. He was born at a town called Gabargué,

the day the royal army was cut off in his father’s time, when both the

Betwudets perished. From this circumstance, the Empress Helena and her

party had used some underhand means to set him aside as unfortunate,

and in his place to put Anquo Israel, Bæda Mariam’s youngest son, that

they might govern him and the kingdom during his non-age. But Taka

Christos, their man of confidence, being, on his first declaration of

such intentions, cut off by the army in Dawaro, Naod was immediately

proclaimed, and brought from the mountain of Geshen.

Although Naod was in the prime of life, and vigorous both in body and

mind, yet such were the circumstances of the kingdom at his accession,

that it seemed a task too arduous for any one man. The continual

intrigues of the empress, the quantity of Mahometan gold which was

circulating on every occasion throughout the court, the little success

the army had in Adel, as also the treachery of Za Saluce, and the

untimely end of the young prince, who seemed to promise a remedy to the

misfortunes, had so disunited the principal people in the government,

that there did not seem a sufficient number of men worthy of trust

to assist the king with their councils, or fill, with any degree of

dignity, the places that were vacant.

Naod was no sooner seated on the throne than he published a very

general and comprehensive amnesty. By proclamation he declared, “That

any person who should upbraid another with being a party in the

misfortunes of past times, or say that he had been privy to this or to

that conspiracy, or had been a favourite of the empress, or a partizan

of Za Saluce, or had received bribes from the Moors, should, without

delay, be put to death.” This proclamation had the very best effect, as

it quieted the mind of every guilty person when he saw the king, from

whom he feared an inquiry, cutting off all possible means by which it

could be procured against him. Andreas a monk, a man of quality, and of

very great consequence in that country, a relation of the king by his

mother, having affected to talk lightly of the proclamation, the king

sent for him, and ordered the tip of his tongue to be cut off in his

presence. This man, whose fault seems only to have been in his tongue,

and of whom a very great character is given, lived in the succeeding

reign to give the king a very distinguished proof of his attachment to

his family, and love of his country.

Naod having thus prudently quieted disturbances at home, turned his

thoughts to the war with Maffudi; for the king of Adel himself had

made his peace through mediation of the empress Helena; and this king,

more politic than Alexander his brother, was willing to dissemble with

the king of Adel, that he might fight his two adversaries singly: He,

therefore, prepared a smaller army than was usual for the king to head,

without suffering a Moor of any kind to serve in it.

It was known to a day when Maffudi was to enter upon his expeditions

against Abyssinia. For near thirty years he had begun to burn the

churches, and drive off the people and cattle on the first day of

Lent; and, as Lent advanced, he with his army penetrated farther up

the country. The Abyssinians are the strictest people in the world in

keeping fasts. They are so austere that they taste no sort of animal

food, nor butter, eggs, oil, or wine. They will not, though ever so

thirsty, drink a cup of water till six o’clock in the evening, and then

are contented, perhaps, with dry or sour leaven bread, the best of them

only making use of honey; by which means they become so weak as to be

unable to bear any fatigue. This was Maffudi’s reason for invading the

country in Lent, at which time scarce a Christian, through fasting, was

able to bear arms.

Naod, like a wise prince who had gained the confidence of his army,

would not carry with him any man who did not, for that time, live

in the same free and full manner he was used to do in festivals. He

himself set the example; and Andreas the monk, after taking upon

himself a vow of a whole year’s fasting for the success of the army,

declared to them, that there was more merit in saving one Christian

village from slavery, and turning Mahometan, than in fasting their

whole lives.

The king then marched against Maffudi; and having taken very strong

ground, as if afraid of his army’s weakness, the Moors, contrary to

advice of their leader, attacked the king’s camp in the most careless

and presumptuous manner. They had no sooner entered, however, by ways

left open on purpose for them, than they found the king’s army in

order to receive them, and were so rudely attacked, that most of those

who had penetrated into the camp were left dead upon the spot. The

king continued the pursuit with his troops, retook all the prisoners

and cattle which Maffudi was driving away, and advanced towards the

frontiers of Adel, where ambassadors met him, hoping, on the part of

the king, that his intention was not to violate the treaty of peace.

To this the king answered, That, so far from it, he would confirm the

peace with them, but with this condition, that they must deliver up to

him all the Abyssinians that were to be found in their country taken by

Maffudi in his last expedition, adding, that he would stay fifteen days

there to expect his answer. The king of Adel, desirous of peace, and

not a little terrified at the disaster of Maffudi, hitherto reckoned

invincible, gathered together all the slaves as soon as possible, and

returned them to the king.

Naod having now, by his courage and prudence, freed himself from fear

of a foreign war, returned home, and set himself like a wise prince to

the reforming of the abuses that prevailed everywhere among his people,

and to the cultivation of the arts of peace. He died a natural death,

after having reigned 13 years.

[Illustration]

DAVID III.

From 1508 to 1540.

_David, an Infant, Succeeds--Queen sends Matthew Ambassador to

Portugal--David takes the Field--Defeat of the Moors--Arrival

of an Embassy from Portugal--Disastrous War with Adel._

The vigorous reign of Naod had at least suspended the fate of the whole

empire; and, had it not been that they still persisted in that ruinous

and dangerous measure of following minority with minority, by the

election of children to the throne, it is probable this kingdom would

have escaped the greatest part of those dismal calamities that fell

upon it in the sequel. But the Iteghé Helena, and the Abuna Marcos,

(now become her creature) had interest enough, notwithstanding the

apparent necessities of the times, to place David son of Naod upon

the throne, a child of eleven years old, that they might take upon

themselves the government of the kingdom; whereas Anquo Israel (third

son of Bæda Mariam) was of an age proper to govern, and whom they would

have preferred to Naod for the same reason, merely because he was then

a child.

Besides the desire of governing, another motive operated, which,

however good in itself, was very criminal from the present

circumstances. A peace with Adel was what the empress Helena constantly

desired; for she could not see with indifference the destruction of

her own country, far less contribute to it. She was herself by origin

a Moor, daughter of Mahomet, governor for the king in Dawaro; had been

suspected, so early as her husband’s time, of preferring the welfare of

her own country to that of the kingdom of Abyssinia.

This princess, perfectly informed of the interests of both nations,

seems, in her whole conduct, to have acted upon the most judicious and

sensible principles. She knew the country of Adel to be, by situation

and interest, perfectly commercial; that part of Africa, the opposite

Arabia, and the peninsula of the Indies, were but three partners

joined in one trade; they mutually consumed each other’s produce; they

mutually contributed to export the joint produce of the three countries

to distant parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa; which three continents

then constituted the whole known world. When Adel was at peace with

Abyssinia, then the latter became rich, from the gold, ivory, coffee,

cattle, hides, and all manner of provision, procured by the former

from every part of the mountainous tract above it. Trade flourished

and plenty followed it. The merchants carried every species of goods

to the most distant provinces in safety, equally to the advantage of

Abyssinia and Adel. These advantages, so sensibly felt, were maintained

by bribery, and a constant circulation of Mahometan gold in the court

of Abyssinia; the kingdom, however, thus prospered. A war with Adel, on

the contrary, had its origin in a violent desire of a barbarous people,

such as the Abyssinians were, to put themselves in possession of riches

which their neighbours had gained by trade and industry.

She saw that, even in this the worst of cases, nothing utterly

destructive could possibly happen to the Abyssinians; in their inroads

into that country, they plundered the markets and got, at the risk of

their lives, India stuffs of every kind, for which else they would have

paid money. On the other hand, the people of Adel, when conquerors,

acquired no stuffs, no manufactures, but the persons of the Abyssinians

themselves, whom they carried into slavery, and sold in Arabia, and

all parts of Asia, at immense profits. Next to gold they are the most

agreeable and valuable merchandise in every part of the east; and

these again, being chiefly the idle people who delighted in war, their

absence promoted the more desirable event of peace.

In this state we see that war was but another species of commerce

between the two countries, though peace was the most eligible state

for them both; and this the empress Helena had constantly endeavoured

to maintain, but could not succeed among a people fond of war, by any

other means, but by giving them a minor for their king, who was by the

law of the land under her direction, as the country was, during his

minority, under her regency.

Although this, the ordinary state of the empress’s politics, had

hitherto answered well between the kingdoms, when no other parties

were engaged, the introduction of a third power, and its influence,

totally changed that system. The Turks, an enemy not yet known in any

formidable line by the southern part of Africa, or Asia, now appeared

under a form that made all those southern states tremble.

Selim, emperor of Constantinople, had defeated Canso el Gauri, Soldan

of Egypt, and slain him in the field. After a second battle he had

taken Cairo, the capital of that country; and, under the specious

pretence of a violation of the law of nations, by Tomum Bey, the

successor, who was said to have put his ambassadors to death, he had

hanged that prince upon one of the principal gates of his own capital;

and, by this execution, had totally destroyed the succession of the

Mamalukes. Sinan Basha, the great general and minister of Selim, in a

very few months over-ran all the peninsula of Arabia, to the verge of

the Indian Ocean.

These people, trained to war, Mahomet had inspired with enthusiasm,

and led them to the conquest of the East. Trade and luxury had, after

that, disarmed and reduced them to much the same situation as, in a

former age, they had been found by Augustus Cæsar. Sinan Basha, with

a troop of veterans, had, by degrees extirpated the native princes of

the country; those that resisted, by force; and those that submitted

to him, by treachery; and in their place, in every principal town, he

had substituted Turkish officers of confidence, strongly supported by

troops of Janizaries, who knew no other government but martial law.

War had now changed its form entirely under these new conquerors.

Muskets, and large trains of artillery, were introduced against

javelins, lances, and arrows, the only arms then known in Arabia, and

in the opposite continent of Abyssinia. A large fleet, crowded with

soldiers, and filled with military stores, the very name of which, as

well as their destructive qualities, were till now unknown in these

southern regions, were employed by the Turks to extend their conquest

to India, where, though by the superior valour of the Portuguese

they were constantly disappointed in their principal object, they

nevertheless, in their passage outward and homeward, reinforced their

several posts in Arabia, from which they looked for assistance and

protection, had any enemy placed himself in their way, or a storm, or

other unexpected misfortune, overtaken them in their return.

These Janizaries lived upon the very bowels of commerce. They had,

indeed, for a shew of protecting it, established customhouses in their

various ports; but they soon made it appear, that the end proposed

by these was only to give them a more distinct knowledge who were

the subjects from whom they could levy the most enormous extortions.

Jidda, Zibid, and Mocha, the places of consequence nearest to Abyssinia

on the Arabian shore, Suakem, a sea-port town on the very barriers

of Abyssinia, in the immediate way of their caravan to Cairo, on the

African side, were each under the command of a Turkish basha, and

garrisoned by Turkish troops sent thither from Constantinople by the

emperors Selim and Soliman, his successors.

The peaceable Arabian merchants, full of that good faith which

successful commerce inspires, fled everywhere from the violence and

injustice of these Turkish tyrants, and landed in safety their riches

and persons on the opposite shore of the kingdom of Adel. The trade

from India, flying from the same enemy, took refuge in Adel among

its own correspondents, the Moorish merchants, during the violent

and impolitic tyranny that everywhere took place under this Turkish

oppression.

Zeyla is a small island, on the very coast of Adel, opposite to Arabia

Felix without the Straits of Babelmandeb, upon the entrance of the

Indian Ocean. The Turks of Arabia, though they were blind to the cause,

were sensible of the great influx of trade into the opposite kingdom.

They took possession, therefore, of Zeyla, where they established what

they called a Customhouse, and by means of that post, and gallies

cruising in the narrow Straits, they laid the Indian trade to Adel

under heavy contributions, that might, in some measure, indemnify them

for the great desertion their violence and injustice had occasioned in

Arabia.

This step threatened the very existence both of Adel and Abyssinia; and

considering the vigorous government of the one, and the weak politics

and prejudices of the other, it is more than probable the Turks would

have subdued both Adel and Abyssinia, had they not, in India their

chief object, met the Portuguese, strongly established, and governed

by a succession of kings who had not in any age their equals, and

seconded by officers and soldiers who, for discipline, courage, love to

their country, and affection to their sovereign were, perhaps, superior

to any troops, or any set of individuals, that, as far as we can judge

from history, have ever yet appeared in the world.

It was not now a time for a woman to reign, nor, which was the same

thing, to place a child upon the throne. The empress Helena saw this

distinctly; but her ambition made her prefer the love of reigning

to the visible necessities and welfare of her country. She knew the

progress and extent of the Portuguese power in India; and saw plainly

there was no prospect, but in their assistance, at once to save both

Abyssinia and Adel.

Peter Covillan, sent thither as ambassador by John king of Portugal,

had, for two reigns, been detained in Abyssinia, with a constant

refusal of leave to return. He was now become an object of curiosity

rather than use. However, except his liberty, he had wanted nothing.

The empress had married him nobly in the country; had given him large

appointments, both as to profit and dignity. She now began to be

sensible of the consequence of having with her a man of his abilities,

who could open to her the method of corresponding effectually both with

India and Portugal in their own language, to which, as well as to the

persons to whom her letters were to be addressed, she was then an utter

stranger.

She had about her court an Armenian merchant named Matthew, a person

of great trust and discretion, who had been long accustomed to go

to the several kingdoms of the East upon mercantile commissions for

the king and for his nobles. He had been at Cairo, Jerusalem, Ormus,

Ispahan, and in the East Indies on the coast of Malabar; both in places

conquered by the Portuguese, and in those that yet held out under

their native Pagan princes. He was one of those factors which, as I

have already said, are employed by the king and great men in Abyssinia

to sell or barter, in the places above mentioned, such part of their

revenue as are paid them in kind.

These men are chiefly Greeks, or Armenians, but the preference is

always given to the latter. Both nations pay caratch, or capitation,

to the Grand Signior, (whose subjects they are) and both have, in

consequence, passports, protections, and liberty to trade wherever they

please throughout the empire, without being liable to those insults and

extortions from the Turkish officers that other strangers are.

The Armenians, of all the people in the East, are those most remarkable

for their patience and sobriety. They are generally masters of most

of the eastern languages; are of strong, robust constitutions; of all

people, the most attentive to the beasts and merchandise they have in

charge; exceedingly faithful, and content with little. This Matthew,

queen Helena chose for her ambassador to Portugal, and joined a young

Abyssinian with him, who died in the voyage. He was charged with

letters to the king, which, with the other dispatches, as they are

long, and abound with fiction and bombast rather than truth and facts,

I have not troubled myself to transcribe; they are, besides, in many

printed collections[23].

It appears clearly from these letters, that they were the joint

compositions of Covillan, who knew perfectly the manner of

corresponding with his court upon dangerous subjects, and of the simple

Abyssinian confidents of the empress Helena, who, unacquainted with

embassies or correspondence with princes, or the ill consequence that

these letters would be of to their ambassador and his errand, if they

happened to be intercepted by an enemy, told plainly all they desired

and wished to execute by the assistance of the Portuguese. Thus, in the

first part of the letter, (which we shall suppose dictated by Covillan)

the empress remits the description of her wants, and what is the

subject of the embassy, to Matthew her ambassador, whom she qualifies

as her confidential servant, instructed in her most secret intentions;

desiring the king of Portugal to believe what he shall report from her

to him in private, as if they were her own words uttered immediately

from her to him in person. So far was prudent; such a conduct as we

should expect from a man like Covillan, long accustomed to be trusted

with the secret negociations of his sovereign.

But the latter end of his dispatches (the work, we suppose, of

Abyssinian statesmen) divulges the whole secret. It explains the

motives of this embassy in the clearest manner, desiring the king of

Portugal to send a sufficient force to destroy Mecca and Medina; to

assist them with a sufficient number of ships, and to annihilate the

Turkish power by sea; while they, by land, should extirpate all the

Mahometans on their borders; and it stigmatizes these Mahometans, both

Turks and Moors, with the most opprobrious names it was possible to

devise.

With the first part of these dispatches, it is plain, Matthew, as

an envoy, might have passed unmolested; he had only to give to the

secret wishes of the empress, with which he was charged, what kind

of mercantile colour he pleased. But the last part of the letter

brought home to him a charge of the deepest dye, both of sacrilege

and high-treason, that he meditated against the Ottoman empire, whose

Raya[24] he was; and, there can be no doubt, had these letters been

intercepted and read, Matthew’s embassy and life would have ended

together under some exquisite species of torture. This, indeed,

he seems to have apprehended; as, after his arrival in India, he

constantly refused to shew his dispatches, even to the Portuguese

viceroy himself, from whom, in the instant, he had received very

singular favour and protection.

The king, when of age, never could be brought to acknowledge this

embassy by Matthew; but, as we shall see, did constantly deny it. If

we believe the Portuguese, the despair of the empress was so great,

that she offered one-third of the kingdom to the king of Portugal if he

relieved her. Nothing of this kind appears in the letters; but, if this

offer was part of Matthew’s private dispatches, we may see a reason why

David did not wish to own the commission and offer as his.

Matthew had a safe passage to Dabul in India, but here his misfortunes

began. The governor, taking him for a spy, confined him in close

prison. But Albuquerque, then viceroy of India, residing at Goa, who

had himself a design upon Abyssinia, hearing that such a person, in

such a character, was arrived, sent and took him out of the hands

of the governor of Dabul, where his sufferings else would not have

so quickly ended. All the Portuguese cried out upon seeing such an

ambassador as Matthew sent to their master; sometimes they pretended

that he was a spy of the Sultan, at other times he was an impostor, a

cook, or some other menial servant.