Brevedent was a person of the most distinguished piety and probity,

zealous in promoting his religion, but neither imprudent nor rash in

his demonstrations of it; affable in his carriage, chearful in his

disposition, of the most profound humility and exemplary patience.

Besides this, he was reputed a man of good taste and knowledge in

profane learning, and, what crowned all, an excellent mathematician.

He seems indeed to me to have been a copy of the famous Peter Paez, who

first gave an appearance of stability to the Portuguese conversion of

Abyssinia; like him he was a Jesuit, but of a better nation, and born

in a better age.

I must here likewise take notice of what I have already hinted, that

in Abyssinia the character of ambassador is not known. They have no

treaties of peace or commerce with any nation in the world: But, for

purposes already mentioned, factors are employed; and, Abyssinia

being everywhere surrounded by Mahometans, these of course have the

preference; and, as they carry letters from their masters, the custom

of the East obliges them to accompany these with presents to the

sovereigns of the respective kingdoms through which they pass, and

this circumstance dignifies them with the title of ambassador in the

several courts at which they have business. Such was Musa, a factor of

the king, whom we have seen detained, and afterwards delivered by the

Naybe of Masuah, not many years before, in this king’s reign; and such

also was Hagi Ali, then upon his master’s business at Cairo, when M. de

Maillet was consul there, and had received his instructions from father

Fleuriau at Paris, to bring about this embassy from Abyssinia.

Besides his other business, Hagi Ali had orders to bring with him a

physician, if possible, from Cairo; for Yasous and his eldest son were

both of a scorbutic habit, which threatened to turn into a leprosy.

Hagi Ali, in former voyages, had been acquainted with a capuchin friar

Paschal; and, having received medicines from him before, he now applied

to Paschal to return with him into Abyssinia, and undertake the cure

of the king. Paschal very readily complied with this, upon condition

that he should be allowed to take for his companion a monk of his own

Order, friar Anthony; to which Hagi Ali readily consented, happy in

being enabled to carry two physicians to his master instead of one.

The French consul was soon informed of this treaty with the friar

Paschal; and, having very easy means to bring Hagi Ali to his house,

he informed him, that neither Paschal nor Anthony were physicians, but

that he himself had a man of his own nation, whose merit he extolled

beyond any thing that had hitherto been said of Hippocrates or Galen.

Hagi Ali very willingly accepted of the condition, and it was agreed

that, as Verseau had not appeared, Brevedent above mentioned should

attend the physician as his servant.

This physician was Charles Poncet, a Frenchman, settled in Cairo, who

was (as Mr Maillet says) bred a chymist and apothecary, and, if so,

was necessarily better skilled in the effects and nature of medicine

than those are who call themselves physicians, and practise in the

east. Nothing against his private character was intimated by the

consul at this time; and, with all deference to better judgment, I

must still think, that if Poncet did deserve the epithets of drunkard,

liar, babbler, and thief, which Maillet abundantly bestows upon him

towards the end of this adventure, the consul could not have chosen a

more improper person as the representative of his master, nor a more

probable one to make the design he had in hand miscarry; nor could he,

in this case, ever vindicate the preventing Paschal’s journey, who must

have been much fitter for all the employments intended than such a man

as Poncet was, if one half is true of that which the consul said of him

afterwards.

Maillet, having so far succeeded, prevailed upon one Ibrahim Hanna,

a Syrian, to write five letters, according to his own ideas, in the

Arabic language, one of which was to the king, the four others to

the principal officers at the court of Abyssinia: doubting, however,

whether Ibrahim’s expressions were equal to the sublimity of his

sentiments, he directed him to submit the letters to the consideration

of one Francis, a monk, capuchin, or friar of the Holy Land. Ibrahim

knew not this capuchin; but he was intimate with another Francis of the

reformed Franciscan Order, and to him by mistake he carried the letters.

These Franciscans were the very men from whom Mr de Maillet would have

wished to conceal the sending Poncet with the Jesuit Brevedent; but

the secret being now revealed, Ibrahim Hanna was discharged the French

service for this mistake; and Hagi Ali departing immediately after with

Poncet and Brevedent, no time remained for the Franciscans to take the

steps they afterwards did to bring about the tragedy in the person of

Poncet, which they completely effected in that of Mr Noir du Roule.

Mr Poncet, furnished with a chest of medicines at the expence of the

factory, accompanied by father Brevedent, who, in quality of his

servant, now took the name of Joseph, joined Hagi Ali, and the caravan

destined in the first place, to Sennaar the capital of Nubia.

Poncet set out from Cairo on the 10th of June of the year 1698, and,

fifteen days after, they came to Monfalout, a considerable town upon

the banks of the Nile, the rendezvous of the caravan being at Ibnah,

half a league above Monfalout. Here they tarried for above three

months, waiting the coming of the merchants from the neighbouring towns.

In the afternoon of the 24th of September, they advanced above a league

and a half distance, and took up their lodging at Elcantara, or the

bridge, on the eastern bank of the Nile. A large calish, or cut, from

the Nile stretches here to the east, and, at that season, was full of

water, the inundation being at its height.

Poncet believes he was on the eastern banks of the Nile; but this is a

mistake. Siout and Monfalout, the cities he speaks of, are both on the

western banks of that river; nor had the caravan any thing to do with

the eastern banks, when their course was for many days to the west, and

to the southward of west. Nor was the bridge he passed a bridge over

the Nile. There are no bridges upon that river from the Mediterranean

till we arrive at the second cataract near the lake Tzana in Abyssinia.

The amphitheatre and ruins he speaks of are the remains of the ancient

city Isiu; and what he took for the Nile was a calish from the river to

supply that city with water.

The 2d of October the caravan set out in earnest, and passed, as he

says, into a frightful desert of sand, having first gone through a

narrow passage, which he does not mention, amidst those barren, bare,

and stony mountains which border the valley of Egypt on the west.

The 6th of October they came to El-Vah, a large village, or town,

thick-planted with palm-trees, the Oasis Parva of the ancients, the

last inhabited place to the west that is under the jurisdiction of

Egypt. By softening the original name, Poncet calls this Helaoue,

which, as he says, signifies _sweetness_. But surely this was never

given it from the productions he mentions to abound there, _viz._ senna

and coloquintida. The Arabs call El-Vah a shrub or tree, not unlike

our hawthorn either in form or flower. It was of this wood, they say,

Moses’s rod was made when he sweetened the waters of Marah. With a

rod of this wood, too, Khalid Ibn el Waalid, the great destroyer of

Christians, sweetened these waters at El-Vah, once very bitter, and

gave it the name from this miracle. A number of very fine springs burst

from the earth at El-Vah, which renders this small spot verdant and

beautiful, though surrounded with dreary deserts on every quarter; it

is situated like an island in the midst of the ocean.

The caravan rested four days at El-Vah to procure water and provisions

for the continuation of the journey thro’ the desert. Poncet’s

description of the unpleasantness of this, is perfectly exact, and

without exaggeration. In two days they came to Cheb, where there

is water, but strongly impregnated with alum, as the name itself

signifies; and, three days after, they reached Selima, where they found

the water good, rising from an excellent spring, which gives its name

to a large desert extending westward forty-five days journey to Dar

Fowr, Dar Selè, and Bagirma, three small principalities of Negroes

that live within the reach of the tropical rains.

At Selima they provided water for five days; and, on the 26th of

October, having turned their course a little to the eastward, came to

Moscho, or Machou, a large village on the western banks of the Nile,

which Poncet still mistakes for the eastern, and which is the only

inhabited place since the leaving El-Vah, and the frontiers of the

kingdom of Dongola, dependent upon that of Sennaar. The Nile here takes

the farthest turn to the westward, and is rightly delineated in the

French maps.

Poncet very rightly says, this is the beginning of the country of the

Barabra, or Berberians, (I suppose it is a mistake of the printer

when called in the narrative Barauras). The true signification of the

term is _the land of the Shepherds_, a name more common and better

known in the first dynasties of Egypt than in more modern histories.

The Erbab (or governor) of this province received him hospitably, and

kindly invited him to Argos, his place of residence, on the eastern or

opposite side of the Nile, and entertained him there, upon hearing from

Poncet that he was sent for by the king of Abyssinia.

After refreshing themselves eight days at Moscho, they left it on the

4th of November 1698, and arrived at Dongola on the 13th of the same

month. The country which he passed along the Nile is very pleasant, and

is described by him very properly. It does not owe its fertility to the

overflowing of the Nile, the banks of that river being considerably too

high. It is watered, however, by the industry of the inhabitants, who,

by different machines, raise water from the stream.

We are not to attribute to Poncet, but to those who published, the

story here put into father Brevedent’s mouth about the fugitive

Christians in Nubia, which fable gave rise to the first institution of

the Ethiopic mission. “It drew tears, says he, from the eyes of father

Brevedent, my dear companion, when he reflected that it was not long

since this was a Christian country; and that it had not lost the faith

but only for want of some person who had zeal enough to consecrate

himself to the instruction of this abandoned nation.” He adds, that

upon their way they found a great number of hermitages and churches

half ruined; a fiction derived from the same source.

Dongola was taken, and apostatized early, and the stones of hermitages

and churches had long before this been carried off, and applied to the

building of mosques. Father Brevedent, therefore, if he wept for any

society of Christians at Dongola, must have wept for those that had

perished there 500 years before.

Poncet was much caressed at Dongola for the cures he made there. The

Mek, or king, of that city wished him much to stay and settle there;

but desisted out of respect, when he heard he was going to the emperor

of Ethiopia. Dongola, Poncet has placed rightly on the eastern bank of

the Nile, about lat. 20° 22´.

The caravan departed from Dongola on the 6th of January 1699; four days

after which they entered into the kingdom of Sennaar, where they met

Erbab Ibrahim, brother of the prime minister, and were received civilly

by him. He defrayed their expences also as far as Korti, where they

arrived the 13th of January.

Our travellers from Korti were obliged to enter the great desert of

Bahiouda, and cross it in a S. E. direction till they came to Derreira,

where they rested two days, which, Poncet says, was done to avoid the

Arabs upon the Nile. These Arabs are called Chaigie; they inhabit the

banks of that river to the N. E. of Korti, and never pay the king his

revenue without being compelled and very ill-treated.

The country about Derreira is called Belled Ullah, from the cause of

its plenty rather than the plenty itself. This small district is upon

the very edge of the tropical rains, which it enjoys in part; and, by

that, is more fruitful than those countries which are watered only by

the industry of man. The Arabs of these deserts figuratively call rain

Rahamet Ullah, ‘the mercy of God’, and Belled Ullah, ‘the country which

enjoys that mercy.’

Some days after the caravan came to Gerri. Poncet says, the use of this

station was to examine caravans coming from the northward, whether they

had the small-pox or not. This usage is now discontinued by the decay

of trade. It must always have served little purpose, as the infection

oftener comes in merchandise than by passengers. At Gerri great respect

was shewn to Poncet, as going to Ethiopia.

I cannot conceive why Poncet says, that, to avoid the great windings

of the Nile, he should have been obliged to travel to the north-east.

This would have plainly carried him back to the desert of Bahiouda, and

the Arabs: his course must have been S. W. to avoid the windings of the

Nile, because he came to Herbagi, which he describes very properly as a

delicious situation. The next day they came to Sennaar.

The reader, I hope, will easily perceive that my intention is not

to criticise Mr Poncet’s journey. That has been done already so

illiberally and unjustly that it has nearly brought it into disrepute

and oblivion. My intention is to illustrate it; to examine the facts,

the places, and distances it contains; to correct the mistakes where it

has any, and restore it to the place it ought to hold in geography and

discovery. It was the first intelligible itinerary made through these

deserts; and I conceive it will be long before we have another; at any

rate, to restore and establish the old one will, in all sensible minds,

be the next thing to having made a second experiment.

He surely is in some degree of mistake about the situation of Sennaar

when he says it is upon an eminence. It is on a plain close on the

western banks of the Nile. A small error, too, has been made about its

latitude. By an observation said to have been made by father Brevedent,

the 21st of March 1699, he found the latitude of Sennaar to be 13° 4´

north. The French maps, the most correct we have in all that regards

the east, place this capital of Nubia in lat. 15° and a few minutes.

But the public may rest assured, that the correct latitude of Sennaar,

by a mean of very small differences of near fifty observations, made

with a three-feet brass quadrant, in the course of several months I

staid in that town, is lat 13° 34´ 36´´ north.

What I have to say further concerning Sennaar will come more naturally

in my own travels; and I shall only so far consider the rest of

Poncet’s route, as to explain and clear it from mistakes, Sennaar being

the only point in which our two tracts unite.

I shall beg the reader to remark, that, from the time of Poncet’s

setting out of Egypt till his arrival at Sennaar, so far was he from

being ill-looked upon, or any bad construction being put upon his

errand, that he was, on the contrary, respected everywhere, as going to

the king of Abyssinia. It never was then imagined he was to dry up the

Nile, nor that he was a conjurer to change its course, nor that he was

to teach the Abyssinians to cast cannon and make war, nor that he was

loaded with immense sums of money. These were all _piæ fraudes_, lies

invented by the priests and friars to incite these ignorant barbarians

to a crime which, though it passed unrevenged, will justly make these

brethren in iniquity the detestation of men of every religion in all

ages.

Poncet left Sennaar the 12th of May 1699, and crossed the Nile at

Basboch, about four miles above the town, where he stopped for three

days. This he calls a fair village; but it is a very miserable one,

consisting of scarce 100 huts, built of mud and reeds.

He departed the 15th in the evening, and travelled all the night as

far as Bacras, and arrived the day after at Abec; then at Baha, a long

day’s journey of about ten hours. He is mistaken, however, when he says

Baha is situated upon the banks of the Nile, for it is upon a small

river that runs into it. But, at the season he passed it, most of those

rivers were dried up.

On the 19th he came to Dodar, a place as inconsiderable as Baha; then

to Abra, a large village; then to Debarke and Enbulbul. On the 25th

they came to Giesim. Giesim is a large village situated upon the banks

of the Nile, in the middle of a forest of trees of a prodigious height

and size, all of which are loaded with fruit or flowers, and crowded

with paroquets, and variety of other birds, of a thousand different

colours. They made a long stay at this place, not less than nineteen

days.

In this interval, father Brevedent is said to have made an observation

of the latitude of the place, which, if admitted, would throw all the

geography of this journey into confusion. Poncet says, that Giesim

is half-way between Sennaar and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and that

a small brook, a little beyond Serké, is the boundary between those

states. Now, from Sennaar to Giesim are nine stages, and one of them we

may call a double one, but between Giesim and Serkè, only four; Giesim

then cannot be half way between Sennaar and Serkè.--Again, the latitude

of Sennaar is 13° 4´ north, according to Brevedent, or rather 13°

34´. Now, if the latitude of Giesim be 10°, then the distance between

Sennaar and it must be about 250 miles which they had travelled in

eight days, or more than thirty miles a-day, which, in that country, is

absolutely impossible.

But what must make this evident is, that we know certainly that Gondar,

the metropolis to which they were then going, is in lat. 12° 34´ north.

Giesim then would be south of Gondar, and the caravan must have passed

it when the observation was made. But they were not yet arrived at the

confines of Sennaar, much less to the capital of Abyssinia, to which

they were indeed advancing, but were still far to the northward of it.

There is a mistake then in this observation which is very pardonable,

Brevedent being then ill of a mortal dysentery, which terminated in

death soon after. We shall, therefore, correct this error, making the

latitude of Giesim 14° 12´ north, about 110 English miles from Sennaar,

and 203 from Gondar.

The 11th of June they set out from Giesim for Deleb, then to Chow, and

next to Abotkna. They rested all night, the 14th, in the delightful

valley of Sonnone, and, two days after, they came to Serkè, a large

town of trade, where there are many cotton weavers. Here ends the

kingdom of Sennaar, the brook without this town being the boundary of

the two states.

Arrived now in Abyssinia, they halted at Tambisso, a village which

belongs to the Abuna; next at Abiad, a village upon the mountain. On

the 23d they stopped in a valley full of canes and ebony-trees, where

a lion carried away one of their camels. On the 24th they passed the

Gandova, a large, violent, and dangerous river. The country being

prodigiously woody, one of their beasts of carriage, straggling from

the caravan, was bit on the hip by a bear, as Mr Poncet apprehends.

But we are now in the country corresponding to that inhabited by

the Shangalla, that is one of the hottest in the world, where the

thermometer rises to 100° in the shade. Bears are not found in climates

like this; and most assuredly there are none even in the higher and

colder mountains above. Poncet does not say he saw the bear, but judged

only by the bite, which might have been that of a lion, leopard, or

many other animals, but more probably that of the hyæna.

The 27th they arrived at Girana, a village on the top of a mountain.

Here they left their camels, and began to ascend from the Kolla into

the more temperate climate in the mountains of Abyssinia. From Girana

they came to Barangoa, and the next day to Tchelga, where anciently was

the customhouse of Sennaar while peace and commerce subsisted between

the two kingdoms. The 3d of July they arrived at Barcos, or Bartcho,

about half a day’s journey from Gondar; and on the 9th of August father

Brevedent died. Poncet was himself detained by indisposition at this

village of Barcos till the 21st of July, on which day he set out for

Gondar and arrived in the evening, where he succeeded to his wishes,

performing a complete cure upon his royal patient in a very short time;

and so fulfilled this part of his mission as perfectly as the ablest

physician could have done.

As for the other part with which he was charged, I doubt very much if

it was in his power to perform it in another manner than he did. It

required a mind full of ignorance and presumption, such as was that of

Mr de Maillet and all the missionaries at the head of whom he was,

to believe that it was possible for a private man, such as Poncet,

without language, without funds, without presents, or without power

or possibility of giving them any sort of protection in the way, to

prevail upon 26 or 28 persons, on the word of an adventurer only, to

attempt the traversing countries where they ran a very great risk of

falling into slavery--to do what? why, to go to France, a nation of

Franks whose very name they abhorred, that they might be instructed in

a religion they equally abhorred, to meet with certain death if ever

they returned to their own country; and, unless they did return, they

were of no sort of utility whatever.

M. de Maillet should have informed himself well in the beginning, if it

was possible that the nobility in Abyssinia could be so contemptible as

to suffer twelve of their children to go to countries unknown, upon the

word of a stranger, at least of such a doubtful character as Poncet. I

say doubtful, because, if he was such a man as M. de Maillet represents

him, a drunkard, a liar, a thief, a man without religion, a perpetual

talker, and a superficial practitioner of what he called his own trade,

surely the Abyssinians must have been very fond of emigration, to have

left their homes under the care of such a patron as this. When did M.

de Maillet ever hear of an Abyssinian who was willing to leave his own

country and travel to Cairo, unless the very few priests who go for

duty’s sake, for penances or vows, to Jerusalem? When did he ever hear

of an Abyssinian layman, noble, or plebeian, attending even the Abuna

though the first dignitary of the church? We shall see presently a poor

slave, a Christian Abyssinian boy, immediately under the protection of

M. de Maillet, and going directly from him into the presence of his

king, taken forcibly from the chancellor of the nation[67], and made a

Mahometan before their eyes.

The Abyssinian embassy then demanded from France, and recommended to M.

de Maillet, was a presumptuous, vain, impracticable chimera, which must

have ended in disappointment, and which never could have closed more

innocently than it did.

I shall pass over all that happened during Poncet’s stay at Gondar, as

he did not understand the language, and must therefore have been very

liable to mistake. But as for what he says of armies of 300,000 men;

of the king’s dress at his audience; of his mourning in purple; of

the quantity of jewels he had, and wore; of his having but one wife;

and of large stone-crosses being erected on the corners of the palace

at Gondar; these, and several other things, seem to me to have been

superadded afterwards. Nor do I think what is said of the churches and

Christians remaining in the kingdom of Dongola, nor the monstrous lie

about the golden rod suspended in the air in the convent of Bisan[68],

is at all the narrative of Poncet, but of some fanatic, lying friar,

into whose possession Poncet’s manuscript might have fallen. The

journey itself, such as I have restored it, is certainly genuine; and,

as I believe it describes the best and safest way into Abyssinia, I

have rectified some of the few errors it had, and now recommend it to

all future travellers, and to the public.

This is to be understood of his travels to Abyssinia, his journey in

returning being much more inaccurate and incomplete, the reason of

which we have in his own words: “I have not, says he, exactly noted

down the places through which we passed, the great weakness I then lay

under not permitting me to write as I could have wished.” I shall,

therefore, say little upon his return, as the deficiency will be

carefully supplied by the history of my own journey from Masuah, the

road by which he left the country being very nearly the same as that by

which I entered.

It was on the 2d of May of the year 1700 that Poncet left Gondar and

took his journey to the town of Emfras. Here there is a mistake in the

very beginning. Emfras[69], at which place I staid for several weeks,

is in lat. 12° 12´ 38´´, and long. 37° 38´ 30´´, consequently about 22

miles from Gondar, almost under the same meridian, or south from it;

so that, as he was going to the east, and northward of east, this must

have been so many miles out of his way; for, going towards Masuah, his

first station must have been upon the river Angrab.

The same may be said of his next to Coga. It was a royal residence

indeed, but very much out of his way. He has forgot likewise, when

he says, that, in the way from Gondar to Emfras, you must go over a

very high mountain. The way from Gondar to Emfras is the beaten way to

Begemder, Foggora, and Dara, and so on to the second cataract of the

Nile. It is on that plain the armies were encamped before the battle

of Serbraxos[70], whence the road passes by Correva, which is indeed

upon a rising ground, sloping gently to the lake Tzana, but is not

either mountain or hill.

Seven or eight days are a space of time just enough for the passing

through Woggora, where he justly remarks the heats are not so excessive

as in the places he came from. He takes no notice of the passage of

Lamalmon, which ought to have been very sensible to a man in a decayed

state of health, the less so as he was only descending it. Every thing

which relates to the passage of the Tacazzé is just and proper, only

he calls the river itself the Tekesel, instead of the true name, the

_Tacazzé_. It was the Siris of the ancients; and it is doing justice

to both countries, when he compares the province of Siré with the most

delicious parts of his own country of France. This province is that

also where he might very probably receive the young elephant, which he

says awaited him there as a present to the king of France, and which

died a few days after.

He passed afterwards to Adowa. It is the capital of Tigré, is still the

seat of its governor, and was that of Ras Michael in my time. All that

he says of the intermediate country and its productions, shew plainly

that his work is genuine, and his remarks to be those of an eye-witness.

From this province of Tigré he enters the country of the Baharnagash,

and arrives at Dobarwa, which he erroneously calls Duvarna, and

says it is the capital of the province of Tigré, whereas it is that

of the Baharnagash. Isaac Baharnagash, when in rebellion against his

sovereign, surrendered this town to the Turks in the year 1558, as may

be seen at large in my history of the transactions of those times.

As the authenticity of this journey, and the reality of Poncet’s

having been in Abyssinia, has been questioned by a set of vain,

ignorant, fanatic people, and that from malice only, not from spirit

of investigation, of which they were incapable, I have examined every

part of it, and compared it with what I myself saw, and shall now give

one other instance to prove it genuine, from an observation Poncet has

made, and which has escaped all the missionaries, though it was entire

and visible in my time.

Among the ruins of Axum[71] there is a very high obelisk, flat on both

sides, and fronting the south. It has upon it no hieroglyphic, but

several decorations, or ornaments, the fancy of the architect. Upon a

large block of granite, into which the bottom of it is fixed, and which

stands before it like a table, is the figure of a Greek patera, and on

one side of the obelisk, fronting the south, is the representation of

a wooden door, lock, and a latch to it, which first seems designed to

draw back and then lift up, exactly in the manner those kind of locks

are fashioned in Egypt at this very day. Poncet observed very justly,

there are no such locks made use of in Abyssinia, and wonders how they

should have represented a thing they had never seen, and, having done

so, remained still incapable to make or use it. Poncet was no man of

reading out of his own profession; he nowhere pretends it; he recorded

this fact because he saw it, as a traveller should do, and left others

to give the reason which he could not. Poncet calls this place Heleni,

from a small village of that name in the neighbourhood. Had he been a

scholar he would have known that the ruins he was observing were those

of the city of Axum, the ancient metropolis of this part of Ethiopia.

Ptolemy Evergetes, the third Grecian king of Egypt, conquered this

city and the neighbouring kingdom; resided some time there; and, being

absolutely ignorant of hieroglyphics, then long disused, he left the

obelisk he had erected for ascertaining his latitudes ornamented with

figures of his own choosing, and the inventions of his subjects the

Egyptians, and particularly the door for a convenience of private life,

to be imitated by his new-acquired subjects the Ethiopians, to whom it

had hitherto been unknown.

From Dobarwa he arrived at Arcouva, which, he says, geographers

miscall Arequies. M. Poncet might have spared this criticism upon

geographers till he himself had been better informed, for both are

equally miscalled, whether Arcouva or Arequies. The true and only name

of the place, known either to Mahometans or Christians, is Arkeeko, as

the island to which he passed, crossing an arm of the sea, is called

Masuah, not Messoua, as he everywhere spells it.

From Masuah, Poncet crossed the Red Sea to Jidda, passing the island

Dahalac and Kotumbal, a high rock, the name of which is not known to

many navigators.

Had old Murat, Musa, and Hagi Ali, happened at that time to have been

upon some mercantile errand to Cairo, there is no doubt but they would

have been preferred and become ambassadors to France. They would have

gone there, perplexed the minister and the consul with a thousand

lies and contrivances, which the French never would have been able to

unravel; they would have promised every thing; obtained from the king

some considerable sum of money, on which they would have undertaken

to send the embassy in any form that was prescribed, and, after their

return home, never been heard of more. But those worthies were,

probably, all employed at this time; therefore the only thing Poncet

could do was to bring Murat, since he was to procure at all events an

ambassador.

He had been a cook to a French merchant at Aleppo; was a maker of

brandy at Masuah; and probably his uncle old Murat’s servant at the

time. But he was not the worse ambassador for this. Old Murat, Hagi

Ali, and Musa, had perhaps been also cooks and servants in their

time. Prudence, sobriety, and good conduct, skill in languages, and

acquaintance, with countries recommended them afterwards to higher

trusts. Old Murat probably meant that his nephew should begin his

apprenticeship with that embassy to France; and M. Poncet, to increase

his consequence, and fulfil the commission the consul gave him, allowed

him to invent all the rest.

Poncet, from Jidda, went to Tor, and thence to Mount Sinai, where,

after some stay, being overtaken by Murat, they both made their entry

into Cairo.

M. de Maillet, the consul, was an old Norman gentleman, exceedingly

fond of nobility, consequently very haughty and overbearing to those

he reckoned his inferiors, among which he accounted those of his own

nation established at Cairo, though a very amiable and valuable set

of men. He was exceedingly testy, choleric, obstinate, and covetous,

though sagacious enough in every thing concerning his own interest. He

lived for the most part in his closet, seldom went out of his house,

and, as far as I could learn, never out of the city. There, however, he

wrote a description of all Egypt, which since has had a considerable

degree of reputation[72].

Maillet had received advice of the miserable state of this embassy from

Jidda, that the Sherriffe of Mecca had taken from Poncet, by force,

two female Abyssinian slaves, and that the elephant was dead; which

particulars being written to France, he was advised in a letter from

father Fleuriau by no means to promote any embassy to the court of

Versailles; that a proper place for it was Rome; but that in France

they looked upon it in the same light as they did upon an embassy from

Algiers or Tunis, which did no honour to those who sent it, and as

little to those that received it; this, however, was a new light.

M. de Maillet, by this letter, becoming master of the ambassador’s

destiny, began first to quarrel with him upon etiquette, or who should

pay the first visit; and, after a variety of ill-usage, insisted upon

seeing his dispatches. This Murat refused to permit, upon which the

consul sent privately to the basha, desiring him to take the dispatches

or letters from Murat, sending him at the same time a considerable

present.

The basha on this did not fail to extort a letter from Murat by threats

of death. He then opened it. It was in Arabic, in very general and

indifferent terms, probably the performance of some Moor at Masuah,

written at Murat’s instance. And well was it for all concerned that it

was so; for had the letter been a genuine Abyssinian letter, like those

of the empress Helena and king David III. proposing the destruction

of Mecca, Medina, and the Turkish ships on the Red Sea, the whole

French nation at Cairo would have been massacred, and the consul and

ambassador probably impaled.

The Jesuits, ignorant of this manœvure of M. de Maillet, but alarmed

and scandalized at this breach of the law of nations, for such the

basha’s having opened a letter, addressed to the king of France, was

justly considered, complained to M. Feriol the French ambassador at

Constantinople, who thereupon sent a capigi from the port, to inquire

of the basha what he meant by thus violating the law of nations, and

affronting a friendly power of such consequence as France.

These capigis are very unwelcome guests to people in office to whom

they are sent. They are always paid by those they are sent to. Besides

this, the report they carry back very often costs that person his

life. The basha, accused by the capigi at the instance of the French

ambassador at Constantinople, answered like an innocent man, That he

had done it by desire of the French consul, from a wish to serve him

and the nation, otherwise he should never have meddled in the matter.

The consequence was, M. de Maillet was obliged to pay the basha the

expence of the capigi; and, having some time afterwards brought it in

account with the merchants, the French nation at Cairo, by deliberation

of the 6th of July of the year 1702, refused to pay 1515 livres, the

demand of the basha, and 518 livres for those of his officers.

The consul, however, had gained a complete victory over Murat, and

thereupon determined to send Monhenaut, chancellor of France at Cairo,

with letters, which, though written and invented by himself, he

pretended to be translations from the Ethiopian original.

But father Verseau, the Jesuit, now returned to Cairo, who had entered

into a great distrust of the consul since the discovery of his intrigue

with the basha about Murat’s letter, resolved to be of the party.

Poncet, who was likewise on bad terms with the consul, neither inclined

to lose the merits of his travels into Abyssinia, nor trust the recital

of it to Monhenaut, or to the manner in which it might be represented

in the consul’s letters. These three, Monhenaut, Poncet, and Verseau,

set out therefore for Paris with very different views and designs. They

embarked at Bulac, the shipping-place of Cairo upon the Nile, taking

with them the ears of the dead elephant.

The remaining part of the present brought for the king of France by

this illustrious embassy, was an Abyssinian boy, a slave bought by

Murat, and who had been hid from the search of the Sherriffe, when he

forcibly took from him the two Abyssinian girls, part of the intended

present also. This boy no sooner embarked on board the vessel at Bulac

than a great tumult arose. The janizaries took the boy out of the

vessel by force, and delivered him to Mustapha Cazdagli, their kaya;

nor could all the interest of M. de Maillet and the French nation, or

all the manœuvres of the Jesuits, ever recover him.

As for Monhenaut, Poncet, and Verseau, his protectors, they were

obliged to hide themselves from the violence of the mob, nor dared

they again to appear till the vessel sailed. And happy was it for them

that this fell out at Cairo, for, had they offered to embark him at

Alexandria, in all probability it would have cost all of them their

lives.

I must beg leave here to suggest to the reader, how dangerous, as

well as how absurd, was the plan of this embassy. It was to consist

of twenty-eight Abyssinians, twelve of whom were to be sons of noble

families, all to be embarked to France. What a pleasant day would the

embarkation have been to M. de Maillet! What an honourable appearance

for his king, in the eyes of other Christian princes, to have seen

twenty-eight Christians under his immediate protection, twelve of

whom we might say were princes, (as all the nobility in Abyssinia are

directly of the family of the king), from motives of vanity only, by

the pride of the Jesuits, and the ignorance of the consul, hurried in

one day into apostacy and slavery! Whatever Maillet thought of Poncet’s

conduct, his bringing Murat, and him only, cook as he was, was the very

luckiest accident of his life.

I know French flatterers will say this would not have happened, or,

if it had, a vengeance would have followed, worthy the occasion and

the resentment of so great a king, and would have prevented all such

violations of the law of nations for the future. To this I answer, The

mischief would have been irreparable, and the revenge taken, however

complete, would not have restored them their religion, and, without

their religion, they themselves would not have returned into their own

country, but would have remained necessary sacrifices, which the pride

and rashness of the Jesuits had made to the faith of Mahomet.

Besides, where is the threatened revenge for the assassination of M.

du Roule, then actual ambassador from the king of France, of which I

am now to speak? Was not the law of nations violated in the strongest

manner possible by his murder, and without the smallest provocation?

What vengeance was taken for this?--Just the same as would have been

for the other injury; for the Jesuits and consul would have concealed

the one, as tenderness for the Franciscan Friars had made them cover

the other, left their abominable wickedness should be exposed. If the

court of France did not, their consul in Cairo should have known what

the consequence would be of decoying twenty-eight Abyssinians from

their own country, to be perverted from their own religion, and remain

slaves and Mahometans at Cairo, a nuisance to all European nations

established there.

Upon the arrival of the triumvirate at Paris, Monhenaut immediately

repaired to the minister; Verseau was introduced to the king, and

Poncet, soon after, had the same honour. He was then led as a kind

of show, through all Paris, cloathed in the Abyssinian dress, and

decorated with his gold chain. But while he was vainly amusing himself

with this silly pageantry, the consul’s letters, and the comments made

upon them by Monhenaut, went directly to destroy the credit of his ever

having been in Abyssinia, and of the reality of Murat’s embassy.

The Franciscan friars, authors of the murder of M. du Roule, enemies to

the mission, as being the work of the Jesuits; M. Piques, member of the

Sorbonne, a body never much distinguished for promoting discoveries,

or encouraging liberal and free inquiry; Abbé Renaudot, M. le Grande,

and some ancient linguists, who, with great difficulty, by the industry

of M. Ludolf, had attained to a very superficial knowledge of the

Abyssinian tongue, all fell furiously upon Poncet’s narrative of his

journey. One found fault with the account he gave of the religion of

the country, because it was not so conformable to the rites of the

church of Rome, as they had from their own imagination and prejudice,

and for their own ends conceived it to be. Others attacked the truth

of the travels, from improbabilities found, or supposed to be found,

in the description of the countries through which he had passed; while

others discovered the forgery of his letters, by faults found in the

orthography of that language, not one book of which, at that day, they

had ever seen.

All these empty criticisms have been kept alive by the merit of the

book, by this alone they have any further chance of reaching posterity;

while, by all candid readers, this itinerary, short and incomplete as

it is, will not fail to be received as a valuable acquisition to the

geography of these unknown countries of which it treats.

I think it but a piece of duty to the memory of a fellow-traveller, to

the lovers of truth and the public in general, to state the principal

objections upon which this outcry against Poncet was raised; that, by

the answers they admit of, the world may judge whether they are or are

not founded in candour, and that before they are utterly swallowed up

in oblivion.

The first is, that of the learned Renaudot, who says he does not

conceive how an Ethiopian could be called by the name of Murat. To

this I answer, Poncet, de Maillet, and the Turkish Basha, say Murat

was an Armenian, a hundred times over; but M. Renaudot, upon his own

authority, makes him an Ethiopian, and then lays the blame upon others,

who are not so ignorant as himself.

Secondly, Poncet asserts Gondar was the capital of Ethiopia; whereas

the Jesuits have made no mention of it, and this is supposed a strong

proof of Poncet’s forgery. I answer, The Jesuits were banished in

the end of Socinios’s reign, and the beginning of that of his son

Facilidas, that is about the year 1632; they were finally extirpated in

the end of this last prince’s reign, that is before the year 1666, by

his ordering the last Jesuit Bernard Nogueyra, to be publicly hanged.

Now Gondar was not built till the end of the reign of Hannes I. who was

grandson to Socinios, that is about the year 1680. Unless, then, these

holy Jesuits, who, if we believe the missionaries, had all of them a

sight into futurity before their martyrdom, had, from these their _last

visions_, described Gondar as capital of Abyssinia, it does not occur

to me how they should be historians of a fact that had not existence

till 50 years after they were dead.

Thirdly, Poncet speaks of towns and villages in Ethiopia; whereas

it is known there are no towns, villages, or cities, but Axum.--I

believe that if the Abyssinians, who built the large and magnificent

city of Axum, never had other cities, towns, and villages, they were

in this the most singular people upon earth; or, if places where

6000 inhabitants live together in contiguous houses, separated with

broad streets where there are churches and markets, be not towns and

villages, I do not know the meaning of the term; but if these are

towns, Poncet hath said truth; and many more such towns, which he never

did see nor describe, are in Abyssinia at this day.

Fourthly, The Abyssinians live, and always have lived, in tents, not in

houses.--It would have been a very extraordinary idea in people living

in tents to have built such a city as Axum, whose ruins are as large

as those of Alexandria; and it would be still more extraordinary, that

people, in such a climate as Abyssinia, in the whole of which there

is scorching weather for six months, deluges of rain, storms of wind,

thunder, lightning, and hurricanes, such as are unknown in Europe,

for the other six, should choose to live in tents, after knowing how

to build such cities as Axum. I wonder a man’s understanding does not

revolt against such absurdities in the moment he is stating them.

The Abyssinians, while at war, use tents and encampments, to secure the

liberty of movements and changing of ground, and defend themselves,

when stationary, from the inclemency of the weather. But no tent has,

I believe, yet been invented that could stand in the fields in that

country from June to September; and they have not yet formed an idea of

Abyssinia who can suppose this.

I conceive it is _ignorance_ of the language which has led these

_learned_ men into this mistake. The Abyssinians call a house, standing

by itself, allotted to any particular purpose, Bet. So Bet Negus is a

palace, or the house of a king; Bet Christian is a church, or a house

for Christian worship; whilst Bet Mocha is a prison, or house under

ground. But houses in towns or villages are called Taintes, from the

Abyssinian word Tain, to sleep, lie down, rest, or repose. I suppose

the similitude of this word to tents has drawn these _learned_ critics

to believe, that, instead of towns, these were only collections of

tents. But still I think, no one acquainted with the Abyssinian

language, or without being so, would be so void of understanding as to

believe, a people that had built Axum of stone, should endure, for ages

after, a tropical winter in bare tents.

The fifth thing that fixes falsehood upon Poncet is, that he describes

delicious valleys beyond European ideas; beautiful plains, covered

with odoriferous trees and shrubs, to be everywhere in his way on the

entrance of Abyssinia; whereas, when Salidan’s brother conquered

this country, the Arabian books say they found it destitute of all

this fruitfulness. But, with all submission to the Arabian books, to

Abbé Renaudot and his immense reading, I will maintain, that neither

Salidan, nor his brother, nor any of his tribe, ever conquered the

country Poncet describes, nor were in it, or ever saw it at a distance.

The province where Poncet found these beautiful scenes lies between

lat. 12 and 13°. The soil is rich, black mould, which six months

tropical rain are needed to water sufficiently, where the sun is

vertical to it twice a-year, and stationary, with respect to it, for

several days, at the distance of 10°, and at a lesser distance still

for several months; where the sun, though so near, is never seen, but

a thick screen of watery clouds is constantly interposed, and yet the

heat is such, that Fahrenheit’s thermometer rises to 100° in the shade.

Can any one be so ignorant in natural history, as to doubt that, under

these circumstances, a luxuriant, florid, odoriferous vegetation must

be the consequence? Is not this the case in every continent or island

within these limits all round the globe?

But Poncet contradicts the Arabian books, and all travellers, modern

and ancient; for they unanimously agree that this country is a dreary

miserable desert, producing nothing but Dora, which is millet, and such

like things of little or no value. I wish sincerely that M. Renaudot,

when he was attacking a man’s reputation, had been so good as to name

the author whose authority he relied on. I shall take upon me to deny

there ever was an Arabian book which treated of this country. And with

regard to the ancient and modern travellers, his quotations from

them are, if possible, still more visionary and ridiculous. The only

ancient travellers, who, as I believe, ever visited that country, were

Cambyses’s ambassadors; who, probably, passed this part of Poncet’s

track when they went to the Macrobii, and the most modern authors (if

they can be called modern) that came nearest to it, were the men sent

by Nero[73] to discover the country, whose journey is very doubtful;

and they, when they approached the parts described by Poncet, say “the

country began to be green and beautiful.” Now I wish M. Renaudot had

named any traveller more modern than these messengers of Nero, or more

ancient than those ambassadors of Cambyses, who have travelled through

and described the country of the Shangalla.

I, that have lived months in that province, and am the only traveller

that ever did so, must corroborate every word Poncet has said upon this

occasion. To dwell on landscapes and picturesque views, is a matter

more proper for a poet than a historian. Those countries which are

described by Poncet, merit a pen much more able to do them justice,

than either his or mine.

It will be remembered when I say this, it is of the country of the

Shangalla, between lat. 12° and 13° north, that this is the people who

inhabit a hot woody stripe called Kolla, about 40 or 50 miles broad,

that is from north to south, bounded by the mountainous country of

Abyssinia, till they join the Nile at Fazuclo, on the West.

I have also said, that, for the sake of commerce, these Shangalla have

been extirpated in two places, which are like two gaps, or chasms,

in which are built towns and villages, and through which caravans

pass between Sennaar and Abyssinia. All the rest of this country is

impervious and inaccessible, unless by an armed force. Many armies have

perished here. It is a tract totally unknown, unless from the small

detail that I have entered into concerning it in my travels.

And here I must set the critic right also, as to what he says of the

produce of these parts. There is no grain called Dara, at least that I

know of. If he meant millet, he should have called it Dora. It is not a

mark of barrenness in the ground where this grows: part of the finest

land in Egypt is sown with it. The banks of the Nile which produce

Dora would also produce wheat; but the inhabitants of the desert like

this better; it goes farther, and does not subject them to the violent

labour of the plough, to which all inhabitants of extreme hot countries

are averse.

The same I say of what he remarks with regard to cotton. The finest

valleys in Syria, watered by the cool refreshing springs that fall from

Mount Libanus, are planted with this shrub; and, in the same grounds

alternately, the tree which produces its sister in manufactures, silk,

whose value is greatly inhanced by the addition. Cotton clothes all

Ethiopia; cotton is the basis of its commerce with India, and of the

commerce between England, France, and the Levant; and, were it not for

some such ignorant, superficial reasoners as Abbé Renaudot, cotton,

after wool, should be the favourite manufacture of Britain. It will in

time take place of that ungrateful culture, flax; will employ more

hands, and be a more ample field for distinguishing the ingenuity of

our manufacturers.

We see, then, how the least consideration possible destroys these

ill-founded objections, upon which these very ignorant enemies of

Poncet attempted to destroy his credit, and rob him of the merit of

his journey. At last they ventured to throw off the mask entirely, by

producing a letter supposed to be written from Nubia by an Italian

friar, who asserts roundly, that he hears Poncet was never at the

capital of Ethiopia, nor ever had audience of Yasous; but stole the

clothes and money of father Brevedent, then married, and soon after

forsook his wife and Ethiopia together.

Maillet could have easily contradicted this, had he acted honestly; for

Hagi Ali had brought him the king of Abyssinia’s letter, who thanked

him for his having sent Poncet, and signified to him his recovery.

But without appealing to M. Maillet upon the subject, I conceive

nobody will doubt, that Hagi Ali had a commission to bring a physician

from Cairo to cure his master, and that Poncet was proposed as that

physician, with consent of the consul. Now, after having carried Poncet

the length of Bartcho, where it is agreed he was when Brevedent died,

(for he was supposed there to have robbed that father of his money)

what could be Hagi Ali’s reason for not permitting him to proceed half

a day’s journey farther to the capital, and presenting him to the king,

who had been at the pains and expence of sending for him from Egypt?

What excuse could Hagi Ali make for not producing him, when he must

have delivered the consul’s letters, telling him that Poncet was come

with the caravan for the purpose of curing him?

Besides this, M. de Maillet saw Hagi Ali afterwards at Cairo, where

he reproached him with his cruel behaviour, both to Poncet and to

friar Justin, another monk that had come along with him from Ethiopia.

Maillet then must have been fully instructed of Poncet’s whole life

and conversation in Ethiopia, and needed not the Italian’s supposed

communication to know whether or not he had been in Ethiopia. Besides,

Maillet makes use of him as the forerunner of the other embassy he was

then preparing to Gondar, and to that same king Yasous, which would

have been a very strange step had he doubted of his having been there

before.

Supposing all this not enough, still we know he returned by Jidda,

and the consul corresponded with him there. Now, how did he get from

Bartcho to the Red Sea without passing the capital, and without

the king’s orders or knowledge? Who franked him at those number of

dangerous barriers at Woggora, Lamalmon, the Tacazzé, Kella, and Adowa,

where, though I had the authority of the king, I could not sometimes

pass without calling force to my assistance? Who freed him from the

avarice of the Baharnagash, and the much more formidable rapacity of

that murderer the Naybe, who, we have seen in the history of this

reign, attempted to plunder the king’s own factor Musa, though his

master was within three days journey at the head of an army that in a

few hours could have effaced every vestige of where Masuah had stood?

All this, then, is a ridiculous fabrication of lies; the work, as I

have before said, of those who were concerned in the affair of the

unhappy Du Roule.

Poncet, having lost all credit, retired from Paris in disgrace, without

any further gratification than that which he at first received. He

carried to Cairo with him, however, a gold watch and a mirror, which he

was to deliver to the consul as a present to his companion Murat, whose

subsistence was immediately stopped, and liberty given him to return to

Ethiopia.

Nor did Maillet’s folly stop here. After giving poor Murat all the

ill-usage a man could possibly suffer, he entrusted him with a

Jesuit[74] whom he was to introduce into Ethiopia, where he would

certainly have lost his life had not the bad-treatment he received by

the way made him return before he arrived at Masuah.

This first miscarriage seemed only to have confirmed the Jesuits more

in their resolution of producing an embassy. But it now took another

form. Politicians and statesmen became the actors in it, without a

thought having been bestowed to diminish the enemies of the scheme, or

render their endeavours useless, by a superior knowledge of the manners

and customs of the country through which this embassy was to pass.

No adventurer, or vagrant physician, (like Poncet) was to be employed

in this second embassy. A minister versed in languages, negociations,

and treaties, accompanied with proper drugomans and officers, was to

be sent to Abyssinia to cement a perpetual friendship and commerce

between two nations that had not a national article to exchange with

each other, nor way to communicate by sea or land. The minister, who

must have known this, very wisely, at giving his fiat, pitched upon the

consul M. de Maillet to be the ambassador, as a man who was acquainted

with the causes of Poncet’s failure, and, by following an opposite

course, could bring this embassy to a happy conclusion for both nations.

Maillet considered himself as a general whose business was to direct

and not to execute. A tedious and troublesome journey through dangerous

deserts was out of the sphere of his closet, beyond the limits of which

he did not choose to go. Beyond the limits of this, all was desert to

him. He excused himself from the embassy, but gave in a memorial to

serve as a rule for the conduct of his successor in the nomination in

a country he had never seen; but this, being afterwards adopted as a

well-considered regulation, proved one of the principal causes of the

miscarriage and tragedy that followed.

M. Noir du Roule, vice-consul at Damiata, was pitched upon as the

ambassador to go to Abyssinia. He was a young man of some merit, had

a considerable degree of ambition, and a moderate skill in the common

languages spoken in the east, but was absolutely ignorant of that of

the country to which he was going, and, what was worse, of the customs

and prejudices of the nations through which he was to pass. Like most

of his countrymen, he had a violent predilection for the dress,

carriage, and manners of France, and a hearty contempt for those of

all other nations; this he had not address enough to disguise, and

this endangered his life. The whole French nation at Cairo were very

ill-disposed towards him, in consequence of some personal slight, or

imprudences, he had been guilty of; as also towards any repetition of

projects which brought them, their commerce, and even their lives into

danger, as the last had done.

The merchants, therefore, were averse to this embassy; but the Jesuits

and Maillet were the avowed supporters of it, and they had with them

the authority of the king. But each aimed to be principal, and had very

little confidence or communication with his associate.

As for the capuchins and Franciscans, they were mortally offended with

M. de Maillet for having, by the introduction of the Jesuits, and the

power of the king of France, forcibly wrested the Ethiopic mission from

them which the pope had granted, and which the sacred congregation of

cardinals had confirmed. These, by their continual communication with

the Cophts, the Christians of Egypt, had so far brought them to adopt

their designs as, one and all, to regard the miscarriage of du Roule

and his embassy, as what they were bound to procure from honour and

mutual interest.

Things being in these circumstances, M. du Roule arrived at Cairo, and

took upon him the charge of this embassy, and from that moment the

intrigues began.

The consul had persuaded du Roule, that the proper presents he should

take with him to Sennaar were prints of the king and queen of France,

with crowns upon their heads; mirrors, magnifying and multiplying

objects, and deforming them; when brocade, sattin, and trinkets of gold

or silver, iron or steel, would have been infinitely more acceptable.

Elias, an Armenian, a confidential servant of the French nation, was

first sent by way of the Red Sea into Abyssinia, by Masuah, to proceed

to Gondar, and prepare Yasous for the reception of that ambassador,

to whom he, Elias, was to be the interpreter. So far it was well

concerted; but, in preparing for the end, the middle was neglected. A

number of friars were already at Sennaar, and had poisoned the minds

of that people, naturally barbarous, brutal, and jealous. Money, in

presents, had gained the great; while lies, calculated to terrify and

enrage the lower class of people, had been told so openly and avowedly,

and gained such root, that the ambassador, when he arrived at Sennaar,

found it, in the first place, necessary to make a _procez verbal_, or

what we call a precognition, in which the names of the authors, and

substance of these reports, were mentioned, and of this he gave advice

to M. de Maillet, but the names and these papers perished with him.

It was on the 9th of July 1704 that M. du Roule set out from Cairo,

attended by a number of people who, with tears in their eyes, foresaw

the pit into which he was falling. He embarked on the Nile; and, in

his passage to Siout, he found at every halting-place some new and

dangerous lie propagated, which could have no other end but his

destruction.

Belac, a Moor, and factor for the king of Sennaar, was chief of the

caravan which he then joined. Du Roule had employed, while at Cairo,

all the usual means to gain this man to his interest, and had every

reason to suppose he had succeeded. But, on his meeting him at Siout,

he had the mortification to find that he was so far changed that it

cost him 250 dollars to prevent his declaring himself an abettor of

his enemies. And this, perhaps, would not have sufficed, had it not

been for the arrival of Fornetti, drugoman to the French nation at

Cairo, at Siout, and with him a capigi and chiaoux from Ismael Bey, the

port of janizaries, and from the basha of Cairo, expressly commanding

the governor of Siout, and Belac chief of the caravan, to look to the

safety of du Roule, and protect him at the hazard of their lives, and

as they should answer to them.

All the parties concerned were then called together; and the fedtah,

or prayer of peace, used in long and dangerous journies, was solemnly

recited and assented to by them all; in consequence of which, every

individual became bound to stand by his companion even to death, and

not separate himself from him, nor see him wronged, though it was for

his own gain or safety. This test brought all the secret to light;

for Ali Chelebi, governor of Siout, informed the ambassador, that the

Christian merchants and Franciscan friars were in a conspiracy, and

had sworn to defeat and disappoint his embassy even by the loss of his

life, and that, by presents, they had gained him to be a partner in

that conspiracy.

Belac, moreover, told him, that the patriarch of the Cophts had assured

the principal people of which that caravan consisted, that the Franks

then travelling with him were not merchants, but sorcerers, who were

going to Ethiopia, to obstruct, or cut off the course of the Nile, that

it might no longer flow into Egypt, and that the general resolution was

to drive the Franks from the caravan at some place in the desert which

suited their designs, which were to reduce them to perish by hunger or

thirst, or else to be otherwise slain, and no more heard of.

The caravan left Siout the 12th of September. In twelve days they

passed the lesser desert, and came to Khargué, where they were detained

six days by a young man, governor of that place, who obliged M. du

Roule to pay him 120 dollars, before he would suffer him to pass

further; and at the same time forced him to sign a certificate, that he

had been permitted to pass without paying any thing. This was the first

sample of the usage he was to expect in the further prosecution of his

journey.

On the 3d of October they entered the great desert of Selima, and on

the 18th of same month they arrived at Machou, or Moscho, on the Nile,

where their caravan staid a considerable time, till the merchants had

transacted their business. It was at this place the ambassador learned,

that several Franciscan friars had passed the caravan while it remained

at Siout, and advanced to Sennaar, where they had staid some time, but

had lately left that capital upon news of the caravan’s approaching,

and had retired, nobody knew whether.

A report was soon after spread abroad at Cairo, but no one could

ever learn whence it came, that the ambassador, arriving at Dongola,

had been assassinated there. This, indeed, proved false, but was, in

the mean time, a mournful presage of the melancholy catastrophe that

happened soon afterwards.

M. du Roule arrived at Sennaar towards the end of May, and wrote at

that time; but a packet of letters was after brought to the consul at

Cairo, bearing date the 18th of June. The ambassador there mentions,

that he had been well received by the king of Sennaar, who was a young

man, fond of strangers; that particular attention had been shewn

him by Sid Achmet-el-coom; or, as he should have called him, Achmet

Sid-el-coom, i.e. Achmet master of the household. This officer, sent

by the king to visit the baggage of the ambassador, could not help

testifying his surprise to find it so inconsiderable, both in bulk and

value.

He said the king had received letters from Cairo, informing him that he

had twenty chests of silver along with him. Achmet likewise told him,

that he himself had received information, by a letter under the hand

and seal of the most respectable people of Cairo, warning him not to

let M. du Roule pass; for the intention of his journey into Abyssinia

was to prevail on Yasous to attack Masuah and Suakem, and take them

from the Turks. Achmet would not suffer the bales intended for the king

of Abyssinia to be opened or visited, but left them in the hands of the

ambassador.

M. du Roule, however, in writing this account to the consul, intimated

to him that he thought himself in danger, and declares that he did

not believe there was on earth so barbarous, brutal, and treacherous a

people, as were the Nubians.

It happened that the king’s troops had gained some advantage over the

rebellious Arabs, on which account there was a festival at court,

and M. du Roule thought himself obliged to exert himself in every

thing which could add to the magnificence of the occasion. With this

intention he shaved his beard, and drest himself like a European, and

in this manner he received the visit of the minister Achmet. M. Macé,

in a letter to the consul of the above date, complains of this novelty.

He says it shocked every body; and that the[75]mirrors which multiplied

and deformed the objects, made the lower sorts of the people look upon

the ambassador and his company as sorcerers.

Upon great festivals, in most Mahometan kingdoms, the king’s wives have

a privilege to go out of their apartments, and visit any thing new that

is to be seen. These of the king of Sennaar are very ignorant, brutish,

fantastic, and easily offended. Had M. du Roule known the manners of

the country, he would have treated these black majesties with strong

spirits, sweetmeats, or scented waters; and he might then have shewed

them with impunity any thing that he pleased.

But being terrified with the glasses, and disgusted by his inattention,

they joined in the common cry, that the ambassador was a magician,

and contributed all in their power to ruin him with the king; which,

after all, they did not accomplish, without the utmost repugnance and

difficulty. The farthest length at first they could get this prince to

go was, to demand 3000 dollars of the ambassador. This was expressly

refused, and private disgust followed.

M. du Roule being now alarmed for his own safety, insisted upon liberty

to set out forthwith for Abyssinia. Leave was accordingly granted him,

and after his baggage was loaded, and every thing prepared, he was

countermanded by the king, and ordered to return to his own house. A

few days after this he again procured leave to depart; which a short

time after was again countermanded. At last, on the 10th of November,

a messenger from the king brought him final leave to depart, which,

having every thing ready for that purpose, he immediately did.

The ambassador walked on foot, with two country Christians on one hand,

and Gentil his French servant on the other. He refused to mount on

horseback, but gave his horse to a Nubian servant to lead. M. Lipi,

and M. Macé, the two drugomans, were both on horseback. The whole

company being now arrived in the middle of the large square before the

king’s house, the common place of execution for criminals, four blacks

attacked the ambassador, and murdered him with four strokes of sabres.

Gentil fell next by the same hands, at his master’s side. After him M.

Lipi and the two Christians; the two latter protesting that they did

not belong to the ambassador’s family.

M. du Roule died with the greatest magnanimity, fortitude, and

resignation. Knowing his person was sacred by the law of nations, he

disdained to defend it by any other means, remitting his revenge to the

guardians of that law, and he exhorted all his attendants to do the

same. But M. Macé the Drugoman, young and brave, and a good horseman,

was not of the sheep kind, to go quietly to the slaughter. With his

pistols he shot two of the assassins that attacked him, one after the

other, dead upon the spot; and was continuing to defend himself with

his sword, when a horseman, coming behind him, thrust him through the

back with a lance, and threw him dead upon the ground.

Thus ended the second attempt of converting Abyssinia by an embassy.

A scheme, if we believe M. de Maillet, which had cost government a

considerable expence, for in a memorial, of the 1st of October 1706,

concerning the death of M. du Roule, he makes the money and effects

which he had along with him, when murdered, to amount to 200 purses, or

L.25,000 Sterling. This, however, is not probable; because, in another

place he speaks of M. du Roule’s having demanded of him a small supply

of money while at Sennaar, which friar Joseph, a capuchin, refused

to carry for him. Such a supply would not have been necessary if the

ambassador had with him such a sum as that already mentioned; therefore

I imagine it was exaggerated, with a view to make the Turkish basha of

Suakem quarrel with the king of Sennaar about the recovering it.

The friars, who were in numbers at Sennaar, left it immediately before

the coming of M. du Roule. This they might have done without any bad

intention towards him; they returned, however, immediately after his

murder. This, I think, very clearly constitutes them the authors of

it. For had they not been privy and promoters of the assassination,

they would have fled with fear and abhorrence from a place where six of

their brethren had been lately so treacherously slain, and were not yet

buried, but their carcases abandoned to the fowls of the air, and the

beasts of the field, and where they themselves, therefore, could have

no assurance of safety.

They however pretended, first to lay the blame upon the king of

Abyssinia, then upon the king of Sennaar, and then they divided it

between them both. But Elias, arrived at Gondar, vindicated that

prince, as we shall presently see, and the list of names taken at

Sennaar; and a long series of correspondence, which afterwards came

out, and a chain of evidence which was made public, incontestibly prove

that the king of Sennaar was but an agent, and indeed an unwilling one,

who two several times repented of his bloody design, and made M. du

Roule return to his own house, to evade the execution of it.

The blood then of this gallant and unfortunate gentleman undoubtedly

lies upon the heads of the reformed Franciscan friars, and their

brethren, the friars of the Holy Land. The interest of these two

bodies, and a bigotted prince, such as Louis XIV then was, was more

than sufficient to stop all inquiry, and hinder any vengeance to

be taken on those holy assassins. But he who, unperceived, follows

deliberate murther through all its concealments and darkness of its

ways, in a few years required satisfaction for the blood of du Roule,

at a time and place unforeseen, and unexpected.

We shall now return to Gondar to king Yasous, who being recovered of

his disease, and having dismissed his physician, was preparing to set

out on a campaign against the Galla.

Yasous, for his first wife, had married Ozoro Malacotawit, a lady of

great family and connections in the province of Gojam. By her he had

a son, Tecla Haimanout, who was grown to manhood, and had hitherto

lived in the most dutiful affection and submission to his father,

who, on his part, seemed to place unlimited confidence in his son. He

now gave a proof of this, not very common in the annals of Abyssinia,

by leaving Tecla Haimanout behind him, at an age when he was fit to

reign, appointing him Betwudet, with absolute power to govern in his

absence. Yasous had a mistress whom he tenderly loved, a woman of great

quality likewise, whose name was Ozoro Kedustè. She was sister to his

Fit-Auraris, Agné, a very distinguished and capable officer, and by her

he had three children, David, Hannes, and Jonathan.

It happened, while he was watching the motions of the Galla, news were

brought that Ozoro Kedustè had been taken ill of a fever; and though,

upon this intelligence, he disposed his affairs so as to return with

all possible expedition, yet when he came to Bercanté, the lady’s

house, he found that she was not only dead, but had been for some

time buried. All his presence of mind now left him; he fell into the

most violent transport of wild despair, and, ordering her tomb to be

opened, he went down into it, taking his three sons along with him,

and became so frantic at the sight of the corpse, that it was with the

utmost difficulty he could be forced again to leave the sepulchre.

He returned first to Gondar, then he retired to an island in the lake

Tzana, there to mourn his lost mistress.

But before this, Elias, ignorant of what had passed at Sennaar,

presented M. de Maillet’s letter to him, beseeching his leave for

M. du Roule to enter Abyssinia, and come into his presence. This he

easily procured: Yasous was fond of strangers; and not only granted the

request, but sent a man of his own to Sennaar with letters to the king

to protect and defray the expences of the ambassador to Gondar. This

man, who had affairs of his own, loitered away a great deal of time in

the journey, so that Elias, upon first hearing of the arrival of the

ambassador, set out himself to meet him at Sennaar. The king, in the

mean time, having finished his mourning, dispatched Badjerund Oustas

to his son the Betwudet, at Gondar, ordering him forthwith to send him

a body of his household troops to rendezvous on the banks of the lake,

opposite to the island Tchekla Wunze, where he then had his residence.

It has been said, contrary to all truth, by those who have wrote

travels into this country, that sons born in marriage had the same

preference in succession as they have in other countries. But this, as

I have said, is entirely without foundation: For, in the first place,

there is no such thing as a regular marriage in Abyssinia; all consists

in mere consent of parties. But, allowing this to be regular, not only

natural children, that is, those born in concubinage where no marriage

was in contemplation; and adulterous bastards, that is, the sons of

unmarried women by married men; and all manner of sons whatever,

succeed equally as well to the crown as to private inheritance; and

there cannot be a more clear example of this than in the present

king, who, although he had a son, Tecla Haimanout, born of the queen

Malacotawit in wedlock, was yet succeeded by three bastard brothers,

all sons of Yasous, born in adultery, that is, in the life of the

queen. David and Hannes were sons of the king by his favourite Ozoro

Kedustè; Bacuffa, by another lady of quality.

Although the queen, Malacotawit, had passed over with seeming

indifference the preference the king had given his mistress, Ozoro

Kedustè, during her lifetime, yet, from a very unaccountable kind of

jealousy, she could not forgive those violent tokens of affection

the king had shewn after her death, by going down with his sons and

remaining with the body in the grave. Full of resentment for this, she

had persuaded her son, Tecla Haimanout, that Yasous had determined to

deprive him of his succession, to send him and her, his mother, both

to Wechné, and place his bastard brother, David, son of Ozoro Kedustè,

upon the throne.

The queen had been very diligent in attaching to her the principal

people about the court. By her own friends, and the assistance of the

discontented and banished monks, she had raised a great army in Gojam

under her brothers, Dermin and Paulus. Tecla Haimanout had shewn great

signs of wisdom and talents for governing, and very much attached to

himself some of his father’s oldest and ablest servants.

It was, therefore, agreed, in return to Yasous’s message by Oustas,

to answer, That, after so long a reign, and so much bloodshed, the

king would do well to retire to some convent for the rest of his

life, and atone for the many great sins he had committed; and that he

should leave the kingdom in the hands of his son Tecla Haimanout, as

the ancient king Caleb had resigned his crown into the hands of St

Pantaleon in favour of his son Guebra Mascal. As it was not very safe

to deliver such a message to a king such as Yasous, it was therefore

sent to him, by a common foot-soldier, who could not be an object of

resentment.

The king received it at Tchekla Wunze, the island in the lake Tzana,

where he was then residing. He answered with great sharpness, by the

same messenger, “That he had been long informed who these were that had

seduced his son, Tecla Haimanout, at once from his duty to him as his

father, and his allegiance as his sovereign; that though he did not

hold them to be equal in sanctity to St Pantaleon, yet, such as they

were, he proposed immediately to meet them at Gondar, and settle there

his son’s coronation.”

This ironical message was perfectly understood. Those of the court

that were with Tecla Haimanout, and the inhabitants of the capital,

met together, and bound themselves by a solemn oath to live and die

with their king Tecla Haimanout. The severity of Yasous was well known;

his provocation now was a just one; and the measure of vengeance that

awaited them, every one concerned knew to be such that there was no

alternative but death or victory.

Neither party were slack in preparations. Kasmati Honorius, governor of

Damot, a veteran officer and old servant of Yasous, collected a large

body of troops and marched them down the west side of the lake. Yasous

having there joined them, and putting himself at the head of his army,

began his march, rounding the lake on its south side towards Dingleber.

Neither did Tecla Haimanout delay a moment after hearing his father was

in motion, but marched with his army from Gondar, attended with all the

ensigns of royalty. He encamped at Bartcho, in that very field where

Za Denghel was defeated and slain by his rebellious subjects. Thinking

this a post ominous to kings, he resolved to wait for his father there,

and give him battle.

The king, in his march through the low country of Dembea, was attacked

by a putrid fever, very common in those parts, which so increased upon

him that he was obliged to be carried back to Tchekla Wunze. This

accident discouraged his whole party. His army, with Honorius, took the

road to Gojam, but did not disperse, awaiting the recovery of the king.

But the queen, Malacotawit, no sooner heard that Yasous her husband

was sick at Tchekla Wunze, than she sent to her son Tecla Haimanout

to leave his unwholesome station, and march back immediately to

Gondar; and, as soon as he was returned, she dispatched her two

brothers, Dermin and Paulus, with a body of soldiers and two Mahometan

musqueteers, who, entering the island Tchekla Wunze by surprise,

shot and disabled the king while sitting on a couch; immediately

after which, Dermin thrust him through with a sword. They attempted

afterwards to burn the body, in order to avoid the ill-will the

sight of it must occasion: In this, however, they were prevented by

the priests of the island and the neighbouring nobility, who took

possession of the body, washed it, and performed all the rites of

sepulture, then carried it in a kind of triumph, with every mark of

magnificence due to the burial of a king, interring it in the small

island of Mitraha, where lay the body of all his ancestors, and where I

have seen the body of this king still entire.

Nor did the prince his son, Tecla Haimanout, now king, discourage the

people in the respect they voluntarily paid to his father. On the

contrary, that parricide himself shewed every outward mark of duty, to

the which inwardly his heart had been long a stranger.

Poncet, who saw this king, gives this character of him: He says he

was a man very fond of war, but averse to the shedding of blood.

However this may appear a contradiction, or said for the sake of the

antithesis, it really was the true character of this prince, who, fond

of war, and in the perpetual career of victory, did, by pushing his

conquests as far as they could go, inevitably occasion the spilling of

much blood. Yet, when his army was not in the field, though he detected

a multitude of conspiracies among priests and other people at home,

whose lives in consequence were forfeited to the law, he very rarely,

either from his own motives, or the persuasion of others, could be

induced to inflict capital punishments though often strongly provoked

to it.

Upon his death the people unanimously gave to him the name of Tallac,

which signifies _the Great_, a name he has ever since enjoyed

unimpeached in the Abyssinian annals, or history of his country, from

the which this his reign is taken.

[Illustration]

TECLA HAIMANOUT I.

From 1704 to 1706.

_Writes in Favour of Du Roule--Defeats the Rebels--Is assassinated

while hunting._

Elias the Armenian, of whom we have already spoken, and who was

charged with letters of protection from Yasous to meet M. du Roule at

Sennaar, had reached within three days journey of that capital when

he heard that king Yasous was assassinated. Terrified at the news, he

returned in the utmost haste to Gondar, and presented the letters,

which had been written by Yasous, to be renewed by his son, king Tecla

Haimanout. Tecla Haimanout read his father’s letters, and approved of

their contents, ordering them to be copied in his own name; and Elias

without delay set out with them. I have inserted a translation of these

letters, which were originally written in Arabic, and seem to me to

be of the few that are authentic among those many which have been

published as coming from Abyssinia.

“The king Tecla Haimanout, son of the king of the church of Ethiopia,

king of a thousand churches.

[Illustration: JESUS son of MARY

Race of Solomon Son of David, Israel, Edom, Isaac.[76]]

“On the part of the powerful august king, arbiter of nations, shadow

of God upon earth, the guide of kings who profess the religion of the

Messiah, the most powerful of Christian kings, he that maintains order

between Mahometans and Christians, protector of the boundaries of

Alexandria, observer of the commandments of the gospel, descended of

the line of the prophets David and Solomon,--may the blessing of Israel

be upon our prophet and upon them.--To the king Baady, son of the king

Ounsa, may his reign be full of happiness, being a prince endowed with

these rare qualities that deserve the highest praises as governing his

kingdom with distinguished wisdom, and by an order full of equity.--The

king of France, who is a Christian, wrote a letter seven or eight

years ago, by which he signified to me, that he wished to open a trade

for the advantage of his subjects and of mine, which request we have

granted. We come at present to understand, that he has sent us presents

by a man whose name is du Roule, who has likewise several others along

with him, and that these people have been arrested at your town of

Sennaar. We require of you, therefore, to set them immediately at

liberty, and to suffer them to come to us with all the marks of honour,

and that you should pay regard to the ancient friendship which has

always subsisted between our predecessors, since the time of the _king

of Sedgid_ and the _king of Kim_, to the present day. We also demand

of you to suffer all the subjects of the king of France to pass, and

all those that come with letters of his consul who is at Cairo, as all

such Frenchmen come for trade only, being of the same religion with

us. We likewise recommend to you, that you permit to pass freely, all

French Christians, Cophts, and Syrians who follow our rites, observing

our religion, and who intend coming into our country; and that you do

not suffer any of those who are contrary to our religion to pass, such

as the monk Joseph, and his companions, whom you may keep at Sennaar,

it being in no shape our intention to suffer them to come into our

dominions, where they would occasion troubles, as being enemies to our

faith. God grant you your desires.”--Wrote the 10th of Zulkadé, Anno

1118, _i. e._ the 21st of January 1706.

☞The direction is--“To king Baady, son of king Ounsa, may God

favour him with his grace.”

The first thing I remark upon this letter is, the mention of the

ancient peace and friendship which subsisted between the predecessors

of these two princes now corresponding. It was a friendship, he says,

that had endured from the time of the king of _Sedgid_, and the king of

_Kim_, to the present day.

The kingdom of Sennaar, as we shall see, was but a modern one, and

recently established by conquest over the Arabs. Therefore the kingdoms

of _Sedgid_ and of _Kim_ were before that conquest, places whence this

black nation came that had established their sovereignty at Sennaar by

conquest: from which, therefore, I again infer, there never was any

war, conquest, or tribute between Abyssinia and that state.

The Arabs, who fed their flocks near the frontiers of the two

countries, were often plundered by the kings of Abyssinia making

descents into Atbara; but this was never reckoned a violation of peace

between the two sovereigns. On the contrary, as the motive of the

Arabs, for coming south into the frontiers of Abyssinia, was to keep

themselves independent, and out of the reach of Sennaar, when the king

of Abyssinia fell upon them there, he was understood to do that monarch

service, by driving them down farther within his reach. The Baharnagash

has been always at war with them; they are tributary to him for eating

his grass and drinking his water, and nothing that he ever does to

them gives any trouble or inquietude to Sennaar. It is interpreted as

maintaining his ancient dominion over the Shepherds, those of Sennaar

being a new power, and accounted as usurpers.

M. de Maillet, nor M. le Grande his historian, have not thought fit

to explain who the monk Joseph was mentioned in this letter. Now it

is certain, that, when Murat and Poncet were returned from Abyssinia,

there was a missionary of the minor friars, who arrived in Ethiopia,

had an audience of the king, and wrote a letter in his name to the

pope, wherein he has foisted many improbabilities and falsehoods;

and concludes with declaring on the part of Yasous, that he submits

to the see of Rome in the same manner the kings his predecessors had

submitted. He makes Yasous speak Latin, too; and it is perfectly

plain from the[77]whole letter, that, though he writes it himself, he

cannot conceal that the king Yasous wanted him very much away, and

was very uneasy at his stay at Gondar. Who this was we know not, but

suppose it was one of those assassins of M. du Roule, carrying on a

private intrigue without participation of the consul, some of whom were

afterwards detected in Walkayt in the reign of David IV.

As for Elias, the forerunner of the French embassy, now become the only

remains of it, he continued in Abyssinia (to judge by his letter) in

great poverty, till the year 1718, immediately after which he went over

to Arabia Felix, and first wrote from Mocha to M. de Maillet consul

at Cairo, as it will appear in the reign of David IV. where I have

inserted his letter; that written to M. du Roule in the name of Yafous,

that of Tecla Haimanout to the Basha and Divan of Cairo, I have now

here inserted, because I have advanced facts founded upon them.

TRANSLATION _of an_ ARABIC LETTER _from the_ KING _of_ ABYSSINIA _to_

M. DU ROULE.

“The king Tecla Haimanout, king of the established church, son of the

king of a thousand churches.

“This letter cometh forth from the venerable, august king, who is the

shadow of God, guide of Christian princes that are in the world, the

most powerful of the Nazarean kings, observer of the commandments

of the gospel, protector of the confines of Alexandria, he that

maintaineth order between Mahometans and Christians, descended from the

family of the prophets David and Solomon, upon whom being the blessings

of Israel, may God make his happiness eternal, and his power perpetual,

and protect his arms--So be it.--To his excellence the most virtuous

and most prudent man du Roule, a Frenchman sent to us, may God preserve

him, and make him arrive at a degree of eminence--So be it.--Elias,

your interpreter whom you sent before you, being arrived here, has been

well received. We have understood that you are sent to us on the part

of the king of France our brother, and are surprised that you have been

detained at Sennaar. We send to you at present a letter for king Baady,

in order that he may set you at liberty, and not do you any injury,

nor to those that are with you, but may behave in a manner that is

proper both for you and to us, according to the religion of Elias that

you sent, who is a Syrian; and all those that may come after you from

the king of France our brother, or his consul at Cairo, shall be well

received, whether they be ambassadors or private merchants, because

we love those that are of our religion. We receive with pleasure those

who do not oppose our laws, and we send away those that do oppose them.

For this reason we did not receive immediately Joseph[78] with all his

companions, not choosing that such sort of people should appear in our

presence, nor intending that they should pass Sennaar, in order to

avoid troubles which may occasion the death of many; but with respect

to you, have nothing to fear, you may come in all safety, and you shall

be received with honour.”--Written the 10th of the month Zulkadé, Anno

1118, _i. e._ the 21st of January of the year 1706.

☞ The address is--“Let the present be delivered to M. du Roule

at the town of Sennaar.”

I shall only observe upon this letter, that all the priests, who had

flocked to Sennaar before M. du Roule arrived there, disappeared upon

his near approach to that city, after having prepared the mischief

which directly followed. And, no sooner was the murder, which they

before concerted, committed, than they all flocked back again as if

invited to a festival. M. de Maillet speaks of several of them in his

letters, where he complains of the murder of du Roule, and says that

they were then on their way to enter Abyssinia. Of these probably was

this Joseph, whom Tecla Haimanout strictly prohibits to come farther

than Sennaar, having seen what his father had written concerning him in

the first letters Elias was charged with.

Others are mentioned in Elias’s letter to the consul as having been in

Abyssinia. He calls them those of the league of Michael and Samuel,

of whom we shall speak afterwards. But, even though the French consul

had ordered his nation to drive all the subjects of Sennaar from their

houses and service, none of these missionaries were afraid to return

and abide at Sennaar, because they knew the murder of the ambassador

was the work of their own hands, and, without their instigation, would

never have been committed.

The unlucky messenger, Elias, was again about to enter Sennaar, when

he received information that du Roule was assassinated. If he had

fled hastily from this inauspicious place upon the murder of Yasous,

his haste was now ten-fold, as he considered himself engaged in the

same circumstances that had involved M. du Roule’s attendants in his

misfortunes.

The king, upon hearing the account given by Elias of the melancholy

fate of the ambassador at Sennaar, was so exasperated, that he gave

immediate orders for recalling such of his troops as he had permitted

to go to any considerable distance; and, in a council held for that

purpose, he declared, that he considered the death of M. du Roule as

an affront that immediately affected his crown and dignity. He was,

therefore, determined not to pass it over, but to make the king of

Sennaar sensible that he, as well as all the other kings upon earth,

knew the necessity of observing the law of nations, and the bad

consequence of perpetual retaliations that must follow the violation of

it. In the mean time, thinking that the basha of Cairo was the cause of

this, he wrote the following letter to him.

TRANSLATION _of an_ ARABIC LETTER _from the_ KING _of_ ABYSSINIA _to

the_ BASHA _and_ DIVAN _of_ CAIRO.

“To the Pacha, and Lords of the Militia of Cairo.

“On the part of the king of Abyssinia, the king Tecla Haimanout, son of

the king of the church of Abyssinia.

“On the part of the august king, the powerful arbiter of nations,

shadow of God upon earth, the guide of kings who profess the religion

of the Messiah, the most powerful of all Christian kings, he who

maintains order between Mahometans and Christians, protector of the

confines of Alexandria, observer of the commandments of the gospel,

heir from father to son of a most powerful kingdom, descended of the

family of David and Solomon,--may the blessing of Israel be upon our

prophet, and upon them may his happiness be durable, and his greatness

lasting, and may his powerful, army be always feared.--To the most

powerful lord, elevated by his dignity, venerable by his merits,

distinguished by his strength and riches among all Mahometans, the

refuge of all those that reverence him, who by his prudence governs

and directs the armies of the noble empire, and commands his confines;

victorious viceroy of Egypt, the four corners of which shall be always

respected and defended:--so be it.--And to all the distinguished

princes, judges, men of learning, and other officers whose business

it is to maintain order and good government and to all commanders

in general, may God preserve them all in their dignities, in the

nobleness of their health. You are to know that our ancestors never

bore any envy to other kings, nor did they ever occasion them any

trouble, or shew them any mark of hatred. On the contrary, they have,

upon all occasions, given them proofs of their friendships, assisting

them generously, relieving them in their necessities, as well in what

concerns the caravan and pilgrims of Mecca in Arabia Felix, as in the

Indies, in _Persia_, and other distant and out-of-the-way places, also

by protecting distinguished persons in every urgent necessity.

“Nevertheless, the king of France our brother, who professes our

religion and our law, having been induced thereto, by some advances of

friendship on our part such as are proper, sent an ambassador to us;

I understand that you caused arrest him at Sennaar, and also another

by name Murat, the Syrian, whom you did put in prison also, though he

was sent to that ambassador on our part, and by thus doing, you have

violated the law of nations, as ambassadors of kings ought to be at

liberty to go wherever they will; and it is a general obligation to

treat them with honour, and not to molest or detain them, nor should

they be subject to pay customs, or any sort of presents. We could very

soon repay you in kind, if we were inclined to revenge the insult

you have offered to the man Murat sent on our part; the Nile would

be sufficient to punish you, since God hath put into our power his

fountain, his outlet, and his increase, and that we can dispose of the

same to do you harm; for the present we demand of, and exhort you to

desist from any future vexations towards our envoys, and not disturb

us by detaining those who shall be sent towards you, but you shall let

them pass and continue their route without delay, coming and going

wherever they will freely for their own advantage, whether they are our

subjects or Frenchmen, and whatever you shall do to or for them, we

shall regard as done to or for ourselves.”

☞ The address is--“To the basha, princes, and lords governing

the town of great Cairo, may God favour them with his goodness.”

There are several things very remarkable in this letter. The king of

Abyssinia values himself, and his predecessors, upon never having

molested or troubled any of his neighbours who were kings, nor borne

any envy towards them. We are not then to believe what we see often in

history, that there was frequent war between Sennaar and Abyssinia,

or that Sennaar was tributary to Abyssinia. That stripe of country,

inhabited by the Shangalla, would, in this case, have been first

conquered. But it is more probable, that the great difference of

climate which immediately takes place between the two kingdoms, the

great want of water on the frontiers, barriers placed there by the hand

of Nature, have been the means of keeping these kingdoms from having

any mutual concerns; and so, indeed, we may guess by the utter silence

of the books, which never mention any war at Sennaar till the beginning

of the reign of Socinios.

I apprehend, that protecting distinguished persons upon great

occasions, alludes to the children of the king of Sennaar, who

frequently fly after the death of their father to Abyssinia[79] for

protection, it being the custom of that state to murder all the

brothers of the prince that succeeds, instead of sending them to a

mountain, as they do in Abyssinia.

The next thing remarkable is his protection of the pilgrims who go to

Mecca, and the merchants that go to India. Several caravans of both

set out yearly from his kingdom, all Mahometans, some of whom go to

Mecca for religion, the others to India, by Mocha, to trade. But it is

not possible to understand how he is to protect the trade in Persia,

with which country he certainly has had no sort of concern these 800

years, nor has it been in that time possible for him either to molest

or protect a Persian. What, therefore, I would suppose, is, that the

king has made use of the common phrase which universally obtains here

both in writing and conversation, calling Ber el Ajam the West, and Ber

el Arab the East coast of the Red Sea.--Ber el Ajam, in the language of

the country, is the coast where there is water or rain, in opposition

to the Tehama, or opposite shore of Arabia, where there is no water.

The Greeks and Latins translated this word into their own language, but

did not understand it; only from the sound they called it Azamia, from

Ajam. Now Ajam, or Ber el Ajam, is the name of Persia also; and the

French interpreter says, the king of Abyssinia protects the caravans of

Persia; when he should say, the caravans, going through Ber el Ajam,

the Azamia of the ancients, to embark at the two ports Suakem and

Masuah, both in the country of that name.

The next thing to remark here is, that the king acknowledges Murat to

be his ambassador; and it is the arresting him, which we have seen

was done at the instance of M. de Maillet collusively, that the king

says was a violation of the law of nations; and it was this insult,

done to Murat his ambassador, that he all along complains of, not that

offered to du Roule, which he leaves to the king of France; for he

says expressly, if he was to starve, or destroy them all, by stopping

the Nile from coming into Egypt, it would be on account of the insult

offered to Murat, the envoy, or man, sent on his part to France. It is

plain, therefore, that M. de Maillet persecuted the poor Syrian very

wrongfully, and that in no one instance, from first to last, was he

ever in the right concerning that embassy.

This step, which justice dictated, was not without its reward; for

Tecla Haimanout, who had assembled his army on this account sooner than

he otherwise intended, found immediately after, that a rival and rebel

prince, Amda Sion, was set up against him by the friends of his father

Yasous, and that he had been privately collecting troops, intending to

take him by surprise, when he was, however, at the head of his army

ready to give him battle.

The first thing the king did was to dispatch a large body of troops to

reinforce Dermin, governor of Gojam, and to him he sent positive orders

to force Amda Sion to fight wherever he should find him, while he, with

the royal army, came forward with all expedition to keep the people in

awe, and prevent them from joining his rival.

Amda Sion, on the other hand, lost no time. From Ibaba, through

Maitsha, he marched straight to Gondar. Being arrived at the king’s

house at Dingleber, he sat down on the throne with the ensigns of

royalty about him, and there appointed several officers that were most

needed, in the army, the provinces, and about his person. During his

stay here, news were brought that Dermin had followed him step by step

in the very track he had marched, and laid the whole country waste that

had shewn him any countenance or favour. Amda Sion’s heart seemed to

fail him upon this; for he left Dingleber, crossed the ford at Delakus,

and endeavoured to pass Dermin, by keeping on the west side of the

Nile, and on the low road by which he returned to Ibaba.

Dermin, well-informed as to his motions, and perfectly instructed in

the situation of the country, instead of passing him, turned short

upon his front, crossing the Nile at Fagitta, and forced him to an

engagement in the plain country of Maitsha. The battle, though it was

obstinately fought by the rebels, ended in a complete victory in favour

of the king. Those among the rebels who most distinguished themselves

were the banished monks, the greatest part of whom were slain fighting

desperately. Among these, were Abba Welleta Christos, Tobias and his

brother Abba Nicolaus, who had been ringleaders in the late religious

disputes in the time of Yasous, and were now chiefs of the rebellion

against his son.

The greatest part of the loss fell upon the common men of Gojam, of

the clans Elmana and Densa. No man of note among them was lost; only

Amda Sion, who fell at their head in the beginning of the engagement,

fighting with all the bravery that could be expected from a man in his

circumstances. The rebel army was entirely dispersed. On the king’s

side no man of consideration was slain, but Anastè, son of Ozoro Sabel

Wenghel.

After having reinforced Dermin, the first thing the king did was

to send three of his brothers, David, Hannes, and Jonathan, to be

imprisoned on the mountain of Wechné. He then marched with his army

from Gondar; and, being ignorant of what had happened, he dispatched

his master of the horse, by way of Dingleber, to join Kasmati Dermin,

in case he had not still been strong enough to fight the rebels. With

his main army he took the road to Tedda, intending to proceed to Gojam;

but, by the way, was informed that Dermin had defeated and slain his

rival Amda Sion: and he had scarce crossed the Nile at Dara, when

another messenger arrived with news that Dermin had also come up with

Kasmati Honorius and his army on the banks of the Nile, at Goutto, had

entirely defeated and slain him, together with his principal officers,

and dispersed the whole army. Upon this the king marched towards Ibaba,

and was there joined by Dermin, when great rejoicing and feasting

ensued for several days.