BOOK IV.

ANNALS OF ABYSSINIA,

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL.

CONTINUATION OF THE ANNALS, FROM THE DEATH OF SOCINIOS

TILL MY ARRIVAL IN ABYSSINIA.

[Illustration]

FACILIDAS, OR SULTAN SEGUED.

From 1632 to 1665.

_The Patriarch and Missionaries are banished--Seek the

Protection of a Rebel--Delivered up to the King, and sent to

Masuah--Prince Claudius rebels--Sent to Wechné--Death and

Character of the King._

As soon as the prince Facilidas had paid the last honours to his

father, he set about composing those disorders which had so long

distracted the kingdom by reason of the difference of religion.

Accordingly he wrote to the patriarch, that, the Alexandrian faith

being now restored, his leaving the kingdom had become indispensible:

that he had lately understood, that an Abuna, sent for by his

predecessor and by himself, was now actually on the way, and only

deferred his arrival from a resolution not to enter the kingdom

till the Romish patriarch and his priests should have left it; and,

therefore, he commanded the patriarch and fathers, assembled from their

several convents in Gojam and Dembea, to retire immediately to Fremona,

there to wait his further pleasure.

The patriarch endeavoured to parry this, with offering new concessions

and indulgencies; but the king informed him that he was too late; and

that he wished him to be advised, and fly, while it was time, from

greater harm that would otherwise fall upon him.

It was not long before the patriarch had revenge of Facilidas for this

intimation of the expectation of a successor in the person of the

Abuna. For on that very Easter there did arrive one, whose name was

Sela Christos, calling himself Abuna, who performed all the functions

of his office, dedicated churches, administered the sacrament, and

ordained priests. After continuing in office some months, he was

detected by a former companion of his, and found to be a man of very

bad character, from Nara, the frontier of Abyssinia, and that by

profession he had been a dealer in horses.

Facilidas then ordered his uncle, Sela Christos, to be brought before

him, received him kindly, and offered him again his riches and

employments. That brave man, Christian in every thing but in his hatred

and jealousy against his sovereign and nephew, refused absolutely to

barter his faith to obtain the greatest good, or avoid the greatest

punishment, it was in the power of the king to inflict. After repeated

trials, all to no purpose, the king, overcome by the instigation of

his enemies, banished him to Anabra in Shawada, a low, unwholesome

district amidst the mountains of Samen. But hearing that he still kept

correspondence with the Jesuits, and that their common resolution was

to solicit Portuguese troops from India, and remembering his former

oath, he sent orders to his place of exile to put him to death, and he

was in consequence hanged upon a cedar-tree.

Tellez, the Portuguese historian, in his collection of martyrs that

died for the faith in Abyssinia, has deservedly inserted the name

of Sela Christos; but professes that he is ignorant of the time of

his death, and under what species of torment he suffered. The only

information that I can give is what I have just now written. It was in

the beginning of the year 1634 he was carried to Shawada in chains, and

confined upon the mountain Anabra; but no mention is made of any other

hardship being put upon him than his being in irons, nor is more usual

in that kind of banishment. It was at the end of that year, however,

that he was executed in the manner above mentioned, being suspected of

having corresponded with the patriarch and Jesuits, and afterwards of

inciting his nephew Claudius to rebel, as, it appears, he had meditated

long before, and actually did very soon after.

The 9th of March 1633, the king ordered the patriarch to leave Dancaz,

and, with the rest of the fathers, to proceed immediately to Fremona,

under the conduct of four people of the first consideration, Tecla

Georgis, brother of Keba Christos, Tecla Saluce, one of the principal

persons in Tigré, and two Azages, men of great dignity at court. These

were joined by a party of soldiers belonging to Claudius, brother of

the king, supposed to have been in the conspiracy with Sela Christos

his uncle, to supplant his brother Facilidas by the help of the Jesuits

and Portuguese troops from India. But as soon as the patriarch had

fallen into disgrace, and Sela Christos lost his life, that prince

returned to the church of Alexandria, as did all the other sons of

Socinios; after which, Claudius seized to his own use all the lands and

effects that he found in Gojam, and was now by the king made governor

of Begemder. Under this escort the patriarch and his company arrived

at Fremona in the end of April 1633, after having been often robbed

and ill-treated by the way, the guards that were given to defend them

conniving with the banditti that came to rob them.

However strictly the fathers observed the precepts of scripture on

other occasions, in this they did not follow the line of conduct

prescribed by our Saviour--“And whosoever shall not receive you, nor

hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off

the dust of your feet.” They were not sheep that went patiently and

dumb to the slaughter; and, if their hearts, as they say, were full of

love and charity to Abyssinia, it was strangely accompanied with the

resolution they had taken to send Jerome Lobo, the most famous, because

the most bigotted Jesuit of the whole band, first to the viceroy of

India, and then to Spain, to solicit an army and fleet which were to

lay all this kingdom in blood.

The king was perfectly advised of all that passed. As he saw that the

patriarch endeavoured to gain time, and knew the reason of it; and, as

the fathers among them had a considerable quantity of fire-arms, he

sent an officer to the patriarch at Fremona, commanding him to deliver

up the whole of these, with gun-powder and other ammunition, and to

prepare, at the same time, to set out for Masuah. This at first the

patriarch refused to do. Nor did Facilidas punish this disobedience by

any harsher method than convincing him mildly of the imprudence and

inutility of such refusal, and the bad consequences to themselves.

Upon which the patriarch at last surrendered the articles required

to the officer sent by the king, but he resolved very differently as

to the other injunction of carrying all his brethren to Masuah. On

the contrary, he determined by every means to scatter them about the

kingdom of Abyssinia, and leave them behind if he was forced to embark

at Masuah, which he, however, resolved to avoid and resist to the

utmost of his power.

In order to do this, it was resolved that he should solicit the

Baharnagash (John Akay, then in rebellion) to take them under his

protection, and for that purpose to send a number of armed men, on a

night appointed, to meet them near Fremona, and carry them in safety

from any pursuit of the governor of Tigré. This project, extraordinary

as it was, succeeded. Akay promised them his protection. The patriarch

and priests, deceiving the guard the king had set upon them, escaped

in the night, and joined the soldiers of John Akay, commanded by Tecla

Emanuel, who was ready to receive them: They took refuge at Addicota,

the soldiers of the guard, though alarmed, not daring to pursue them in

the night, as not knowing the number and power of their protectors,

and fearing they might fall into some ambush.

It may not be amiss here to take notice, that this John Akay was the

very man with whom Tecla Georgis had associated for the murder of

Abba Jacob. He was a shrewd man, and had great power by living in

the neighbourhood of Sennaar, to which country he could retreat when

occasion required. He received the patriarch with great kindness.

Addicota is an inaccessible rock, perpendicular on all sides, excepting

where there is a narrow path by which was the entrance. Here the

patriarch thought he could continue in Abyssinia, in defiance of

Facilidas, till he should procure succours from India.

It was not, however, long before he found how little dependence there

was upon this new protector; for, in the midst of all his schemes, he

received orders to remove from Addicota, under pretence that they were

not there enough in safety; and Akay transferred them vexatiously from

place to place, into hot and unwholesome situations, always under the

same pretence, till he had destroyed their healths, and exhausted their

strength and patience.

There is but one way of disposing such people to grant a favour, and

it was surprising the patriarch did not find this out sooner. Jerome

Lobo was sent with a small present in gold, desiring they might have

leave to continue in their old habitation, Addicota. Lobo found John

Akay very much taken up in a pursuit that some ignorant monks had put

into his head. They had made him believe that there was a treasure hid

under a certain mountain which they had shewn him, but that the devil

who guarded it had constantly hindered his predecessors from acquiring

it. At present they had found out, that this devil had gone a journey

far off, was become blind and lame, and was, besides, in very great

affliction for the death of a son, the only hopes of his devilship’s

family, having now only a daughter remaining, very ugly, lame,

squinting, and sickly, and that all these reasons would hinder him from

being very anxious about his treasure. But, even supposing he did come,

they had an old monk that would exorcise him, a man as eminent for

wisdom as for sanctity.

In short, they produced a monk, one of their brethren, above a hundred

years old, whom they mounted upon a horse, then tied him to the animal,

wrapping him round with black wool, which, it seems, was the conjuring

habit. He was followed by a black cow and some monks, who carried beer,

hydromel, and roasted wheat, which was necessary, it seemed, to refresh

the devil after his long journey and great affliction, and put him in

good humour, if he should appear.

The old monk sung without ceasing, the workmen wrought vigorously, and

much earth and stones were removed; at last they discovered some rat,

mice, or mole-holes, at the sight of which a cry of joy was heard from

all the parties present.

The old monk sings again; the cow is brought in great hurry, and

sacrificed, and pieces of it thrown to the rats and mice: again they

fall to work with double keenness, the mole-holes vanish, and a hard

rock appears. This being the last obstacle, they fall keenly upon the

rock, and the old monk chants till he is hoarse with singing; the heat

of the sun is excessive; no gold appears; John Akay loses his patience,

and asks when it may be seen? The monks lay the whole blame upon him,

because, they say, he had not enough of faith. They give over work;

with one consent fall to eating the cow, and then disperse.

Father Jerome, takes the opportunity of this disappointment to abuse

the monks. He presents the Baharnagash with two ounces of gold, and

some other trifles, instead of the treasure which he was to get in the

mountain: he obtains the request he came to solicit, and the patriarch

and fathers return to Addicota.

Facilidas, informed of the asylum afforded to the Jesuits who had fled

from Fremona, applied to John Akay, promising him forgivenness of what

was past if he would deliver the priests under his protection. This

John Akay declined to do from motives of delicacy. It was breaking his

word to deliver his guests into the hands of the king; but, by a very

strange refinement, he agreed to sell them to the Turks. Accordingly

they were delivered for a sum to the basha of Masuah, who received them

with much greater kindness than they had experienced in the Christian

country from which they fled.

Two Jesuits were purposely left behind, with the consent of John

Akay, unknown to Facilidas, in fervent hopes that some occasion would

soon offer of suffering martyrdom for the true faith; and in this

expectation they were not long disappointed, all those who were left in

Abyssinia having lost their lives by violent deaths, most of them on a

gibbet, by order of Facilidas, the last of whom was Bernard Nogeyra.

Facilidas, weary of the obstinacy of these missionaries, uneasy also

at the suspicions they created, that a number of Portuguese troops

would be poured in upon his country by the viceroy of India, concluded

a treaty with the bashas of Masuah and Suakem, for preventing any

Portuguese passing into Abyssinia, by shutting these ports against

them. Not above eight years before, that is, in the year 1624, Socinios

had sent a zebra, and several other curious articles, as presents

to the basha of Suakem, with a request to him not to obstruct, as

the Turks had used to do, the entrance of any Portuguese into his

dominions. But those times were now so changed, that both nations,

Turks and Abyssinians, had resolved, with one consent, to exclude them

all, for their mutual safety, peace, and advantage.

This treaty with the Turks, made by Facilidas, probably gave rise

to that calumny of the Jesuits, that, for fear of a return of the

Portuguese, that prince had embraced the Mahometan religion, and sent

for preceptors from Mocha to instruct him in their tenets. This, I say,

if not founded upon the treaty I mention, was destitute of the least

shadow of truth; but, like other calumnies then propagated in great

number, arose solely from the rage, malice, and heated imaginations of

desperate fanatics.

Amidst the general regret this revolution in the church of Ethiopia

occasioned at Rome, there were some who thought the pride, obstinacy,

and violence of the Jesuits, the hardness and cruelty of their hearts

in instigating Socinios to that perpetual effusion of blood, and

their independence, their encroachments upon, and resistance of the

civil power, were faults resulting from the institutions of that

particular society, and that these occasioned the miscarriage; that a

well-grounded aversion to the teachers had created a repugnance to the

doctrines preached, and was the reason of the expulsion of the fathers,

and the relapse of Abyssinia to the Alexandrian faith. From this

persuasion, six capuchins, all of them Frenchmen of the reformed Order

of St Francis, were sent from Rome after the death of Nogeyra, by the

congregation _De Propagandâ Fide_, and these had protections from the

grand signior.

Two attempted the entering Abyssinia by way of the Indian Ocean, that

is, from Magadoxa, and were slain by the Galla, after advancing a very

short way into the country. Two of them penetrated into Abyssinia, and

were stoned to death. The remaining two, hearing the fate of their

companions at Masuah, and not being so violently bent upon a crown of

martyrdom as were the Portuguese missionaries, prudently returned home,

carrying with them the account of this bad success.

Three other capuchins were sent after this. It is impossible to judge

from their conduct what idea they had formed; for they themselves

gave the first information of their intended coming to Facilidas, who

thereupon recommended it to the basha to receive them according to

their merits; and thereupon, on their arrival at Suakem, their heads

were cut off by his order; the skins of their heads and faces stripped

off and sent to the king of Abyssinia, that, by their colour, he might

know them to be franks, and by their tonsure to be priests. Nor was

it possible afterwards to introduce any Catholic missionaries, either

during this or the following reign.

Facilidas having thus provided against being further disturbed by

missionaries, and having reduced all his subjects to the obedience of

the Alexandrian church, sent again messengers to bring an Abuna from

Cairo, while he took the field against Melca Christos his rival, who

continued in arms at the head of the peasants of Lasta, though there

was now no longer any pretence that the Alexandrian faith was in

danger. Both armies met in Libo, a country of the Galla, where a panic

seized the king’s troops, his horse flying at the first onset. The

royal army being entirely dispersed, Melca Christos pursued his good

fortune, and entered the king’s palace, took possession of the throne,

and was crowned; he appointed to all the great places in government,

and distributed a largess, or bounty, to his soldiers.

The Portuguese historians say, that this happened at Dancaz, not at

Libo. But they should have remembered what they before have said, that

an epidemic fever raged in all Dembea, so that the king was not at

Dancaz that year. He passed the winter of the preceding one at Dobit,

near Begemder.

The memoirs of these missionaries, even when they were in the country,

are to be read with great caution, being full of misrepresentations of

the manners and characters of men, magnifying some actions, slighting

others, and attributing to their favourites services that were really

performed by their adversaries; and, from the coming of Alphonso

Mendes, till they were banished to Masuah, great part of their account

is untrue, and the rest very suspicious. After their retiring to India,

which is the time we are now speaking of, the whole that they have

published is one continued tissue of falsehood and calumny, either

hear-say stories communicated to them, as they say, by the remnants

of zealots still alive in Abyssinia, or fabrications of their own,

invented for particular purposes. In continuing this history, I shall

take notice of some of these, though for facts I rely entirely upon the

annals of the country, treating, however, the Abyssinian account of the

Jesuits’ doctrines and behaviour with the same degree of caution.

This forwardness of his rival Melca Christos did not discourage

Facilidas. Without losing a moment, he sent expresses to Kasmati Dimmo,

governor of Samen, to Ras Sela Christos, of Damot, and to his brother

Claudius, governor of Begemder, ordering them to march and attack Melca

Christos, then acting as sovereign in the king’s palace at Libo.

These three generals were not slack in obeying the commands of

Facilidas. They surrounded Melca Christos before he expected them, and

forced him to a battle, in which he was defeated and lost his whole

army. He himself, fighting manfully at the head of his troops, was

slain hand to hand by Cosmas, a soldier of Kasmati Claudius, the king’s

brother.

Jerome Lobo mentions Facilidas’s bad success against the Gallas and

Agows as an instance of divine vengeance which pursued him. But if the

approbation or disapprobation of heaven is to be appealed to in this

reign as a proof of the justness of the measures taken, we must be

obliged to say the cause of the Jesuits was not the cause of heaven.

If we except the temporary advantage gained over Facilidas, and the

accident that happened to his army at Lasta, perpetual victory had

attended the wars in which this prince was engaged; for so far was he

from being unfortunate this campaign against the Agows, that, on the

9th of February 1636, he marched from Libo into Gojam, and totally

defeated the two great tribes Azena and Zeegam. After which he sent his

army with Kasmati Melca Bahar, who coming up with the Galla, a great

body of whom had made an incursion into Gojam, he totally overthrew

them, and passing the Nile into their country, laid it waste, and

returned with a great number of cattle, and multitudes of women and

children to be sold as slaves.

The king then returned to Begemder, and took up his head-quarters

at Gonsala; but, soon hearing that the Abuna Marcus was arrived, he

quitted that place, and came to meet him in Gondar.

The next year, which was the fifth of his reign, and the first of the

coming of Abuna Marcus, he again fought with the Agows, and beat the

Denguis, Hancasha, and the Zeegam, and passed that winter in Gafat;

nor was he ever unfortunate with the Agows or Galla. But a misfortune

happened this year (the 6th of his reign) which very much affected the

whole kingdom. The people of Lasta seemed to grow more inveterate

after the defeat they had received under Melca Christos. In the stead

of that prince slain in battle, they appointed his son, a young man of

good hopes.

Facilidas, trusting to his former reputation acquired in these

mountains in his father’s time, on the 3d of March 1638 advanced with

a large army into Lasta, with a design to bring these peasants to a

battle. But the rebels, growing wise by their losses, no longer chose

to trust themselves on the plain, but, retiring to the strongest

posts, fortified them so judiciously, that, without risking any loss

themselves, they cut off all supplies or provisions coming to the

king’s army.

It happened at that time the cold was so excessive that almost the

whole army perished amidst the mountains; great part from famine, but

a greater still from cold, a very remarkable circumstance in these

latitudes. Lasta is barely 12° from the Line, and it was now the

equinox in March, so that the sun was but 12° from being in the zenith

of Lasta, and there was in the day twelve hours of sun. Yet here is

an example of an army, not of foreigners, but natives, perishing with

cold in their own country, when the sun is no farther than 12° from

being vertical, or from being directly over their heads; a strong proof

this, as I have often remarked, that there is no way of judging by the

degrees of heat in the thermometer, what effect that degree of heat or

cold is to have upon the human body.

The eighth year of the reign of Facilidas, Claudius, governor of

Begemder, his brother, revolted and joined the rebels of Lasta. It

seems, that this prince had been long encouraged by the Jesuits, and

his uncle Sela Christos, in expectation of succeeding his father

Socinios, and supplanting Facilidas, his brother, in the kingdom. But,

after the banishment of the Jesuits, and the death of Sela Christos,

Facilidas thinking, these bad counsellors being removed, he would

continue firm in his duty, and willing to disbelieve the whole that had

been reported of his designs, made him governor of Begemder.

It happened, however, that this very year two Abunas arrived from

Egypt, one by way of Sennaar, the other by Dancali. Upon inquiry it was

found, that Abba Michael, the latter of these Abunas, had been sent for

by Kasmati Claudius, in expectation that he was to be on the throne by

the time of his Abuna’s arrival. This implied clearly that the king’s

death was agreed on. Claudius, without attempting a vindication, or

awaiting the discussion of this step, fled to Lasta, and joined Laeca,

son of Melca Christos, a youth then at the head of the rebels.

Facilidas banished Abba Michael to Serké, a Mahometan town in the way

to Sennaar, and admitted Abba Johannes, whom he himself had sent for

from Cairo, into the office of Abuna.

Soon after this, Claudius was surprised and taken prisoner, and brought

to the king, and, though stained in a high degree with ingratitude,

treason, and intended fratricide, he could not be brought to order his

execution, but, like a wise and merciful prince, reflecting on the

ancient usages of the empire, and how much royal blood might be daily

saved by sequestering the descendents of the imperial family upon the

mountain, he chose that of Wechné in Belessen, which served ever after

for this purpose.

This is the third mountain within the reach of written history, first

chosen, and then reprobated, as a state-prison for all the males of the

royal family, excepting the one seated upon the throne.

This interruption of the imprisonment of the princes for a time, and

the resuming it again for another period, have led the Portuguese

writers, very little acquainted with the history or constitution of

this country, into various disputes and difficulties, which I shall

fully explain and reconcile in their proper place. It is sufficient

for the present to observe, that Claudius was sent into exile to the

mountain of Wechné, and that he was the first prince banished thither,

where he lived for many years.

The king, finding that nothing material pressed at home, marched into

Gojam to Enzagedem, whence he sent Ras Bela Christos against the

Shangalla, N. W. of the country of the Agows. These people being put

upon their guard by their neighbours, all disaffected to the king,

contrived to place themselves in ambush so judiciously, that Bela

Christos, marching in security into their country, was surrounded by

the Shangalla, whom he thought yet at a distance. Great part of his

troops was slain by the arrows of the enemy, who, from their caves and

holes in the mountain, poured their missile weapons, stones, and arrows

on the troops, at so small a distance that every one took place, though

above the reach of swords, and lances, or such common weapons; others

were overpowered by large bodies of men sallying from the thickets, and

fighting them firmly foot to foot. Many officers were that day slain,

among the rest Alzaguè and Petros, two persons of great distinction

in the palace. But the king, however afflicted for the loss of his

men, well knew that this defeat would have no other consequences; so

returned to his capital, with resolution to make another vigorous

effort against Lasta.

The manner in which this expedition was prevented cannot but give us

a high idea of Facilidas: Laeca, at the head of an army of veteran

troops, whose affection he never had occasion to doubt, thought it

safer to trust to the generosity of a king, who had slain his father in

battle, than to the acquiring a crown that was not his, by persevering

any longer in rebellion. Accordingly he surrendered himself, without

condition, to Facilidas, who immediately committed him to prison, which

seeming severity, however, meant nothing further, than to shew him

the lenity which followed was entirely his own, and not suggested to

him by the officiousness of courtiers; for no sooner was he arrived

at Gondar, than he sent for Laeca from prison, received him not only

kindly, but with great marks of distinction; and, instead of banishing

him to Wechné, as he did his own brother Claudius, and which, as being

of the blood-royal, should have been his destination likewise, the king

entered into a kind of treaty with Laeca, by which he gave him large

possessions in Begemder near Lasta, and married him to his daughter

Theoclea, by whom, however, he had no children, but lived long in

constant friendship and confidence with Facilidas.

Except the events which I have already recorded, there is nothing

farther in this long reign worthy of being insisted upon; the early

inroads of the Galla, in plundering parties, and the seditions and

revolts of the Agows from the oppression and extortion of their

governors, were such as we find in every reign; and in all these

Facilidas was victorious, whilst the Hancasha and Zeegam were greatly

weakened in these campaigns.

Facilidas was taken ill at Gondar, in the end of October, of a disease

which, from its first appearance, he thought would prove mortal. He,

therefore, sent to his eldest son Hannes, whom he had constantly kept

with him, and who was now of age to govern, and recommended to him

his kingdom, and the persevering in the ancient religion. He died the

30th of September 1665, in great peace and composure of mind, and they

buried him at Azazo.

If we are obliged to give his father the preference, from the greater

variety of trials which he underwent, we must in justice allow, that,

after his father, Facilidas was the greatest king that ever sat

upon the Abyssinian throne. He had every good quality necessary to

constitute a great prince, without any alloy or mixture, that, upon so

much provocation as he had, might have misled him to be a bad one. He

was calm, dispassionate, and courteous in his behaviour. In the very

difficult part he had to act between his father and the nation, the

necessities of the times had taught him a degree of reserve, which, if

it was not natural, was not therefore the less useful to him. He was

in his own person the bravest soldier of his time, and always exposed

himself in proportion as the occasion was important.

To this were added all the qualities of a good general, in which

character he seems to have equalled his father Socinios, who else was

universally allowed to be the first of his time. Fierce and violent in

battle, he was backward in shedding blood after it. Though an enemy

to the Catholic religion, yet, from duty to his father, he lived

with the patriarch and Jesuits upon so familiar a footing, that they

confess themselves it was not from any part of his behaviour to them

they ever could judge him an enemy. He was most remarkable for an

implicit submission to his father’s commands; and, upon this principle,

fought in favour of the Catholic religion against his own friends and

persuasion, because such were the orders of his sovereign. He was of a

very mild and pleasant temper, as appeared by his behaviour to Melca

Christos, to his brother Claudius, to his uncle Sela Christos, and to

the patriarch and Jesuits.

It is true, that, of these last, Sela Christos, and many of the

Jesuits, were put to death in his reign; but this was not till they had

experienced repeated acts of mercy and forgivenness; still, persisting

in constant rebellion against government, they were justly cut off

as traitors and rebels by the civil power, in the very act of their

conspiracy against the life of the king and constitution of the country.

There is published by Tellez a letter of Alphonso Mendes, written, as

is falsely said, from Masuah, where it is dated, but truly from Goa.

If, as the patriarch pretends, he wrote it from Masuah, it is another

proof of this prince’s clemency, that he ever suffered the author of

such an indecent libel to return to India in peace. It is well known,

that, on the first requisition of Facilidas, the Turks would have

delivered the patriarch into his hands; and, every one that reads it

must allow, such language from a low-born priest to a king, deserved

every exemplary punishment offended royalty could inflict: It would not

have been mild, had such liberty been taken by a stranger in his native

country, Portugal.

The patriarch accuses Facilidas with the crime committed by Absalom,

which is, I suppose, debauching his father’s wives and concubines.

But, unluckily for the truth of this story, we have the Jesuit’s own

testimony, that Socinios had put away his wives and concubines before

he embraced the Catholic religion, so at his father’s death this was

impossible, unless he could commit incest with his own mother, who

was at that time a woman near sixty. But we shall suppose that they

existed, were never married, and, at the time of their being put away,

they were 18 years of age at an average. The king put them away in the

year 1621; and, therefore, in the year 1634, they would be 30 years of

age; and any body that has seen the effects that number of years has

upon Abyssinian beauty, must confess they could be no great temptation

to a prince.

The next calumny mentioned in this libel is, the murder of his brother

Claudius, nay, of all his brothers. Now we have seen, in the history of

his reign, that Claudius had fairly forfeited his life by a meditated

fratricide, and by an overt act of rebellion in which he was taken

prisoner. Yet so mild and placable was Facilidas, that he refused to

put him to death, but sent him prisoner to the mountain of Wechné, and

mercifully revived the ancient usage of banishing the princes of the

blood-royal to the mountain, instead of executing them, which had been

the practice to his time, and had occasioned the death of above sixty

of these unfortunate princes within the last hundred years.

To mount Wechné he also sent his own son David, and with him all his

brothers; and, so far from being murdered, we shall find them mostly

alive attending an extraordinary festival made for their sakes by

Facilidas’s grandson; an accident so rare, that it seems Providence had

permitted it in favour and vindication of truth and innocence, and to

stamp the lie upon the patriarch’s scandalous aspersions.

The third falsehood is, that Facilidas turned Mahometan, and got

doctors from Mocha to instruct him in the Koran. We have already seen

what gave rise to this, if it indeed had any foundation at all; but

it is a well-known fact, that, though he governed the church, during

a whole reign, mildly and judiciously, without any mark of bigotry,

never were two princes better affected to the Alexandrian church than

Facilidas and his son; and never were two that had better reason,

having both seen the disorders that other religions had occasioned.

We see throughout all this piece of the patriarchs, a self-sufficient

mind, gratifying itself by disgorging its passion and malice. If

Alphonso Mendes had no regard, as it seems indeed he had not; if he

had no reverence to higher powers, such as scripture had taught him

to have; if he was too enlightened, or too infatuated, to take our

Saviour’s precepts for his rule, and, shaking the dust of Abyssinia

from his feet, remit them to a Judge who will, at his own time,

separate good from evil, still he should have had, at least, a

brotherly love and charity for those unfortunate people who were to

fall into Facilidas’s hands; and we cannot reasonably suppose but that

the constant butcheries committed by the Turks afterwards upon the

Catholic priests, wild enough to enter at Masuah and Suakem, were the

fruits of the calumnious, intemperate libel of the patriarch.

After the death of the last missionary, Bernard Nogeyra, no

intelligence arrived of what was doing in Abyssinia, excepting from the

Dutch settlements of Batavia, where Abyssinian factors, or merchants,

had arrived; and where the industrious Mr Ludolf, very much engaged

in the history of this country, and who spared no pains, maintained

a correspondence, and thence he was informed that Facilidas had died

after a long and prosperous reign, and had left his kingdom in peace to

his son.

This intelligence alarmed the zeal of two great champions of the

Jesuits; the one M. le Grande, late secretary to the French embassy to

Portugal; and the other M. Piques, a member of the Sorbonne, a very

confused, dull disputant upon the difference of religion.

These two worthies, without any proof or intelligence but their own

warm and weak imaginations, fell violently upon poor Ludolf, accusing

him of falsehood, partiality, and prevarication; and, right or wrong,

they would have Facilidas plunged up to the neck in troubles, wading

through labyrinths of misfortunes, conspiracies, and defeats, certainly

dead, or about to die some terrible death by the vengeance of heaven;

and this ridiculous report is unjustly spread abroad by all the zealots

of those times. _Fata obstant_;--truth will out. The annals of the

country, written without a regard to either party, state, that, in the

long reign of Facilidas, notwithstanding the calamitous state in which

his father left him the empire, very few misfortunes only are reported

to have happened either to himself or lieutenants.

[Illustration]

HANNES I. OR ŒLAFE SEGUED.

From 1665 to 1680.

_Bigotry of the King--Disgusts his Son Yasous, who flies from Gondar._

If this prince succeeded to his kingdom in peace, he had the address

still to keep it so. He was not in his nature averse to war, though,

besides two feeble attempts he made upon Lasta, and one against the

Shangalla, all without material consequences, no military expedition

was undertaken in his time; and no rebellion or competitor (so frequent

in other reigns) at all disturbed his.

Hannes seems to have had the seeds of bigotry in his temper; from the

beginning of his reign he commanded the Mahometans to eat no other

flesh but what had been killed by Christians; and gathered together

the Catholic books, which the Jesuits had translated into the Ethiopic

language, and burned them in a heap. Much of his attention was given

to church matters, and, in regulating these, he seems to have employed

most of his time. He deposed the Abuna Christadulus, appointed by his

father, and in his place put the Abuna Sanuda.

This last measure seems to have displeased his eldest son Yasous, who

fled from the palace one night, and passed the Nile; and, though he was

followed by Kasmati Aserata Christos, he was not overtaken, but staid

some time in his sister’s house, and then returned to Gondar at the

request of his father.

A convocation of the clergy, the second in this reign, was now held,

and great heats and divisions followed among two orders of monks,

those of Eustathius and those of Debra Libanos. The king seems to have

assisted at all these debates, and to have contented himself with

holding the balance in his hands without declaring for either party.

But these altercations and disputes could not satisfy the active spirit

of the prince his son, who again fled from his father and from Gondar,

but was overtaken at the river Bashilo, and brought back to the palace,

where he found his father ill.

Hannes died the 19th of July, and was buried at Tedda, after having

reigned 15 years. He seems, from the scanty memorials of his long

reign, to have been a weak prince; but, perhaps, if the circumstances

of the times were fully known, he may have been a wise one.

[Illustration]

YASOUS I.

From 1680 to 1704.

_Brilliant Expedition of the King to Wechné--Various Campaigns

against the Agows and Galla--Comet appears--Expedition against

Zeegam and the Eastern Shangalla--Poncet’s Journey--Murat’s

Embassy--Du Roule’s Embassy--Du Roule assassinated at

Sennaar--The King is assassinated._

Yasous succeeded his father Hannes with the approbation of the whole

kingdom. He had, as we have seen, twice in Hannes’s life-time absconded

from the palace; and this was interpreted as implying an impatience to

reign. But I rather think the cause was a difference of manners, his

father being extremely bigotted, sordid, and covetous; for he never, in

those elopements, pretended to make a party contrary to his father’s

interest, nor shewed the least inclination to give either the army or

the people a favourable impression of himself, to the disadvantage of

the king. There was, besides, a difference in religious principles.

Yasous had a great predilection for the monks of Debra Libanos, or

the high church; while Hannes, his father, had done every thing in his

power to instil into his son a prepossession in favour of those of Abba

Eustathius.

To these opinions, therefore, so widely different, as well in

religion as the things of the world, I attribute the young prince’s

disinclination to live with his father. This seems confirmed by the

first step he took upon his mounting the throne, which was to make an

alteration in the church government from what his father had left it at

his death.

It was on the 7th of July 1680 he was proclaimed king; the next day

he deposed the Acab Saat Constantius, and gave his place to Asera

Christos. He then called a council of the clergy on the 27th of

September, when he deposed Itchegué Tzaga Christos, and in his room

named Cyriacus.

It was now the time that, according to custom, he was to make his

profession in regard to the difference I have formerly mentioned that

subsisted between the two parties about the incarnation of Christ.

But this he refused to do in the present state of the church, as

there was then no certain Abuna in Abyssinia. For Hannes, before he

died, had written to the patriarch of Alexandria to depose both Abuna

Christodulus and Marcus, who, in case of death, was to have succeeded

him, and this under pretence that he had varied in his faith between

the two contending parties.

Hannes, therefore, desired the patriarch to appoint Abuna Sanuda,

a man known to be devoted to the monks of St Eustathius and their

tenets; whereas the other two priests were supposed to be inclined to

the monks of Debra Libanos. Yasous told his clergy that he would not

suffer Sanuda to be elected; and the assembly, with little opposition,

conformed to the sentiments of the king, who sent immediately thereupon

to Cairo, demanding peremptorily that Marcus might be appointed Abuna,

and declaring his resolution to admit no other. He then ordered the

church of Tecla Haimanout to be consecrated with great solemnity; he

repaired and adorned it with much magnificence, and endowed it with

lands, which increased its revenue very considerably.

These two circumstances (especially the last) shewed distinctly to the

whole kingdom his affection for the high church, as explicitly as any

proclamation could have done. And in this he continued steady during

his whole life, notwithstanding the many provocations he met with from

that restless body of men.

Having thus settled the affairs of the church, he proceeded to those

of the state, and appointed Anastasius (then governor of Amhara) to be

Ras, or lieutenant-general, in his whole kingdom, allowing him also to

keep his province of Amhara. In this he shewed a wisdom and penetration

that gained him the good opinion of every one; for Anastasius was a

man advanced in years, of great capacity and experience, and of a most

unblemished character among his neighbours, who, in all their own

affairs, had recourse to, and were determined by, his counsels.

The king then took a journey of a very extraordinary nature, and such

as Abyssinia had never before seen. Attended only by his nobility, of

whom a great number had flocked to him, he sat down at the foot of the

mountain of Wechné, and ordered all the princes of the royal family who

were banished, and confined there, to be brought to him.

During the last reign, the mountain of Wechné, and those forlorn

princes that lived upon it, had been, as it were, totally forgotten.

Hannes having sons of an age fit to govern, and his eldest son Yasous

living below with his father, no room seemed to remain for attempting

a revolution, by the young candidates escaping from the mountain. This

oblivion to which they were consigned, melancholy as it was, proved

the best state these unhappy prisoners could have wished; for to be

much known for either good or bad qualities, did always at some period

become fatal to the individuals. Punishment always followed inquiries

after a particular prince; and all messages, questions, or visits, at

the instance of the king, were constantly fore-runners of the loss of

life, or amputation of limbs, to these unhappy exiles. To be forgotten,

then, was to be safe; but this safety carried very heavy distress along

with it. Their revenues were embezzled by their officers or keepers,

and ill paid by the king; and the sordid temper of Hannes had often

reduced them all to the danger of perishing with hunger and cold.

Yasous, as he was well acquainted with all these circumstances, so he

was, in his nature and disposition, as perfectly willing to repair

the injuries that were past, and prevent the like in future. Nothing

tended so much to conciliate the minds of the people to their sovereign

as this behaviour of Yasous.

In the midst of his relations there now appeared (as risen from the

dead) Claudius, son of Socinios, the first exile who was sent to the

mountain of Wechné by his brother Facilidas, grandfather of Yasous.

This was the prince who, as we have already stated, was fixed upon

by the Jesuits to succeed his father, and govern that country when

converted to the Romish religion by their intrigues, and conquered by

the arms of the Portuguese: This was the prince who, to make their

enemies appear more odious, these Jesuits have asserted was slain

by his brother Facilidas, one instance by which we may judge of the

justice of the other charges laid against that humane, wise, and

virtuous prince, whose only crime was an inviolable attachment to the

religion and constitution of his country, and the just abhorrence

he most reasonably had, as an independent prince, to submit the

prerogatives of his crown, and the rights of his people to the blind

controul of a foreign prelate.

There came from the mountain also the sons of Facilidas, with their

families; and likewise his own brothers, Ayto Theophilus, and Ayto

Claudius, sons of his father Hatzè Hannes. The sight of so many noble

relations, some advanced in years, some in the flower of their youth,

and some yet children; all, however, in tatters, and almost naked,

made such an impression on the young king that he burst into tears.

Nor was his behaviour to the respective degrees of them less proper or

engaging. To the old he paid that reverence and respect due to parents;

to those about his own age, a kind and liberal familiarity; while he

bestowed upon the young ones caresses and commendations, sweetened with

the hopes that they might see better times.

His first care was to provide them all plentifully with apparel and

every necessary. His brothers he dressed like himself, and his uncles

still more richly. He then divided a large sum of money among them all.

In the month of December, which is the pleasantest season of the whole

year, the sun being moderately hot, the sky constantly clear and

without a cloud, all the court was encamped under the mountain, and the

inferior sort strewed along the grass. All were treated at the expence

of the king, passing the day and night in continual festivals. It is

but right, said the king, that I should pay for a pleasure so great

that none of my predecessors ever dared to taste it; and of all that

noble assembly none seemed to enjoy it more sincerely than the king.

All pardons solicited for criminals at this time were granted. In this

manner having spent a whole month, before his departure the king called

for the deftar, (_i. e._ the treasury book) in which the account of

the sum allowed for the maintenance of these prisoners is stated; and

having inquired strictly into the expenditure, and cancelled all grants

that had been made of any part of that sum to others, and provided

in future for the full, as well as yearly payment of it, he, for his

last act, gave to the governor of the mountain a large accession of

territory, to make him ample amends for the loss of the dues he was

understood to be intitled to from that revenue. After this, he embraced

them all, assuring them of his constant protection; and, mounting his

horse, he took the keeper along with him, leaving all the royal family

at their liberty at the foot of the mountain.

This last mark of confidence, more than all the rest, touched the minds

of that noble troop, who hurried every man with his utmost speed to

restore themselves voluntarily to their melancholy prison, imputing

every moment of delay as a step towards treason and ingratitude to

their munificent, compassionate, and magnanimous benefactor. All their

way was moistened with tears flowing from sensible and thankful hearts;

and all the mountain resounded with prayers for the long life and

prosperity o£ the king, and that the crown might never leave the lineal

descendents of his family. It was very remarkable, that, during this

long reign, though he was constantly involved in war, no competitor

from the mountain ever appeared in breach of those vows they had so

voluntarily undertaken.

There was another great advantage the king reaped by this generous

conduct. All the most powerful and considerable people in the kingdom

had an opportunity, at one view, to see each individual of the royal

family that was capable of wearing the crown, and all with one voice

agreed, upon the comparison made, that, if they had been then assembled

to elect a king, the choice would not have fallen upon any but the

present.

Though the country of the Agows of Damot is generally plain and laid

out in pasture, each tribe has some mountain to which, upon the

alarm of an enemy, they retire with their flocks. The Galla, being

their neighbours on the other side of the Nile to the south, and the

Shangalla in the low country immediately to the west, these natural

fortresses are frequently of the greatest use during the incursions of

both.

They alone, of all the nations of Abyssinia, have found it their

interest so far to cultivate their neighbours the Shangalla, that there

are places set apart in which both nations can trade with each other in

safety; where the Agows sell copper, iron, beads, skins, or hides, and

receive an immense profit in gold; for, below these to the south and

west, is the gold country nearest Abyssinia, none of that metal being

anywhere found in Abyssinia itself.

Yasous, from this country of the Agows, descended into that of the

Shangalla; where, conforming to the ancient custom of Abyssinia, he

hunted the elephant and rhinoceros, the ordinary first expedition in

the kings his predecessors reigns, but the second in his; the first

having been (as before stated) spent in charity and mercy, much more

nobly, at the foot of the mountain of Wechné.

Yasous is reported to have been the most graceful and dexterous

horseman of his time. He distinguished himself in this hunting as much

for his address and courage against the beasts, as he had, for a short

while before, done by his affability, generosity, and benevolence,

amidst his own family. All was praise, all was enthusiasm, wherever the

young king presented himself; the ill-boding monks and hermits had not

yet dared to foretel evil, but every common mouth predicted this was to

be an active, vigorous, and glorious reign, without being thought by

this to have laid any pretension to the gift of prophecy.

It was now the second year of his reign when the king took the field

with a small, but very well chosen army. The Edjow and Woolo, two of

the most powerful tribes of southern Galla, taking advantage of the

absence of Ras Anastasius, had entered Amhara by a pass, on the side

of which is situated Melec Shimfa, one of the principal towns of the

province.

The king, leaving old Anastasius to the government of Gondar, took

upon himself the relief of Amhara; and, being joined by all the

troops in his way, he arrived at Melec Shimfa before the Galla had

any intelligence of him. The Galla always chose for their residence

a very level country, because they are now become all horsemen. The

country of Amhara, on the contrary, is full of high mountains, and

only accessible by certain narrow passes. The king, therefore, instead

of marching directly to the enemy, passed above them, and left them

still advancing, burning the villages and churches in the country

below. He then took possession of the pass (through which he knew they

must retreat) with a strong body of troops; and filled the entrance

of the defile, which was very rugged ground, with fusileers, and his

best foot armed with lances: after this, he separated his horse into

two divisions, and, reserving one half to himself, gave the other to

Kasmati Demetrius. He then placed the troops conducted by himself in

a wood, about half a mile from the entrance of the pass, and ordered

Demetrius to fall upon the Galla briskly on the plain, but to retreat

as if terrified by their numbers, and to make the best of his way then

to the pass in the mountains.

Demetrius, finding the enemy’s parties scattered wide wasting the

country, fell upon them, and slew many, till he had arrived near the

middle of their body, when the Galla, used to such expeditions, poured

in from all sides, and presently united. Demetrius, surrounded on every

side, was slain, fighting to the last in the most desperate manner, and

his party, much diminished in number, fled in a manner that could not

be mistaken for stratagem. They were closely pursued, and followed into

the pass by the Galla, who thought they had thus entirely cut them off

from Amhara. But they were soon received by a close fire from the foot

among the bushes, and by the lances that mingled with them from every

side of the mountain.

The king, upon the first noise of the musquetry, advanced quickly with

his horse, and met the Galla, in the height of their confusion, flying

back again into the plain. Here they fell an easy sacrifice to the

fresh troops led by Yasous, and to the peasants, exasperated by the

havoc they before had made in the country. Of the enemy, about 6000

men fell this day on the field; a few were brought to Gondar, and, in

contempt, sold for slaves. Few on the king’s side were slain, excepting

those that fell with Demetrius, the account of whose death the king

heard without any signs of regret:--“I told the man (says the king)

that he should shew himself and retire; if I wanted a victory I would

have led the army in person; I march against the Galla, not as a king,

but as an executioner, because my aim is to extirpate them.”

Although Yasous was stedfast in his own opinion as to his religion, or,

as it may be more properly called, the disputes and quibbles with the

monks concerning it, yet he suffered each sect to enjoy its own, and,

probably, in his heart he perfectly despised both.

The monks, however, were far from possessing any such spirit of

toleration. They considered the deposing of Acab Saat, Constantius,

and the Itchegué Tzaga Christos, as a declaration of dislike the king

entertained towards their party. They bore with great impatience and

indignation, that Abuna Sanuda, who was once their zealous partizan

in the time of Hannes, should now suddenly change his sentiments, and

declare implicitly for those of the king, and thereby increase both the

number and the consequence of their adversaries. They declared that

they would suffer every thing rather than live under a king who shewed

himself so openly a favourer of Debra Libanos, though it was now but

their turn, having in the last reign had a king more partial, and more

attached to St Eustathius, than ever Yasous was to any set of monks

whatever.

The ringleaders in all these seditious declarations were Abba Tebedin,

superior of the monastery of Gondga, and Kasmati Wali of Damot, by

origin a Galla. These two turbulent men, having first drawn over to

their party the Agows and province of Damot, passed over the Nile

to Goodero and Basso, whom they joined, and then proclaimed king

one Isaac, grandson of Socinios a prince, who was never sent to the

mountain, but whose predecessors, being at liberty when Facilidas

first banished his brothers and children to Wechné, had fled to the

Galla, and there remained in obscurity, waiting the juncture which now

happened to declare his royal descent, and offer himself for king.

The Galla, who sought but a pretence for invading Abyssinia, readily

embraced this opportunity, and swarmed to him on all sides. His army,

in a very short time, was exceedingly numerous, and the Agows and all

Damot were ready to join him when he should repass the Nile. This

revolt was indeed likely to have proved general, but for the activity

and diligence of the king, who, on the first intelligence, put himself

so suddenly in motion that he was on the banks of the Nile before

the Galla on the one side were ready for their junction with the

confederates on the other.

The king’s presence imposed upon the Agows and the rebels of Damot,

so that they let him pass quietly over the Nile into the country of

the Galla, hoping that, as their designs were not discovered, he might

again return through their country in peace if victorious over the

Galla; but, if he was beaten, they then were ready to intercept him.

But the Galla, who expected that they would have had to fight with an

army already fatigued and half-ruined by an action with the Agows on

the other side of the river, no sooner saw it pass the Nile unmolested

in full force, than they began to think how far it was from their

interest to make their country a seat of war, when so little profit was

to be expected. On the approach, therefore, of the king’s army, many

of them deserted to it, and made their peace with him. The few that

remained faithful to Isaac were dispersed after very little resistance;

and he himself being taken prisoner, and brought before the king, was

given up to the soldiers, who put him to death in his presence. On the

king’s side, no person of consideration was slain but Kasmati Maziré,

and very few on the part of the enemy.

This year 1685, the 5th of Yasous’s reign, there was no military

expedition. He had pardoned Abba Tebedin, and Kasmati Wali, and the

monks again desired an assembly of the clergy, which was granted. But

the king seeing, at its first meeting, that it was to produce nothing

but wrangling and invectives; with great calmness and resolution told

the assembly, “That their disputes were of a nature so confused and

unedifying, that he questioned much their being really founded in

scripture; and the rather so, because the patriarch of Alexandria

seemed neither to know, nor concern himself about them, nor was the

Abuna, at his first coming, ever instructed on any one of these

points. If they were, however, founded in scripture, one of them was

confessedly in the wrong; and, if so, he doubted it might be the case

with both; that he had, therefore, come to a resolution to name several

of the best-qualified persons of both parties, who, in the presence of

the Itchegué and Abuna, might inspect the books, and from them settle

some premises that might be hereafter accepted and admitted as _data_

by both.”

This being assented to, the very next year he ordered two of the

priests of Debra Libanos then at Gondar, together with Abba Tebedin,

Cosmas of Aruana, the Abuna Sanuda, and the Itchegué, forthwith to

repair to Debra Mariam, an island in the lake Tzana, where, sequestered

from the world, they might discuss their several opinions, and settle

some points admissible by both sides. After which, without giving any

opportunity for reply, he dissolved the assembly, and took the field

with his army.

The king, though perfectly informed of the part that the whole province

of Damot had taken in the rebellion of Isaac, as also great part of

the Agows, but most of all that tribe called Zeegam, yet had so well

dissembled, that most of them believed he was ignorant of their fault,

and all of them, that he had no thoughts of punishing them, for he had

returned through Damot, after the defeat of Isaac, without shewing

any mark of anger, or suffering his troops to commit the smallest

hostility. He now passed in the same peaceable manner through the

country of Zeegam, intending to attack the Shangalla of Geesa and

Wumbarea.

These two tribes are little known. Like the other Shangalla they are

Pagans, but worship the Nile and a certain tree, and have a language

peculiar to themselves. They are woolly-headed, and of the deepest

black; very tall and strong, straighter and better-made about the

legs and joints than the other blacks; their foreheads narrow, their

cheekbones high, their noses flat, with wide mouths, and very small

eyes. With all this they have an air of chearfulness and gaiety which

renders them more agreeable than other blacks. Their women are very

amorous, and sell at a much greater price than other blacks of the sex.

This country is bounded on the south by Metchakel; on the west by the

Nile; the east by Serako, part of Guesgué and Kuara; and, on the north,

by Belay, Guba, and the Hamidge[62] of Sennaar. They make very frequent

inroads, and surprise the Agows, whose children they sell at Guba to

the Mahometans, who traffic there for gold and slaves, and get iron and

coarse cotton-cloths in return. Their country is full of woods, and

their manner of life the same as has been already described in speaking

of the other tribes.

The Geesa live close upon the Nile, to which river they give their

own name. It is also called Geesa by the Agows, in the small district

of Geesh, where it rises from its source. They never have yet made

peace with Abyssinia, are governed by the heads of families, and live

separately for the sake of hunting, and, for this reason, are easily

conquered. The men are naked, having a cotton rag only about their

middle. The nights are very cold, and they lie round great fires; but

the fly is not so dangerous here as to the eastward, so that goats, in

a small number, live here. Their arms are bows, lances, and arrows;

large wooden clubs, with knobs, nearly as big as a man’s head, at the

end of them; their shields are oval. They worship the Nile, but no

other river, as I have said before; it is called Geesa, which, in their

language, signifies the first Maker, or Creator. They imagine its water

is a cure for most diseases.

East of the Geesa is Wumbarea, which reaches to Belay. The king fell

first on the Geesa, part of whom he took, and the rest he dispersed. He

then turned to the right through Wumbarea, and met with some resistance

in the narrow passes in the mountains, in one of which Kasmati Kosté,

(one of his principal officers) a man of low birth, but raised by his

merit to his present rank, was slain by an arrow.

The king then repassed the Agows of Zeegam, in the same peaceable

manner in which he came, and then marched on without giving any cause

of suspicion, taking up his quarters at Ibaba. It was here he had

appointed an assembly of the clergy to meet, before whom the several

delegates, chosen to consider the controverted points, and find some

ground for a reconciliation, were to make their report. The Abuna,

Itchegué, and all those who, for this purpose, were shut up in Debra

Mariam, appeared before the king. But, however amicably things had been

carried on while they were shut up in the island, the usual warmth and

violence prevailed before the assembly. Ayto Christos, Abba Welled

Christos of Debra Libanos, on one side, and Tebedin and Cosmas on the

other, fell roundly, and without preface, upon a dispute about the

incarnation, so that the affair from argument was likely to turn to

sedition.

The turbulent Tebedin, leaving the matter of religion wholly apart,

inveighed vehemently against the retirement to Debra Mariam, which he

loudly complained of as banishment. Ras Anastasius and Abuna Sanuda

reproved him sharply for the freedom with which he taxed this measure

of the king, and in this they were followed by many of the wiser sort

on both sides. Immediately after the assembly, the king ordered Tebedin

to be put in irons, and sent to a mountainous prison. He then returned

to Gondar.

This year, the 9th of Yasous reign, there appeared a comet, remarkable

for its size and fiery brightness of its body, and for the prodigious

length and distinctness of its tail. It was first taken notice of

at Gondar, two days before the feast of St Michael, on which day the

army takes the field. A sight so uncommon alarmed all sorts of people;

and the prophets, who had kept themselves within very moderate bounds

during this whole reign, now thought that it was incumbent upon them

to distinguish themselves, and be silent no longer. Accordingly they

foretold, from this phenomenon, and published everywhere as a truth

infallibly and immutably pre-ordained, that the present campaign was

to exhibit a scene of carnage and bloodshed, more terrible and more

extensive than any thing that ever had appeared in the annals of

Ethiopia. That these torrents of blood, which were everywhere to follow

the footsteps of the king, were to be stopped by his death, which was

to happen before he ever returned again to Gondar; and, as the object

of the king’s expedition was still a secret, these alarming presages

gained a great deal of credit.

But it was not so with Yasous, who, notwithstanding he was importuned,

by learned men of all sorts, to put off his departure for some days,

absolutely refused, answering always such requests by irony and

derision: “Pho! Pho! says he, you are not in the right; we must give

the comet fair play; use him well, or he will never appear again, and

then idle people and old women will have nothing to amuse themselves

with.”

He accordingly left Gondar at the time he had appointed; and he was

already arrived at Amdaber, a few day’s distance from the capital,

when an express brought him word of his mother’s death, on which he

immediately marched back to Gondar, and buried her in the island of

Mitraha with all possible magnificence, and with every mark of sincere

grief.

Though the prophets had not just succeeded in what they foretold, they

kept nevertheless a good countenance. It is true that no blood was

shed, nor did the king die before he returned to Gondar; but his mother

died when he was away, and that was much the same thing, for they

contended that it was not a great mistake, from the bare authority of

a comet, to err only in the sex of the person that was to die; a queen

for a king was very near calculation. As for the bloody story, and the

king’s death, they said they had mistaken the year in computing, but

that it still was to happen (when it pleased God) _some other time_.

Every body agreed that these explanations were the best possible,

excepting the king, who perceived a degree of malice in the foretelling

his death and certain loss of his army just at the instant he was

taking the field. But he disguised his resentment under strong irony,

with which he attacked these diviners incessantly. He had inquired

accurately the day of his mother’s death: “How is it, says he to his

chaplain, (or kees hatzé) that this comet should come to _foretel_

my mother’s death, when she was dead four days before it appeared?”

Another day, to the same person he said, “I fear you do my mother

too much honour at the expence of religion. Is it decent to suppose

that such a star, the most remarkable appearance at the birth of

Christ, should now be employed on no greater errand than to foretel

the death of the daughter of Guebra Mascal?” These, and many more

such railleries, accounted by these visionaries, as little short of

impiety, so mortified Kostè (the kees hatzé,) a great believer in, and

protector of the dreamers, that he resigned all his employments, and

retired among the hermits into the desert of Werk-leva towards Sennaar,

to study the aspects of the stars more accurately, and more at leisure.

Though we neither pay this comet the superstitious reverence the idle

fanatics of Abyssinia shewed it, nor yet treat it with that contempt

which this great king’s good sense prompted him to do, we shall make

some use of it, acknowledging our gratitude to the historian who has

recorded it. We shall hereby endeavour to establish our chronology

in opposition to that of the catholic writers, relating to the date

of some transactions with which they were not cotemporaries, and

only relate from hearsay, as happening before the arrival of the

missionaries in this country.

Yasous the Great, of whom we are now writing, came to the throne upon

the death of his father Hannes in 1680; the 9th year of this reign then

was 1689.

Hedar is the 3d month of the Abyssinians, and answers to part of our

November; and the 12th of that month, Hedar, is the feast of St Michael

the archangel, or 8th day of our month November, N. S.

Gondar is in lat. 12° 34´ 30´´ N. and in long. 37° 33´ 0´´ E. from the

meridian of Greenwich. By the fiery appearance of the nucleus, or body

of the comet, it certainly then was very near the sun, and either was

going down upon it to its perihelion, or had already passed it, and

was receding to its aphelion; but by its increasing tail, already at

a great length, we may conjecture it was only then going down to its

conjunction, and was then near approaching to the sun.

From this we should conclude that this comet must have been seen,

however rapidly it did move, some time before the 6th of November,

or two days before the feast of St Michael. But this depends on the

circumstances of the climate; for though the tropical rains cease the

first of September, the cloudy weather continues all the month of

October; at the end of these fall the latter rains in gentle showers,

which allay the fevers in Dembea, and make the country wholesome for

the march of the army, and these rains fall mostly in the night. From

this it is probable that the comet, having at first little light and no

tail, as yet at a distance from the sun, was not very apparent to the

naked eye, till by its increased motion and heat it had acquired both

tail and brightness, as it approached its perihelion.

Now we find by our European accounts[63], that, in the year 1689, there

did appear a comet, the orbit of which was calculated by M. Pingrè. And

this comet arrived at its perihelion on the 1st day of December 1689,

so was going down much inflamed, and with a violent motion to the sun,

the 6th of November, when it was observed at Gondar, being but 25 days

then from its perihelion.

As these circumstances are more than sufficient to constitute the

identity of the comet, a phænomenon too rare to risk being confounded

with another, we may hardly conclude the 9th year of Yasous the First

to be the year 1689 of Christ, such as our chronology, drawn from the

Abyssinian annals, states it to be; or, at least, if there is any

error, it must be so small as to be of no sort of consequence to any

sort of readers, or influence upon the narrative of any transactions.

The 10th year began with a sudden and violent alarm, which spread

itself in an instant all over the kingdom without any certain

authority. The Galla with an innumerable army were said to have entered

Gojam, at several places, and laid waste the whole province, and this

was the more extraordinary, as the Nile was now in the height of its

inundation. On his march, the king learned that this story arose merely

from a panic; and this formidable army turned out no more than a small

band of robbers of that nation, who had passed the river in their usual

way, part on horseback, while the foot were dragged over, hanging at

the horses tails, or riding on goats skins blown up with wind. This

small party had surprised some weak villages, killed the inhabitants,

and immediately returned across the river. But the alarm continued,

and there were people at Gondar who were ready to swear they saw the

villages and churches on fire, and a large army of Galla in their march

to Ibaba, at the same time that there was not one Galla on the Gojam

side of the river.

The king, however, either considering this small body of Galla coming

at this unseasonable time, and the panic that was so artificially

spread, as a feint to throw him off his guard when a real invasion

might be intended, or with a view to cover his own designs, summoned

all the men of the province of Gojam to meet him in arms at Ibaba the

7th day of January, being the proper season for preparing an expedition

into the country of the Galla. He himself in the mean time retired to

Dek, an island in the lake Tzana, there to stay till his army should be

collected.

While the king was in the island, a number of the malcontents among the

monks, who had, in the several assemblies, been banished for sedition

with Tebedin, came to him there, desiring to be heard before an

assembly; and they brought with them Arca Denghel, of Debra Samayat, to

support their petition. The king answered, that he was ready to call an

assembly, provided the Abuna desired, or would promise to be present;

but that the Abuna was then at Debra Mariam, where they might go and

know his mind.

The Abuna, who foresaw little good could be expected from such

meetings, and knew how disagreeable they were to the king, absolutely

refused to attend. On this they returned again to the king, desiring

that, of his own mere prerogative, he would call their assembly without

consulting further the Abuna. To this the king answered boldly, That

he knew it was his right to call his subjects together, without any

other reason for so doing but his will; yet, when the avowed cause of

the meeting was to canvass matters of faith, he had made it a rule to

himself, that the Abuna should always be present, or at least consent

to the meeting. And with this answer he ordered them all to depart

immediately.

Many of the principal people about the king advised him to put these

turbulent people in irons, for daring to come into his presence without

leave. But Yasous was contented to remand each to the place of his

banishment from whence he came. He then removed from Dek to Ibaba, on

the 10th of January, the journey being no more than two easy days;

but, whether it was that the Galla did not intend another invasion, or

whether they were overawed by the king’s preparations and presence, and

did not think themselves safe even in their own country, none of them

this year passed the Nile, or gave any uneasiness either to Gojam or

Damot.

Though the whole nation believed that the king’s attention was entirely

engaged in the various expeditions against the Galla and Shangalla,

which he executed with so much diligence and success, yet there was

still a principal object superior to all these, which remained a secret

in his own breast, after the parties concerned had absolutely forgot

it. All his campaigns against the Shangalla were only designed to lull

asleep those he considered as his principal enemies, that he might make

the blow he aimed at them more certain and effectual.

Six years had now passed since the Agows, and particularly the most

powerful tribe of them, the Zeegam, had, with those of Damot and the

Galla, conspired to put the crown upon the head of the rebel prince

Isaac, who had lost his life in the engagement which followed on the

other side of the Nile. It will be remembered also, that the country

of the Agows is in general open, full of rich plains, abundantly

watered by variety of fine streams; in other parts, gentle risings

and descents, but without mountains, saving that, almost in every

tribe, Nature had placed one rugged mountain to which these people

retired upon the approach of their neighbouring enemies the Galla and

Shangalla. This description does, in a more extensive manner, belong to

the country of the Zeegam, the most powerful, rich, and trading tribe

of the whole nation.

Not one single mountain, but a considerable ridge, divides the country

nearly in the middle, the bottom of which, and nearly one-third up,

is covered with brush-wood, full of stiff bamboos and canes, bearing

prickly fruit, with aloes, acacia very thorny, and of several dwarf

shrubby kinds, interspersed with the kantuffa[64], a beautiful thorn,

which alone is considered, where it grows thick and in abundance, as

a sufficient impediment for the march of a royal army. Through these

are paths known only to the inhabitants themselves, which lead you to

the middle of the mountain, where are large caves, probably begun by

Nature, and afterwards enlarged by the industry of man. The mouths of

these are covered with bushes, canes, and wild oats, that grow so as to

conceal both man and horse, while the tops of these mountains are flat

and well-watered, and there they sow their grain out of the reach of

the enemy. Upon the first alarm they drive the cattle to the top, lodge

their wives and children in the caves, and, when the enemy approaches

near, they hide the cattle in the caves likewise, some of which

cavities are so large as to hold 500 oxen, and all the people to which

they belong. The men then go down to the lowest part of the mountain,

from whose thickets they sally, upon every opportunity that presents

itself, to attack the enemy whom they find marauding in the plains.

The king had often assembled his army at Ibaba, only four days march

from Zeegam. He had done more; he had passed below the country,

and returned by the other side of it, in his attack upon Geesa and

Wumbarea; but he had never committed any act of hostility, nor shewn

himself discontented with them. To deceive them still farther, he

ordered now his army to meet him at Esté in Begemder; and sent to

Kasmati Claudius, governor of Tigré, to join him with all his forces as

soon as he should hear he was arrived at Lama, a large plain before we

descend the steep mountain of Lamalmon, which stands not far from the

banks of the river Tacazzé. He privately gave orders also to Kasmati

Claudius, Kasmati Dimmo Christos of Tigré, and to Adera and Quaquera

Za Menfus Kedus, to inform themselves where the water lay below, and

whether there was enough for his army in Betcoom, for so they call the

territory of the eastern branch of Shangalla adjoining to Siré and

Tigré. By this manœuvre the enemy was deceived, as the most intelligent

thought he was to attack Lasta, and the others, that knew the secret of

the water, were sure his march was against the Shangalla.

The king began his march from Ibaba, and crossed the Nile at the second

cataract below Dara, where there is a bridge; and, entering Begemder,

he joined his army at Esté, which was going in a route directly from

Agow and Damot towards Lasta. But no sooner was he arrived at Esté,

than, that very night, he suddenly turned back the way he came, and,

marching through Maitsha, he crossed the Nile, for the second time, at

Goutto, above the first cataract.

The morning of the 3d of May, the sixth day of forced marches, without

having encamped the whole way, he entered Zeegam at the head of his

army. He found the country in perfect security, both people and

cattle below on the plains and in the villages; and having put all

to the sword who first offered themselves, and the principal of the

conspirators being taken prisoners, he sold their wives and children

at a public auction for slaves to the highest bidder. He then took the

principal men among them along with him for security for paying six

years tribute which they were in arrears, fined them 6000 oxen, which

he ordered to be delivered upon the spot; and then collecting his army,

he sent to the chiefs of Damot to meet him before he entered their

territory, and to bring security with them for the fine he intended to

lay upon them, otherwise he would destroy their country with fire and

sword; and he advanced the same day to Assoa, south of the sources of

the Nile, divided only from Damot by the ridge of mountains of Amid

Amid.

The people of Damot, inhabiting an open level country without defence,

had no choice but to throw themselves on the king’s mercy, who fined

them 500 ounces of gold and 100 oxen, and took the principal people

with him in irons as hostages.

He then returned, leaving the sources of the Nile on his right, through

Dengui, Fagitta, and Aroosi; crossed the river Kelti, having the Agow

and Atchesser on his left, and returned to Gondar by Dingleber. He

then gave 2000 cattle to the churches of Tecla Haimanout and Yasous,

being neared the king’s palace, to the Itchegué Hannes, the judges and

principal servants of his household, to all a share, without reserving

one to himself. And the rains being now very constant, (for it was the

25th of June) he resolved to continue the rest of the winter in Gondar

to regulate the affairs of the church.

This year the king resumed his expedition against the Shangalla,

towards which he had taken several preparatory steps, while he was

projecting the surprise of the Zeegam. These are the Troglodytes on

the eastern part of Abyssinia, towards the Red Sea, south of Walkayt,

Siré, Tigré, and Baharnagash, till they are there cut off by the

mountains of the Habab. These, the most powerful of all their tribes,

are comprehended under the general name of _Dobenah_; the tribe Baasa,

which we have already spoken of as occupying the banks of the Tacazzé,

are the only partners they have in the peninsula formed by that river

and the Mareb. Their country and manner of life have been already

abundantly described. It is all called Kolla, in opposition to Daga,

which is the general name of the mountainous parts of Abyssinia.

The king, being informed by Kasmati Claudius that there was water in

great plenty at Betcoom, marched from Gondar the 29th of October to

Deba, thence to Kossoguè, after to Tamama. He then turned to the left

to a village called Sidrè, nearer to the Shangalla. From this station

he forbade the lighting fires in the camp, and took the road leading to

the Mareb; then turning to the left, the 1st of December he surprised a

village called Kunya. The king was the first who began the attack, and

was in great danger, as Mazmur, captain of his guard, was killed by a

lance at his side. But the soldiers rushing in upon sight of the king’s

situation, who had already slain two with his own hand, the village was

carried, and the inhabitants put to the sword, refusing all to fly, and

fighting obstinately to the last gasp.

From Kunya the king proceeded rapidly to Tzaada Amba[65], the largest

and most powerful settlement of these savages. They have no water

but what they get from the river Mareb, which, as I have elsewhere

observed, rises above Dobarwa, and, after making the circle of that

town, loses itself soon after in the sand for a space, then appears

again, and, after a short course, hides itself a second time to the N.

E. near the Taka, whose wells it supplies with fresh water. But in the

rainy months it runs with a full-stream, in a wide and deep bed, and

unites itself to the Tacazzé, with it making the northmost point of the

ancient island of Meroë.

The king met the same success at Tzaada Amba that he had before

experienced at Kunya, at which last village he passed the feast of the

epiphany and benediction of the waters; a ceremony annually observed

both by the Greek and Abyssinian church, the intent of which has been

strangely mistaken by foreigners.

From Kunya, his head-quarters, Yasous attacked the several nations

of which this is, as it were, the capital, Zacoba, Fadè, Qualquou,

and Sahalé, and he returned again to Tzaada Amba, resolving to

complete their destruction. The remains of these miserable people,

finding resistance vain, had hid themselves in inaccessible caves in

the mountains, and the thickest parts of the woods, where they lay

perfectly concealed in the day-time, and only stole out when thirst

obliged them at night. The king, who knew this, and that they had no

other water but what they brought from the Mareb, formed a strong line

of troops along the banks of that river, till the greatest part of the

Shangalla of Tzaada Amba died with thirst, or were taken or slain by

the army.

His next enterprize was to attempt Betcoom, a large habitation of

Shangalla east of the Mareb, whose number, strength, and reputation for

courage, had hitherto prevented the Abyssinians from molesting them,

never having touched, unless the farthest skirts of their country. The

names of their tribes inhabiting Betcoom are, Baigada, Dadé, Ketfè,

Kicklada, Moleraga, Megaerbé, Gana, Selé, Hamta, Shalada, Elmsi, and

Lentè. The small river of Lidda falling from a high precipice, when

swelled with the winter rains, hollows out deep and large reservoirs

below, which it leaves full of water when the rains cease, so that

these people are here as well supplied with water as those that dwell

on the large rivers the Mareb and Tacazzé. This was a circumstance

unknown, till this sagacious and provident king ordered the place to

be reconnoitred by Kasmati Claudius, then marched and encamped on the

river Lidda, which, after a short but violent course, falls into the

Mareb.

The Shangalla of Betcoom did nothing worthy of their reputation or

numbers. They had already procured intelligence of the fate of great

part of their nation, and had dispersed themselves in unknown and

desolate places. The king, however, made a considerable number of

slaves of the younger sort, and killed as many of the rest as fell into

his hands.

Leaving Betcoom, the army proceeded still eastward; passed through the

mountains of the Habab, into the low level country which runs parallel

to the Red Sea, at the base of these mountains, where he spent several

days hunting the elephant, some of which he slew with his own hand, and

turned then to the left to Amba Tchou[66] and Taka.

The Taka are a nation of Shepherds living near the extremity of the

rains. They are not Arabs, but live in villages, and were part formerly

of the Bagla, or Habab; they speak the language of Tigré, and are now

reputed part of the kingdom of Sennaar.

While the king was at Taka, he received the disagreeable news, that,

after he had left the Shangalla on the Mareb, Mustapha Gibberti, a

Mahometan soldier in the service of Kasmati Fasa Christos of Dedgin,

had, with a small number of men, ventured down, thinking that he should

surprise the Shangalla of Tzaada Amba, before they recovered from

their late misfortune. This Mustapha had slain two or three Shangalla

with fire-arms; and at first they stood aloof as fearing the king. But

finding soon that it was no part of his army, and only a small body

of adventurers, the Shangalla ‘now collected in numbers, surrounded

Mustapha and his party, whom they cut off to a man; and, pursuing their

advantage, they entered and took Dedgin, wounded Kasmati Fasa Christos,

and put the inhabitants of the town to the sword’.

News of this misfortune were carried speedily to Kasmati Claudius,

governor of Tigré: Cassem, a Mahometan, led the Gibbertis, the people

of that religion in the province; and, as he was an advanced party,

came speedily to blows with the Shangalla, and was closely engaged,

with great appearance of success, when Claudius came up with an army

that would soon have put an end to the contest. But no sooner was

his army engaged with the Shangalla, than a panic seized him, and he

sounded a retreat; which, in an instant, became a most shameful flight.

Cassem and his gibbertis fell, fighting to the last man in the middle

of their enemies. The Shangalla followed their advantage, and great

part of the Abyssinian army perished in the flight; Claudius, tho’ he

escaped, left his standard, kettle-drums, and his whole province in

possession of the enemy.

The king, upon hearing this, returned hastily into Siré; and his

presence established order and tranquillity in that province, already

half abandoned for fear of the Shangalla. From Siré the king proceeded

to Axum, where he celebrated his victories over the Shangalla, by

several days of feasting and thanksgiving.

In the midst of this rejoicing, news were brought that Murat, a servant

of the king, whom he had dispatched to India with merchandise, to

bring such commissions as he stood in need of, was arrived at Masuah,

where Musa the Naybe, or Turkish governor of the island, had detained

him, and seized his goods, under some vexatious pretences. There is

not indeed a more merciless, thievish set of miscreants, than in that

government of Masuah. But the king knew too well the few resources that

island had, to be long in applying a remedy, without moving from Axum;

after being fully informed of the affair, in all its circumstances,

by Murat, he sent to Abba Saluce, Guebra Christos, and Zarabrook of

Hamazen, the governors of the districts, that as it were surround

Masuah, prohibiting all, upon pain of death, to suffer any provisions

to be carried by any person whatever into the island of Masuah.

A severe famine instantly followed, which was to terminate in certain

death, before any relief could come to them, unless from Abyssinia.

The Naybe Musa, therefore, found into what a terrible scrape he had

got; but hunger did not leave him a moment to deliberate. No third

way remained, but either he must see the king, or die; and without

hesitation he chose the former. He, therefore, set out for Axum,

bringing with him Murat and all the merchandises he had seized, as also

several very considerable presents for Yasous himself, who accepted

them, received his submission, and ordered the communication with

Abyssinia to be open as before. This done, he dismissed the Naybe, who

returned to Masuah in peace.

The next affair that came before the king was that of Kasmati Claudius,

(governor of Tigré) who was accused and found guilty of having fled

while the battle with the Shangalla was yet undecided, leaving his

standard and kettle-drums in the power of the enemy. Besides his

present misbehaviour, strong prejudice existed against him, drawn from

his former character; for it was averred, from very credible authority,

that on one occasion, upon a very slender appearance of sedition,

he ordered his troops to fire upon several priests of Axum, some of

whom were killed on the spot. Besides which, in the reign of Hatzè

Hannes, he was found guilty of capital crimes committed at Emfras,

condemned to die, and was already hanging upon the tree, when a very

seasonable reprieve arrived from the king, and he was thereupon cut

down whilst yet alive. Yasous contented himself with depriving him of

his employment, and afterwards sending him to perpetual banishment.

The next brought to their trial were Za Woldo, and Adera and his sons.

These last were very near relations to the king, for they were sons of

Ozoro Keduset Christos, daughter of Facilidas. They were accused of

having deserted their country and left it waste to be over-run by wild

beasts, and a rendezvous for the Shangalla, who thence extended their

incursions as far as Waldubba. Of this there was ample proof against

them, and they were therefore sentenced to die, but the king commuted

their punishment into that of being imprisoned for life in a cave in

the island of Dek.

As for the province of Siré itself, he declared all the inhabitants and

nobility, degraded from their rank, and all lands, whether feus from

the king, or held by any other tenure, were confiscated, resumed by,

and re-united to the crown. He then reduced the whole province from a

royal government to a private one, and annexed it to the province of

Tigré, whose governor was to place over it a shum, or petty officer,

without any ensigns of power. And, last of all, he gave the government

of Tigré to the Ras Feres, or master of the horse, in room of Kasmati

Claudius degraded and banished.

The many striking examples which the king had lately given, one close

upon the other, of his own personal bravery, his impartial justice, his

secrecy in his expeditions, and the certain vengeance that followed

where it was deserved, his punishment of the Zeegam, his expedition

against the Shangalla, his affair with the Naybe Musa, and his

behaviour to the cowardly Claudius and dastardly nobility of Siré,

fully convinced his subjects of all degrees, that neither family, nor

being related to the crown, nor the strength of their country, nor

length of time since they offended, nor indeed any thing but a return

to and continuance in their duty, could give them security under such

a prince. Thus ended the campaign of the Dobenah, spoke of to this

day in Abyssinia as the greatest warlike atchievement of any of their

kings. Twenty-six thousand men are said to have perished by thirst

when the king took possession of the water at Tzaada Amba. And yet,

notwithstanding the small-pox which, in some places, exterminated

whole tribes, the Dobenah have not lost an inch of territory, but seem

rather to be gaining upon Siré.

Yasous arrived at Dancaz on the 8th of March 1692, having dismissed his

army as he passed Gondar. From Dancaz he went to Lasta, and after a

short stay there, came to Arringo in Begemder. At this place the king

received accounts that far exceeded his expectations, and gratified his

warmest wishes. He had long endeavoured to gain a party among the Galla

to divide them; and, though no marks of success had yet followed, he

still had continued to use his endeavours.

On his arrival at Arringo, he was met by a chief of the southern

Galla, called Kal-kend, who brought him advice that, while he was

busy with the Shangalla, an irruption had been made into Amhara by

the Galla tribes of Liban and Toluma; that they, the king’s friends,

had come up with them at Halka, fought with them, and beat them, and

freed Amhara entirely from all apprehension. The king, exceedingly

rejoiced to see his most inveterate enemies become the defenders of his

country, ordered the governor of Amhara to pay the Kal-kend 500 webs

of cotton-cloth, 500 loads of corn, and escort both the men and the

present till they were safely delivered in their own country.

The 30th of June the king arrived at Gondar from Arringo, and

immediately summoned an assembly of the clergy to meet and receive

a letter from the patriarch of Alexandria, brought by Abba Masmur

of Agde, and Abba Dioscuros of Maguena, who were formerly sent to

Egypt to ask the patriarch why he displaced Abuna Christodulus, and

appointed Abba Sanuda in his room, and desiring that Abba Marcus should

be made Abuna, and Sanuda deposed. The clergy met very punctually, and

the patriarch’s letter was produced in the assembly, the seal examined,

and declared to be the patriarch’s, and unbroken. The letter being

opened by the king’s order, it contained the patriarch’s mandate to

depose Abba Sanuda, and to put Marcus Abuna in his place, which was

immediately done by command of the king.

While Yasous was thus busied in directing the affairs of his kingdom

with great wisdom and success, both in church and state, a matter was

in agitation, unknown to him, at a distance from his dominions, which

had a tendency to throw them again into confusion.

Towards the end of the last century, there was settled at Cairo a

number of Italian missionaries of the reformed Order of St Francis,

who, though they lived in the same convent, and were maintained at the

expence of the fathers of the Holy Land, yet did they still pretend

to be independent of the guardian of Jerusalem, the superior of these

latter.

The expence of their maintenance, joined with their pretensions to

independence, gave great offence to those religious of the Holy Land,

who thereupon carried their complaints to Rome, offering to be at the

whole charge of the mission of Egypt, and to furnish from their own

society subjects capable of attending to, and extending the Christian

faith. This offer met with the desired success at Rome. The mission of

Egypt, to the exclusion of every other Order, was given to the fathers

of Jerusalem, or the Holy Land, whom we shall henceforth call Capuchin

friars. These capuchins lost no time, but immediately dismissed the

reformed Franciscans, whom we shall hereafter distinguish by the name

of Franciscans, suffering only two of that Order to remain at Cairo.

The Franciscans, thus banished, returned all to Rome, and there, for

several years together, openly defended their own cause, insisting upon

the justice of their being replaced in the exercise of their ancient

functions. This, however, they found absolutely impossible. They were a

poor Order, and the interest of the capuchins had stopped every avenue

of the sacred college against them. Finding, therefore, that fair and

direct means could not accomplish their ends, they had recourse to

others not so commendable, and by these they succeeded, and obtained

their purpose. They pretended that, when the Jesuits were chased out of

Abyssinia, a great number of Catholics, avoiding the persecution, had

fled into the neighbouring countries of Sennaar and Nubia; that they

still remained, most meritoriously preserving their faith amidst the

very great hardships inflicted upon them by the infidels; but that,

under these hardships, they must soon turn Mahometans, unless spiritual

assistance was speedily sent them.

This representation, as totally void of truth as ever fable was, was

confirmed by the two Franciscans, who still remained at Cairo by

permission of the capuchins, or fathers of the Holy Land; and, when

afterwards published at Rome, it excited the zeal of every bigot

in Italy. All interested themselves in behalf of these imaginary

Christians of Nubia; and pope Innocent XII. was so convinced of the

truth of the story, as to establish a considerable fund to support the

expence of this, now called the Ethiopic mission, the sole conduct of

which remains still with the reformed Franciscans.

To take care of these fugitive Christians of Nubia, though it was the

principal, yet it was not the only charge committed to the fathers of

his mission. They were to penetrate into Abyssinia, and keep the seeds

of the Romish faith alive there until a proper time should present

itself for converting the whole kingdom.

In order to this, a large convent was bought for them at Achmim, the

ancient Panopolis in Upper Egypt, that here they might be able to

afford a refreshment to such of their brethren as should return weary

and exhausted by their preaching among the Nubian confessors; and, for

further assistance, they had permission to settle two of their Order at

Cairo, independent of the fathers of the Holy Land, notwithstanding the

former exclusion.

Such is the state of this mission at the present time. No Nubian

Christians ever existed at the time of their establishment, nor is

there one in being at this day. But if their proselytes have not

increased, their convents have. Achmim, Furshout, Badjoura, and Negadè

are all religious houses belonging to this mission, although I never

yet was able to learn, that either Heretic, or Pagan, or Mahometan,

was so converted as to die in the Christian faith at any one of these

places; nor have they been much troubled with relieving their brethren,

worn out with the toils of Abyssinian journies, none of them, as far

as I know, having ever made one step towards that country; nor is this

indeed to be regretted by the republic of letters, because, besides

a poor stock of scholastic divinity, not one of them that I saw had

either learning or abilities to be of the smallest use either in

religion or discovery.

It was now the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis XIV. almost

an Augustan age, and generally allowed so, both in France and among

foreigners. Men of merit, of all countries and professions, felt

the effects of the liberality of this great encourager of learning;

public works were undertaken, and executed superior to the boasted

ones of Greece or Rome, and a great number and variety of noble events

constituted a magnificent history of his reign, in a series of medals.

Religion alone had yet afforded no hint for these. His conduct in this

matter, instead of that of a hero, shewed him to be a blind, bloody,

merciless tyrant, madly throwing down in a moment, with one hand, what

he had, with the assistance of great ministers, been an age in building

with the other. The Jesuits, zealous for the honour of the king, their

great protector, thought this a time to step in and wipe away the

stain. With this view they set upon forwarding a scheme, which might

have furnished a medal superior to all the rest, had its inscription

been, “The Kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts.”

Father Fleuriau, a friend of father de la Chaise, the king’s confessor,

was employed to direct the consul of Cairo, that he should, in

co-operation with the Jesuits privately, send a fit person into

Abyssinia, who might inspire the king of that country with a desire

of sending an embassy into France, and, upon the management of this

political affair, they founded their hopes of getting themselves

replaced in the mission they formerly enjoyed, and of again superseding

their rivals the Franciscans, in directing all the measures to be taken

for that country’s conversion. But this required the utmost delicacy,

for it was well known, that the court of Rome was very much indisposed

towards them, imputing to their haughtiness, implacability, and

imprudence, the loss of Abyssinia. Their conduct in China, where they

tolerated idolatrous rites to be blended with Christian worship, began

also now to be known, and to give the greatest scandal to the whole

church. It was, therefore, necessary to make the king declare first in

their favour before they began to attempt to conciliate the pope.

Louis took upon him the protection of this mission with all the

readiness the Jesuits desired; and the Jesuit Verseau was sent

immediately to Rome, with strong letters to cardinal Jansen, protector

of France, who introduced him to the pope.

Verseau knew well the consequence of the protection with which he was

honoured. At his first audience he declared, in a very firm voice and

manner, to the pope, that the king had resolved to take upon himself

the conduct of the Ethiopic mission, and that he had cast his eyes upon

them (the Jesuits) as the fittest persons to be entrusted with the

care of it, for _reasons best known to himself_. The pope dissembled;

he extolled, in the most magnificent terms, the king’s great zeal for

the advancement of religion, approved of the choice he had made of the

Jesuits, and praised their resolution as highly acceptable to him,

immediately consenting that Verseau, and five other Jesuits, should

without delay pass into Abyssinia.

But it very soon appeared, that, however this might be the language

of the pope, nothing could be more remote from his intentions; for,

without the knowledge of the Jesuits, or any way consulting them, he

appointed the superior of the Franciscans to be his legate a latere to

the king of Abyssinia, and provided him with presents to that prince,

and the chief noblemen of his court.

Some time afterwards, when, to prevent strife or concurrence, the

Jesuits applied to the pope to receive his directions which of the two

should first attempt to enter Abyssinia, the Franciscans, or their own

Order, the pope answered shortly, That it should be those who were most

expert. Whether this apparent indisposition of his Holiness intimidated

Verseau is not known; but, instead of going to Cairo, he went to

Constantinople, thence to Syria, to a convent of his Order of which

he was superior, and there he staid. So that the Ethiopic mission at

Cairo remained in the hands of two persons of different Orders, the one

Paschal, an Italian Franciscan friar, the other a Jesuit and Frenchman,

whose name was Brevedent.