On this occasion the king crowned his mother Malacotawit, conferring

upon her the dignity and title of Iteghè; the consequence of which

station I have often described. Having now no longer enemies to

fear, he was persuaded, by some of his favourites, first to dismiss

Dermin and his army, then all the troops that had joined him, and go

with a few of his attendants, or court, to hunt the buffalo in the

neighbouring country, Idi; which council the young prince too rashly

adopted, suspecting no treason.

While the hunting-match lasted, a conspiracy was formed by Gueber Mo,

his two brothers, Palambaras, Hannes, and several others, old officers

belonging to the late king Yasous, who saw that he intended, one by

one, to weed them out of the way as soon as safely he could, and that

the whole power and favour was at last to fall into the hands of the

Iteghé, and her brothers Dermin and Paulus. Accordingly one morning,

the conspirators having surrounded him while riding, one of them thrust

him through the body with a sword, and threw him from his mule upon the

earth. They then laid his body upon a horse, and, with all possible

expedition, carried him to the house of Azena Michael, where he arrived

yet alive, but died immediately upon being taken from the horse.

Badjerund Oustas, and some others of his father’s old officers, who had

attached themselves to him after his father’s death, took the body of

the king and buried it in Quebran.

As soon as this assassination was known, the master of the horse, with

the few troops that he could gather together, came to the palace, and

took a young son of Tecla Haimanout, aged only four years, whom he

proclaimed king, and the Iteghé, Malacotawit, regent of the kingdom.

But Badjerund Oustas, and those who had not been concerned in the

murder of either king, went straight to the mountain of Wechné, and

brought thence Tisilis, that is Theophilus, son to Hannes, and brother

to the late king Yasous, whom they crowned at Emfras, and called him,

by his inauguration name, Atserar Segued.

[Illustration]

TIFILIS.

From 1706 to 1709.

_Dissembles with his Brother’s Assassins--Execution of the

Regicides--Rebellion and Death of Tigi._

Theophilus, a few days after his coronation, having called the whole

court and clergy together, declared to them, that his faith upon the

disputable point concerning our Saviour’s incarnation was different

from that of his brother Yasous, or that of his nephew Tecla Haimanout,

but in every respect conformable to that of the monks of Gojam,

followers of Abba Eustathius, and that of the Iteghè, Malacotawit,

Dermin, and Paulus. A violent clamour was instantly raised against the

king by the priests of Debra Libanos, as having forsaken the religious

principles of his predecessors. But the king was inflexible; and this

ingratiated him more with the inhabitants of Gojam. Not many days

after, the king arrested the master of the horse, Johannes Palambaras,

the Betwudet Tigi, and several others, all supposed to be concerned in

the murder of the late king, and confined them in several places and

prisons.

This last action of the king entirely relieved the minds of all the

friends of Tecla Haimanout from any further fear of being called to

account for the murder of Yasous; and, in consequence of this, the

queen Malocotawit, with her brothers Dermin and Paulus, and all the

murderers of the late king Yasous, came to Gondar that same winter to

do homage to Theophilus, whom they now thought their greatest protector.

But the wise and sagacious king had kept his secret in his own bosom.

All his behaviour hitherto had been only dissimulation, to induce his

brother’s murderers to come within his power. And no sooner did he see

that he had succeeded in this, than the very first day, while they were

yet at audience, he ordered an officer, in his own presence, to arrest

first the queen, and then her two brothers Dermin and Paulus. He gave

the same directions concerning the rest of the conspirators, who were

all scattered about Gondar, eating, drinking, and fearing nothing, but

rejoicing at the happy days they had promised themselves, and were now

to see: he ordered the whole of them, amounting to 37 persons, many of

these of the first rank, to be all executed that same forenoon.

He began with the queen, who was taken immediately from his presence

and hanged by the common hangman on the tree before the palace gate;

the first of her rank, it is believed, that ever died so vile a death,

either in Abyssinia or any other country, the history of which has come

down to our hands. Dermin and Paulus were first carried to the tree

to see their sister’s execution; after which, one after the other,

they were thrust through with swords, the weapon with which they had

wounded the late king Yasous. But the two Mahometans were shot with

muskets, it having been in that manner they had ended the late king’s

life, after Dermin had wounded him with a sword. As they had committed

high treason, none of the bodies of these traitors were allowed to be

buried; they were hewn in small pieces with knives, and strewed about

the streets, to be eat by the hyænas and dogs; a most barbarous and

offensive custom, to which they strictly adhere to this very day.

After having thus taken ample vengeance for the murder of his brother

Yasous, Theophilus did not stop here. Tecla Haimanout was, it is true,

a parricide, but he was likewise a king, and his nephew; nor did it

seem just to Theophilus that it should be left in the will of private

subjects, after having acknowledged Tecla Haimanout as their sovereign,

to choose a time afterwards, in which they were to cut him off for

a crime which, however great, had not hindered them from swearing

allegiance to him at his accession, and entering into his service at

the time when it was recently committed. He, therefore, ordered all the

regicides in custody to be put to death; and sent circular letters to

the several governors, that they should observe the same rule as to all

those directly concerned in the murder of his nephew Tecla Haimanout,

who should be found in places under their command.

Tigi, formerly Betwudet, had been imprisoned in Hamazen, a small

district near the Red Sea, under the government of Abba Saluce.

This man, by birth a Galla, had escaped from Hamazen, and collected

a considerable army of the different tribes of his nation, Liban,

Kalkend, and Basso; and, having found one that pretended to be of the

royal blood, he proclaimed him king, and put his army in motion.

Upon the first news of this revolt, the king, though attended with few

troops, immediately left Gondar, ordering all those whose duty it was

to join him at Ibaba. Having there collected a little army, he marched

immediately for the country of the Basso, destroying every thing with

fire and sword. Tigi, in the mean time, by forced marches came to

Ibaba, where he committed all sorts of cruelties without distinction

of age or sex. The cries of the sufferers reached the king, who turned

immediately back to the relief of Ibaba; and, not discouraged by his

enemy’s great superiority of number, offered battle to them as soon as

he arrived. Nor did Tigi and his Galla refuse it; but, on the 28th day

of March 1709, a very obstinate engagement ensued; where, though the

king was inferior in forces, yet being himself warlike and active, he

was so well seconded by his troops that Basso and Liban were almost

entirely cut off.

In the field of battle there was a church, built by the late king

Yasous after a victory gained there over the Pagans, whence it had the

name it then bore, Debra Mawea, or the _Mountain of Victory_. A large

body of these Galla, seeing that all went against them in the field,

fled to the church for a sanctuary, trusting to be protected from the

fury of the soldiers by the holiness of the place, and they so far

judged well; for the king’s troops, though they surrounded the church

on every side, did not offer to break into it, or molest the enemy that

had sheltered themselves within. Theophilus, informed of this scruple

of his soldiers, immediately rode up to them, crying out, “That the

church was defiled by the entrance of so many Pagans, and no longer

fit for Christian worship, that they should therefore immediately put

fire to it, and he would build a nobler one in its place.” The soldiers

obeyed without further hesitation; and, with cotton wads wrapt about

the balls of their guns, they set fire to the thatch, with which every

church in Abyssinia is covered. The whole was instantly consumed, and

every creature within it perished. Many principal officers and men of

the best families on the king’s side, Billetana Gueta, Sana Denghel,

and Billetana Gueta Kirubel, Ayto Stephenous, son of Ozoro Salla of

Nara, all men of great consideration, were slain that day. What came of

the rebel prince was never known. Tigi, with his two sons, fled from

the field; but they were met by a peasant, who took them prisoners

first; and, after discovering who they were, put them all three to

death, and brought their heads to the king.

After so severe a rebuke, the Galla, on both sides of the Nile, seemed

disposed to be quiet, and the king thereupon returned to Gondar amidst

the acclamations of his soldiers and subjects; but scarce had he

arrived in the capital when he was taken ill of a fever, and died on

the 2d of September, and was buried at Tedda, after a reign of three

years and three months.

[Illustration]

OUSTAS.

From 1709 to 1714.

_Usurps the Crown--Addicted to hunting--Account of the

Shangalla--Active and bloody Reign--Entertains Catholic Priests

privately--Falls sick and dies; but how, uncertain._

It has been already observed in the course of this history, that the

Abyssinians, from a very ancient tradition, attribute the foundation

of their monarchy to Menilek son of Solomon, by the queen of Saba, or

Azab, rendered in the Vulgate, the Queen of the south. The annals of

this country mention but two interruptions to have happened, in the

lineal succession of the heirs-male of Solomon. The first about the

year 960, in the reign of Del Naad, by Judith queen of the Falasha,

of which revolution we have already spoken sufficiently. The second

interruption happened at the period to which we have now arrived in

this history, and owed its origin, not to any misfortune that befel the

royal family as in the massacre of Judith, but seemed to be brought

about by the peculiar circumstances of the times, from a well-founded

attention to self-preservation.

Yasous the Great, after a long and glorious reign, had been murdered by

his son Tecla Haimanout. Two years after, this parricide fell in the

same manner. The assassination of two princes, so nearly related, and

in so short a time, had involved, from different motives, the greatest

part of the noble families of the kingdom, either in the crime itself,

or in the suspicion of aiding and abetting it.

Upon the death of Tecla Haimanout, Tifilis, or Theophilus, brother of

Yasous, had been brought from the mountain, and placed on the throne

as successor to his nephew; this prince was scarcely crowned when he

made some very severe examples of the murderers of his brother, and he

seemed privately taking informations that would have reached the whole

of them, had not death put an end to his inquiries and to his justice.

The family of king Yasous was very numerous on the mountain. It was

the favourite store whence both the soldiery and the citizens chose

to bring their princes. There were, at the very instant, many of his

sons princes of great hopes and of proper ages. Nothing then was more

probable than that the prince, now to succeed, would be of that family,

and, as such, interested in pursuing the same measures of vengeance

on the murderers of his father and of his brother as the late king

Theophilus had done; and how far, or to whom this might extend, was

neither certain nor safe to trust to.

The time was now past when the nobles vied with each other who should

be the first to steal away privately, or go with open force, to take

the new king from the mountain, and bring him to Gondar, his capital:

A backwardness was visible in the behaviour of each of them, because in

each one’s breast the fear was the same.

In so uncommon a conjuncture and disposition of men’s minds, a subject

had the ambition and boldness to offer himself for king, and he was

accordingly elected. This was Oustas[80], son of Delba Yasous, by a

daughter of the late king of that name; and Abyssinia now saw, for the

second time, a stranger seated on the throne of Solomon. Oustas was a

man of undisputed merit, and had filled the greatest offices in the

state. He had been Badjerund, or master of the household, to the late

king Yasous. Tecla Haimanout, who succeeded, had made him governor of

Samen; and though, in the next reign, he had fallen into disgrace with

Theophilus, this served but to aggrandize him more, as he was very soon

after restored to favour, and by this very prince raised to the dignity

of Ras, the first place under the king, and invested at once with the

government of two provinces, Samen and Tigré. He was, at the death of

Theophilus, the greatest subject in Abyssinia; one step higher set him

on the throne, and the circumstances of the time invited him to take

it. He had every quality of body and mind requisite for a king; but the

constitution of his country had made it unlawful for him to reign. He

took, upon his inauguration, the name of Tzai Segued.

Oustas, though a new king, followed the customs of the ancient monarchs

of Abyssinia; for that very reason was unwilling to add novelty to

novelty, and it has been a constant practice with these to make a

public hunting-match the first expedition of their reign. On these

occasions the king, attended by all the great officers of state,

whose merit and capacity are already acknowledged, reviews his young

nobility, who all appear to the best advantage as to arms, horses, and

equipage, with the greatest number of servants and attendants. The

scene of this hunting is always in the Kolla, crowded with an immense

number of the largest and fiercest wild beasts, elephants, rhinoceros,

lions, leopards, panthers, and buffaloes fiercer than them all, wild

boars, wild asses, and many varieties of the deer kind.

As soon as the game is roused, and forced out of the wood by the

footmen and dogs, they all singly, or several together, according to

the size of the beast, or as strength and ability in managing their

horses admit, attack the animal upon the plain with long pikes or

spears, or two javelins in their hands. The king, unless very young,

sits on horseback on a rising ground, surrounded by the graver sort,

who point out to him the names of those of the nobility that are happy

enough to distinguish themselves in his sight. The merit of others is

known by report.

Each young man brings before the king’s tent, as a trophy, a part of

the beast he has slain; the head and skin of a lion or leopard; the

scalp or horns of a deer; the private parts of an elephant; the tail

of a buffalo, or the horn of a rhinoceros. The great trouble, force,

and time necessary to take out the teeth of the elephant, seldom make

them ready to be presented with the rest of the spoils; fire, too, is

necessary for loosing them from the jaw. The head of a boar is brought

stuck upon a lance; but is not touched, as being unclean.

The elephant’s teeth are the king’s perquisites. Of these round ivory

rings are turned for bracelets, and a quantity of them always brought

by him to be distributed among the most deserving in the field, and

kept ever after as certificates of gallant behaviour. Nor is this

mark attended with honour alone. Any man who shall from the king,

queen-regent, or governor of a province, receive so many of these rings

as shall cover his arm down to his wrist, appears before the twelve

judges on a certain day, and there, laying down his arm with these

rings upon it, the king’s cook breaks every one in its turn with a kind

of kitchen-cleaver, whereupon the judges give him a certificate, which

proves that he is entitled to a territory, whose revenue must exceed

20 ounces of gold, and this is never either refused or delayed. All

the different species of game, however, are not equally rated. He that

slays a Galla, or Shangalla, man to man, is entitled to two rings; he

that slays an elephant to two; a rhinoceros, two; a giraffa, on account

of its speed, and to encourage horsemanship, two; a buffalo, two; a

lion, two; a leopard, one; two boars, whose tusks are grown, one; and

one for every four of the deer kind.

Great disputes constantly arise about the killing of these beasts; to

determine which, and prevent feuds and quarrels, a council sits every

evening, in which is an officer called _Dimshasha_, or _Red Cap_, from

a piece of red silk he wears upon his forehead, leaving the top of his

head bare, for no person is allowed to cover his head entirely except

the king, the twelve judges, and dignified priests. This officer

regulates the precedence of one nobleman over another, and is possessed

of the history of all pedigrees, the noblest of which are always

accounted those nearest to the king reigning.

Every man pleads his own cause before the council, and receives

immediate sentence. It is a settled rule, that those who strike the

animal first, if the lance remain upright, or in the same direction

in which it enters the beast, are understood to be the slayers of

the beast, whatever number combat with him afterwards. There is one

exception, however, that if the beast, after receiving the first wound,

tho’ the lance is in him, should lay hold of a horse or man, so that

it is evident he would prevail against them; a buffalo, for example,

that should toss a man with his horns, or an elephant that should take

a horse with his trunk, the man who shall then slay the beast, and

prevent or revenge the death of the man or horse attacked, shall be

accounted the slayer of the beast, and entitled to the premium.

This was the ancient employment of these councils. In my time they kept

up this custom in point of form; the council sat late upon most serious

affairs of the nation; and the death, banishment, and degradation of

the first men in the kingdom were agitated and determined here under

the pretence of sitting to judge the prizes of pastimes. This hunting

is seldom prolonged beyond a fortnight.

The king, from ocular inspection, is presumed to be able to choose

among the young nobility those that are ready for taking the necessary

charges in the army; and it is from his judgment in this that the

priests foretel whether his reign is to be a successful one, or to end

in misfortune and disappointment.

Oustas, having taken a view of his nobility, and attached such to

him as were most necessary for his support, set out for this hunting

with great preparations. The high country of Abyssinia is destitute

of wood; the whole lower part of the mountains is sown with different

sorts of grain; the upper part perfectly covered with grass and all

sorts of verdure. There are no plains, or very small ones. Such a

country, therefore, is unfit for hunting, as it is incapable of either

sheltering or nourishing any number of wild beasts.

The lower country, however, called Kolla, is full of wood, consequently

thinly inhabited. The mountains, not joined in chains or ridges, run

in one upon the other, but, standing each upon its particular base,

are accessible all round, and interspersed with plains. Great rivers

falling from the high country with prodigious violence, during the

tropical rains, have in the plains washed away the soil down to the

solid rock, and formed large basons of great capacity, where, though

the water becomes stagnant in pools when the currents fail above,

yet, from their great depth and quantity, they resist being consumed

by evaporation, being also thick covered with large shady trees whose

leaves never fall. These large trees, which, in their growth, and

vegetation of their branches, exceed any thing that our imagination

can figure, are as necessary for food, as the pools of water are for

cisterns to contain drink for those monstrous beasts, such as the

elephant and rhinoceros, who there make their constant residence,

and who would die with hunger and with thirst unless they were thus

copiously supplied both with food and water.

This country, flat as the deserts on which it borders, has fat black

earth for its soil. It is generally about 40 miles broad, though in

many places broader and narrower. It reaches from the mountains of the

Habab, or Bagla, which run in a ridge, as I have already said, from

the south of Abyssinia[81] north down into Egypt, parallel to the Red

Sea, dividing the rainy seasons, and it stretches like a belt from east

to west to the banks of the Nile, encircling all the mountainous, or

high land part of Abyssinia; which latter country is, at all times,

temperate, and often cold, while the other is unwholesome, hazy, close,

and intolerably hot.

Many nations of perfect blacks inhabit this low country, all Pagans,

and mortal enemies to the Abyssinian government. Hunting these

miserable wretches is the next expedition undertaken by a new king. The

season of this is just before the rains, while the poor savage is yet

lodged under the trees preparing his food for the approaching winter,

before he retires into his caves in the mountain, where he passes that

inclement season in constant confinement, but as constant security; for

these nations are all Troglodytes, and by the Abyssinians are called

Shangalla.

However Oustas succeeded in attaching to him those of the nobility that

partook of his sports, his good fortune in the capital was not equal

to it. A dangerous conspiracy was already forming at Gondar by those

very people who had persuaded him to mount the throne, and whom he had

left at home, from a persuasion that they only were to be trusted with

the support of his interest and the government in his absence.

Upon the first intelligence, the king, with a chosen body of troops,

entered Gondar in the night, and surprised the conspirators while

actually sitting in council. Ras Hezekias, his prime minister, and

Heraclides, master of his household, and five others of the principal

confederates, lost their ears and noses, and were thrown into prison in

such circumstances that they could not live. Benaia Basilé, one of the

principal traitors, and the most obnoxious to the king, escaped for a

time, having had already intelligence of Oustas’s coming.

The king having quieted every thing at Gondar, being at peace with all

his neighbours, and having no other way to amuse his troops and keep

them employed, set out to join the remainder of his young nobility whom

he had left in the Kolla to attack the Shangalla.

The Shangalla were formerly a very numerous people, divided into

distinct tribes, or, as it is called, different nations, living each

separately in distinct territories, each under the government of

the chief of its own name, and each family of that name under the

jurisdiction of its own chief, or head.

These Shangalla, during the fair half of the year, live under the shade

of trees, the lowest branches of which they cut near the stem on the

upper part, and then bend, or break them down, planting the ends of the

branches in the earth. These branches they cover with the skins of wild

beasts. After this they cut away all the small or superfluous branches

in the inside, and so form a spacious pavilion, which at a distance

appears like a tent, the tree serving for the pole in the middle of it,

and the large top overshadowing it so as to make a very picturesque

appearance.

Every tree then is a house, under which live a multitude of black

inhabitants until the tropical rains begin. It is then they hunt the

elephant, which they kill by many various devices, as they do the

rhinoceros and the other large creatures. Those who reside where water

abounds, with the same industry kill the hippopotami, or river-horses,

which are exceedingly numerous in the pools of the stagnant rivers.

Where this flat belt, or country, is broadest, the trees thickest, and

the water in the largest pools, there the most powerful nations live,

who have often defeated the royal army of Abyssinia, and constantly

laid waste, and sometimes nearly conquered, the provinces of Tigré and

Siré, the most warlike and most populous part in Abyssinia.

The most considerable settlement of this nation is at Amba Tzaada,

between the Mareb and Tacazzé, but nearer by one-third to the Mareb,

and almost N. W. from Dobarwa. These people, who have a variety of

venison, kill it in the fair months, and hang it up, cut into thongs as

thick as a man’s thumb, like so many ropes, on the trees around them.

The sun dries and hardens it to a consistence almost like leather, or

the hardest fish sent from Newfoundland. This is their provision for

the winter months: They first beat it with a wooden mallet, then boil

it, after which they roast it upon the embers; and it is hard enough

after it has undergone all those operations.

The Dobenah, the most powerful of all the Shangalla, who have a

species of supremacy or command over all the rest of the nations, live

altogether upon the elephant or rhinoceros. In other countries, where

there is less water, fewer trees, and more grass, the Shangalla feed

chiefly upon more promiscuous kinds of food, as buffaloes, deer, boars,

lions, and serpents. These are the nations nearer the Tacazzé, Ras el

Feel, and the plains of Siré in Abyssinia, the chief of which nations

is called Baasa. And still farther west of the Tacazzé, and the valley

of Waldubba, is a tribe of these, who live chiefly upon the crocodile,

hippopotamus, and other fish; and, in the summer, upon locusts, which

they boil first, and afterwards keep dry in baskets, most curiously

made with split branches of trees, so closely woven together as to

contain water almost as well as a wooden vessel.

This nation borders nearly upon the Abyssinian hunting-ground; but,

not venturing to extend themselves in the chace of wild beasts, they

are confined to the neighbourhood of the Tacazzé, and rivers falling

into it, where they fish in safety: the banks of that river are

deep, interrupted by steep precipices inaccessible to cavalry, and,

from the thickness of the woods, full of thorny trees of innumerable

species, almost as impervious to foot. These streams, possessed only by

themselves, afford the Baasa the most excellent kinds of fish in the

most prodigious plenty.

In that part of the Shangalla country more to the eastward, about N.

N. E. of Amba Tzaada, in the northern extremities of the woody part,

where the river Mareb, leaving Dobarwa, flows through thick bushes till

it loses itself in the sands, there is a nation of these blacks, who

being near the country of the Baharnagash, an officer whose province

produces a number of horse, dare not, for that reason, venture to make

an extensive use of the variety of wild beasts which throng in the

woods to the southward, for fear of being intercepted by their enemy,

constantly upon the watch for them, part of his tribute being paid in

black slaves. These, therefore, confine themselves to the southern part

of their territory, near the Barabra.

The extraordinary course of this river under the sand, allures to it

multitudes of ostriches, which, too, are the food of the Shangalla,

as is a beautiful lizard, never, that I know, yet described. These

are the food of the eastern Shangalla; and I must here observe, that

this country and people were much better known to the ancients than

to us. The Egyptians traded with them, and caravans of these people

were constantly in Alexandria in the reigns of the first Ptolemies.

Most of the productions of these parts, and the people themselves, are

mentioned in the remarkable procession made by Ptolemy Philadelphus on

his accession to the throne of Egypt, as already observed, though a

confusion often arises therein by this country being called by the name

of India.

Ptolemy, the geographer, classes these people exactly enough,

and distinguishes them very accurately by their particular food,

or dietetique regimen, though he errs, indeed, a little in the

particular situation he gives to the different nations. His Rhizophagi,

Elephantophagi, Acridophagi, Struthiophagi, and Agriophagi, are all the

clans I have just described, existing under the same habits to this day.

This soil, called by the Abyssinians _Mazaga_, when wet by the tropical

rains, and dissolving into mire, forces these savages to seek for

winter-quarters. Their tents under the trees being no longer tenable,

they retire with their respective foods, all dried in the sun, into

caves dug into the heart of the mountains, which are not in this

country basaltes, marble, or alabaster, as is all that ridge which

runs down into Egypt along the side of the Red Sea, but are of a

soft, gritty, sandy stone, easily excavated and formed into different

apartments. Into these, made generally in the steepest part of the

mountain, do these savages retire to shun the rains, living upon the

flesh they have already prepared in the fair weather.

I cannot give over the account of the Shangalla without delivering

them again out of their caves, because this return includes the

history of an operation never heard of perhaps in Europe, and by which

considerable light is thrown upon ancient history. No sooner does the

sun pass the zenith, going southward, than the rains instantly cease;

and the thick canopy of clouds, which had obscured the sky during their

continuance, being removed, the sun appears in a beautiful sky of pale

blue, dappled with small thin clouds, which soon after disappear, and

leave the heavens of a most beautiful azure. A very few days of the

intense heat then dries the ground so perfectly, that it gapes in

chasms; the grass, struck at the roots by the rays, supports itself no

more, but droops and becomes parched. To clear this away, the Shangalla

set fire to it, which runs with incredible violence the whole breadth

of Africa, passing under the trees, and following the dry grass among

the branches with such velocity as not to hurt the trees, but to

occasion every leaf to fall.

A proper distance is preserved between each habitation, and round the

principal watering-places; and here the Shangalla again fix their tents

in the manner before described. Nothing can be more beautiful than

these shady habitations; but they have this fatal effect, that they

are discernible from the high grounds, and guide their enemies to the

places inhabited.

The country now cleared, the hunting begins, and, with the hunting,

the danger of the Shangalla. All the governors bordering upon the

country, from the Baharnagash to the Nile on the west, are obliged to

pay a certain number of slaves. Ras el Feel (my government) was alone

excepted, for a reason which, had I staid much longer in the country,

would probably have been found more advantageous to Abyssinia than

all the slaves they procure by the barbarous and prodigal effusion of

the blood of these unhappy savages; for, when a settlement of these

is surprised, the men are all slaughtered; the women, also, are many

of them slain, many throw themselves down precipices, run mad, hang

themselves, or starve, obstinately refusing food.

The boys and girls under 17 and 18 years of age, (the younger the

better) are taken and educated by the king, and are servants in

all the great houses of Abyssinia. They are instructed early in the

Christian religion, and the tallest, handsomest, and best inclined,

are the only servants that attend the royal person in his palace.

The number of the men was 300 that had horses in my time. They were

once 280, and, before my time, less than 200. These are all cloathed

in coats of mail, and mounted on black horses; always commanded by

foreigners devoted entirely to the king’s will. By strict attention

to their morals, removing all bad examples from among them, giving

premiums to those that read most and best, (for they had all time

enough upon their hands, especially in winter) and, above all, by

the great delight and pleasure the king used to take in conversing

with them while alone, countenancing and rewarding them in the line

he knew I followed, this body became, as to firmness and coolness in

action, equal perhaps to any of the same number in the world; and the

greatest difficulty was keeping them together, for all the great men

used to wish one of them for the charge of his door, which is a very

great trust among the Abyssinians. The king’s easiness was constantly

prevailed upon to promise such, and great inconvenience always followed

this, till Ras Michael discharged this practice by proclamation, and

set the example, by returning four that he himself had kept for the

purpose before mentioned.

While what I have said is still in memory, I must apply a part of

it to explain a passage in Hanno’s Periplus. We saw, says that bold

navigator, when rowing close along the coast of Africa, rivers of fire,

which ran down from the highest mountains, and poured themselves into

the sea; this alarmed him so much, that he ordered his gallies to keep

a considerable offing.

After the fire has consumed all the dry grass on the plain, and, from

it, done the same up to the top of the highest mountain, the large

ravines, or gullies, made by the torrents falling from the higher

ground, being shaded by their depth, and their being in possession of

the last water that runs, are the latest to take fire, though full of

every sort of herbage. The large bamboos, hollow canes, and such like

plants, growing as thick as they can stand, retain their greenness, and

are not dried enough for burning till the fire has cleared the grass

from all the rest of the country. At last, when no other fuel remains,

the herdsmen on the top of the mountains set fire to these, and the

fire runs down in the very path in which, some months before, the water

ran, filling the whole gully with flame, which does not end till it

is checked by the ocean below where the torrent of water entered, and

where the fuel of course ceases. This I have often seen myself, and

been often nearly inclosed in it, and can bear witness, that, at a

distance, and by a stranger ignorant of the cause, it would very hardly

be distinguished from a river of fire.

The Shangalla go all naked; they have several wives, and these very

prolific. They bring forth children with the utmost ease, and never

rest or confine themselves after delivery, but washing themselves and

the child with cold water, they wrap it up in a soft cloth made of the

bark of trees, and hang it upon a branch, that the large ants, with

which they are infested, and the serpents, may not devour it. After a

few days, when it has gathered strength, the mother carries it in the

same cloth upon her back, and gives it suck with the breast, which she

throws over her shoulder, this part being of such a length as, in some,

to reach almost to their knees.

The Shangalla have but one language, and of a very guttural

pronunciation. They worship various trees, serpents, the moon, planets,

and stars in certain positions, which I never could so perfectly

understand as to give any account of them. A star passing near the

horns of the moon denotes the coming of an enemy. They have priests,

or rather diviners; but it should seem that these were looked upon as

servants of the evil-being, rather than of the good. They prophecy bad

events, and think they can afflict their enemies with sickness, even at

a distance. They generally wear copper bracelets upon their wrists and

arms.

I have said the Shangalla have each several wives. This, however,

is not owing to any inordinate propensity of the men to this

gratification, but to a much nobler cause, which should make European

writers, who object this to them, ashamed at the injustice they do

the savage, who all his life, quite the reverse of what is supposed,

shews an example of continence and chastity, which the purest and most

refined European, with all the advantages of education, cannot pretend

to imitate.

It is not the men that seek to avail themselves of the liberty they

have by their usages of marrying as often and as many wives as they

please. Hemmed in on every side by active and powerful enemies, who

consider them as a species of wild beasts, and hunt them precisely as

they do the elephant and rhinoceros, placed in a small territory,

where they never are removed above 20 miles from these powerful

invaders furnished with horses and fire-arms, to both of which they

are strangers, they live for part of the fair season in continual

apprehension. The other part of the season, when the Abyssinian armies

are all collected and abroad with the king, these unhappy savages are

constantly employed in a most laborious hunting of large animals, such

as the rhinoceros, the elephant, and giraffa; and afterwards, in the no

less laborious preparation of the flesh of these quadrupeds, which is

to serve them for food during the six months rains, when each family

retires to its separate cave in the mountain, and has no intercourse

with any of its neighbours, but leaves the country below immersed in a

continual deluge of rain. In none of these circumstances, one should

imagine, the savage, full of apprehension and care, could have much

desire to multiply a race of such wretched beings as he feels himself

to be. It is the wife, not the man, that is the cause of this polygamy;

and this is surely a strong presumption against what is commonly said

of the violence of their inclinations.

Although the Shangalla live in separate tribes, or nations, yet

these nations are again subdivided into families, who are governed

by their own head, or chief, and of a number of these the nation is

composed, who concur in all that regards the measures of defence and

offence against their common enemy the Abyssinian and Arab. Whenever

an expedition is undertaken by a nation of Shangalla, either against

their enemies, the Arabs on the north, or those who are equally their

enemies, the Abyssinians on the south, suppose the nation or tribe to

be the Baasa, each family attacks and defends by itself, and theirs is

the spoil or plunder who take it.

The mothers, sensible of the disadvantage of a small family, therefore

seek to multiply and increase it by the only means in their power;

and it is by their importunity that the husband suffers himself to be

overcome. A second wife is courted for him by the first, in nearly the

same manner as among the Galla.

I will not fear to aver, as far as concerns these Shangalla, or

negroes, of Abyssinia, (and, I believe, most others of the same

complexion, though of different nations), that the various accounts

we have of them are very unfairly stated. To describe them justly, we

should see them in their native purity of manners, among their native

woods, living on the produce of their own daily labours, without other

liquor than that of their own pools and springs, the drinking of which

is followed by no intoxication or other pleasure than that of assuaging

thirst. After having been torn from their own country and connections,

reduced to the condition of brutes, to labour for a being they never

before knew; after lying, stealing, and all the long list of European

crimes, have been made, as it were, necessary to them, and the delusion

occasioned by drinking spirits is found, however short, to be the only

remedy that relieves them from reflecting on their present wretched

situation, to which, for that reason, they most naturally attach

themselves; then, after we have made them monsters, we describe them as

such, forgetful that they are now not as their Maker created them, but

such as, by teaching them our vices, we have transformed them into, for

ends which, I fear, one day will not be found a sufficient excuse for

the enormities they have occasioned.

I would not, by any means, have my readers so far mistake what I have

now said as to think it contains either censure upon, or disapprobation

of, the slave-trade. I would be understood to mean just the contrary;

that the abuses and neglect of manners, so frequent in our plantations,

is what the legislature should direct their coercion against, not

against the trade in general, which last measure, executed so suddenly,

cannot but contain a degree of injustice towards individuals. It is

a shame for any government to say, that enormous cruelties towards

any set of men are so evident, and have arrived to such excess,

without once having been under consideration of the legislature to

correct them. It is a greater shame still for that government to say,

that these crimes and abuses are now grown to such a height that

wholesome severity cannot eradicate them; and it cannot be any thing

but an indication of effeminacy and weakness at once to fall to the

destruction of an object of that importance, without having first tried

a reformation of those abuses which alone, in the minds of sober men,

can make the trade exceptionable.

The incontinence of these people has been a favourite topic with which

blacks have been branded; but, throughout the whole of this history,

I have set down only what I have observed, without consulting or

troubling myself with the systems or authorities of others, only so

far, as having these relations in my recollection, I have compared them

with the fact, and found them erroneous. As late as two centuries ago,

Christian priests were the only historians of heathen manners.

In the number of these Shangalla, or negroes, of which every department

of Gondar was full, I never saw any proof of unbridled desires in

either sex, but very much the contrary; and I must remark, that every

reason in physics strongly militates against the presumption.

The Shangalla of both sexes, while single, go entirely naked: the

married men, indeed, have a very slender covering about their waist,

and married women the same. Young men and young women, till long past

the age of puberty, are totally uncovered, and in constant conversation

and habits with each other, in woods and solitudes, free from

constraint, and without any punishment annexed to the transgression.

Yet criminal commerce is much less frequent among them than in the same

number chosen among Christian nations, where the powerful prejudices of

education give great advantage to one sex in subduing their passions,

and where the consequences of gratification, which always involve some

kind of punishment, keep within bounds the desires of the other.

No one can doubt, but that the constant habit of seeing people of all

ages naked at all times, in the ordinary transactions and necessities

of life, must greatly check unchaste propensities. But there are still

further reasons why, in the nature of things an extraordinary vehemence

of passion should not fall to be a distinguishing characteristic

among the Shangalla. Fahrenheit’s thermometer rises there beyond

100°. A violent relaxation from profuse perspiration must greatly

debilitate the savage. In Arabia and Turkey, where the whole business

of man’s life is the devoting himself to domestic pleasure, men remain

constantly in a sedentary life, eat heartily, avoiding every manner

of exercise, or expence of animal spirits by sweats. Their countries,

too, are colder than that of the Shangalla, who, living sparingly

under a burning sun, and obliged to procure food by laborious hunting,

of consequence deprive themselves of that quantity of animal spirits

necessary to lead them to any extreme of voluptuousness. And that this

is the case is seen in the constitution of the Shangalla women, even

though they are without fatigue.

A woman, upon bearing a child or two, at 10 or 11 years old, sees her

breast fall immediately down to near her knees[82]. Her common manner

of suckling her children is by carrying them upon her back, as our

beggars do, and giving the infant the breast over her shoulders. They

rarely are mothers after 22, or begin child-bearing before they are

10; so that the time of child-bearing is but 12 years. In Europe, very

many examples there are of women bearing children at 14, the civil law

fixes puberty at 12, but by an inuendo[83] seems to allow it may be

something earlier. Women sometimes in Europe bear children at 50. The

scale of years of child-bearing between the savage and the European is,

therefore, as 12 is to 38. There can be little doubt but their desires

are equal to their strength and constitution; but a Shangalla at 22 is

more wrinkled and deformed, apparently by old age, than is a European

woman of 60.

To come still nearer; it is a fact known to naturalists, and which

the application of the thermometer sufficiently indicates, that there

is a great and sensible difference in the degree of animal heat in

both sexes of different nations at the same ages or time of life. The

voluptuous Turk estranges himself from the fairest and finest of his

Circassian and Georgian women in his seraglio, and, during the warm

months in summer, addicts himself only to negro slaves brought from

the very latitudes we are now speaking of; the sensible difference of

the coolness of their skins leading him to give them the preference at

that season. On the other hand, one brown Abyssinian girl, a companion

for the winter months, is sold at ten times the price of the fairest

Georgian or Circassian beauty, for opposite reasons.

The very great regard I shall constantly pay my fair readers has made

me, as they may perceive, enter as tenderly as possible into these

discussions, which, as a philosopher and a historian, I could not,

however, wholly omit: the most useful study of mankind is man; and not

the least interesting view of him is when, stripped of his vain-glory

and the pageantry of palaces, he wanders naked and uncorrupted among

his native woods and rivers.

I must mention, greatly to the credit of two of the first geniuses

of this age, M. de Buffon and Lord Kaimes, that they were both so

convinced by the arguments above mentioned, stated in greater detail

and with more freedom, that they immediately ordered their bookseller

to strike out from the subsequent editions of their work all that had

been advanced against the negroes on this head, which they had before

drawn from the herd of prejudiced and ignorant compilers, strangers to

the manners and language of the people they were dishonouring by their

descriptions, after having before abused them by their tyranny.

The Shangalla have no bread: No grain or pulse will grow in the

country. Some of the Arabs, settled at Ras el Feel, have attempted to

make bread of the feed of the Guinea grass; but it is very tasteless

and bad, of the colour of cow-dung, and quickly producing worms.

They are all archers from their infancy. Their bows are all made of

wild fennel, thicker than the common proportion, and about seven feet

long, and very elastic. The children use the same bow in their infancy

that they do when grown up; and are, by reason of its length, for the

first years, obliged to hold it parallel, instead of perpendicular

to the horizon. Their arrows are full a yard and a half long, with

large heads of very bad iron rudely shaped. They are, indeed, the only

savages I ever knew that take no pains in the make or ornament of this

weapon. A branch of a palm, stript from the tree and made straight,

becomes an arrow; and none of them have wings to them. They have this

remarkable custom, which is a religious one, that they fix upon their

bows a ring, or thong, of the skin of every beast slain by it, while

it is yet raw, from the lizard and serpent up to the elephant. This

gradually stiffens the bow, till, being all covered over, it can be no

longer bent even by its master. That bow is then hung upon a tree,

and a new one is made in its place, till the same circumstance again

happens; and one of these bows, that which its master liked best, is

buried with him in the hopes of its rising again materially with his

body, when he shall be endowed with a greater degree of strength,

without fear of death, or being subjected to pain, with a capacity

to enjoy in excess every human pleasure. There is nothing, however,

spiritual in this resurrection, nor what concerns the soul, but it

is wholly corporeal and material; although some writers have plumed

themselves upon their fancied discovery of what they call the savages

belief of the immortality of the soul.

Before I take leave of this subject, I must again explain, from

what I have already said, a difficult passage in classical history.

Herodotus[84] says, that, in the country we have been just now

describing, there was a nation called Macrobii, which was certainly not

the real name of the Shangalla, but one the Greeks had given them, from

a supposed circumstance of their being remarkable long livers, as that

name imports. These were the western Shangalla, situated below Guba and

Nuba, the gold country, on both sides of the Nile north of Fazuclo.

The Guba and the Nuba, and various black nations that inhabits the

foot of that large chain of mountains called Dyre and Tegla[85], are

those in whose countries the finest gold is found, which is washed from

the mountains in the time of violent rains, and lodged in holes, and

roots of trees and grass, by the torrents, and there picked up by the

natives; it is called Tibbar, or, corruptly, gold-dust. The greatest

part finds its way to Sennaar by the different merchants, Pagan and

Mahometan, from Fazuclo and Sudan. The Agows and Gibbertis also bring

a small quantity of it to Gondar, mostly debased by alloy; but there

is no gold in Abyssinia, nor even in Nubia, west of Tchelga, among the

Shangalla themselves.

Cambyses marched from Egypt expressly with a view of conquering the

gold country, and sent messengers before him to the king, or chief of

it, requiring his immediate submission. I omit romantic and fabulous

circumstances; but the answer of the king of Macrobii to Cambyses was,

Take this bow, and till you can bring me a man that can bend it, you

are not to talk to us of submission. The bow was accordingly carried

back with the defiance, but none of the Persian army could bend it. Yet

it was their own weapon with which they practised from their infancy;

and we are not to think, had it been possible to bend this bow, but

that some of their numerous archers would have done it, for there is no

such disproportion in the strength of men. But it was a bow which had

lost its elastic force from the circumstance above mentioned, and had

been long given up as impossible to be bent by the Macrobii themselves,

and was now taken down from the tree where it had probably some time

hung, and grown so much the less flexible, and intended to be buried,

as these bows are, in the grave with their master, who is to use it,

after his resurrection, in another world, where he is to be endowed

with strength infinitely more than human: it is probable this bow

would have broke, rather than have bent.

If the situation of these Macrobii in Ptolemy did not put it past

dispute that they were Shangalla, we should hesitate much at the

characteristic of the nation; that they were long livers; none of these

nations are so; I scarcely remember an example fairly vouched of a

man past sixty. But there is one circumstance that I think might have

fairly led Herodotus into this mistake; some of the Shangalla kill

their sick, weak, and aged people; there are others that honour old

age, and protect it. The Macrobii, I suppose, were of this last kind,

who certainly, therefore, had many old men, more than the others.

I shall now just mention one other observation tending to illustrate a

passage of ancient history.

Hanno, in his Periplus, remarks, that, while sailing along the coast of

Africa, close by the shore, and probably near the low country called

Kolla, inhabited by the kind of people we have been just describing,

he found an universal silence to prevail the whole day, without any

appearance of man or beast: on the contrary, at night, he saw a

number of fires, and heard the sound of music and dancing. This has

been laughed at as a fairy tale by people who affect to treat Hanno’s

fragment as spurious; for my own part, I will not enter into the

controversy.

A very great genius, (in some matters, perhaps, the greatest that ever

wrote, and in every thing that he writes highly respectable) M. de

Montesqieu, is perfectly satisfied that this Periplus[86] of Hanno is

genuine; and it is a great pleasure again to endeavour to obviate any

doubt concerning the authenticity of the work in this second passage,

as I have before done in another.

In countries, such as those that we have been now describing, and

such as Hanno was then sailing by, when he made the remark, there is

no twilight. The stars, in their full brightness, are in possession

of the whole heavens, when in an instant the sun appears without a

harbinger, and they all disappear together. We shall say, at sun-rising

the thermometer is from 48° to 60°; at 3 o’clock in the afternoon it

is from 100° to 115°; an universal relaxation, a kind of irresistible

languor and aversion to all action takes possession both man and beast;

the appetite fails, and sleep and quiet are the only things the mind is

capable of desiring, or the body of enduring: cattle, birds, and beasts

all flock to the shade, and to the neighbourhood of running streams, or

deep stagnant pools, and there, avoiding the effects of the scorching

sun, pant in quiet and inaction. From the same motive, the wild beast

stirs not from his cave; and for this, too, he has an additional

reason, because the cattle he depends upon for his prey do not stroll

abroad to feed; they are asleep and in safety, for with them are their

dogs and their shepherds.

But no sooner does the sun set, than a cold night instantly succeeds

a burning day; the appetite immediately returns; the cattle spread

themselves abroad to feed, and pass quickly out of the shepherds sight

into the reach of a multitude of beasts seeking for their prey. Fires,

the only remedy, are everywhere lighted by the shepherds to keep these

at a respectful distance; and dancing, singing, and music at once

exhilarate the mind, and contribute, by alarming the beasts of prey,

to keep their flocks in safety, and prevent the bad effects of severe

cold[87]. This was the cause of the observation Hanno made in sailing

along the coast, and it was true when he made it: just the same may be

observed still, and will be, so long as the climate and inhabitants are

the same.

I have been more particular in the history of this extraordinary

nation, because I had, by mere accident, an opportunity of informing

myself fully and with certainty concerning it; and, as it is very

improbable that such an opportunity will occur again to any European, I

hope it will not be ungratefully received.

I shall only add an answer to a very obvious question which may occur.

Why is it that, in this country, nothing that would make bread will

grow? Is it from the ignorance of the inhabitants in not choosing

the proper seasons, or is it the imperfection of the soil? To this I

answer, Certainly the latter. For the inhabitants of Ras el Feel were

used to plow and sow, and did constantly eat bread; but the grain was

produced ten or fifteen miles off upon the sides of the mountains

of Abyssinia, where every certain number of soldiers had small farms

allowed them for that purpose by government; but still they could never

bring up a crop in the Mazaga; and the progress of the miscarriage

was this: Before the month of May all that black earth was rent into

great chasms, trode into dust, and ventilated with hot winds, so as

to be a perfect _caput mortuum_, incapable of any vegetation. Upon

the first sprinkling of rain the chasms are filled up, and the whole

country resembles dry garden-mould newly dug up. As the sun advances

the rains increase; there is no time to be lost now; this is the

season for sowing; let us suppose wheat. In one night’s time, while

the wheat is swelling in the ground, up grows an immense quantity of

indigenous natural grass, that, having sowed itself last year, has lain

ever since in a natural matrix, ready to start at the most convenient

season. Before the wheat, or any grain soever can appear, this grass

has shot up so high and so thick as absolutely to choke it. Suppose

it was possible to hoe or weed it, the grass will again overtop the

grain before it is an inch from the ground. Say it could be again hoed

or cleared, by this time the rains are so continual, the black earth

becomes a perfect mire. The rain increases, and the grain rots without

producing any crop.

The same happens to millet, or Indian corn; the rain rots the plant

which is thrown down by the wind. It is equally destroyed if sown

at the end of the rains; the grass grows up, wherever the ground is

cleared, in a greater proportion, if possible, than in the beginning of

the year; and the rain ceasing abruptly, and the sun beginning to be

intensely hot the very day it passes the zenith, the earth is reduced

to an impalpable powder, whilst the grain and plant die without ever

shewing a tendency to germinate.

We left the king, Oustas, after detecting a conspiracy, ready to fall

upon some settlement of Shangalla. This he executed with great success,

and surrounded a large part of the nation called Baasa, encamped under

the trees suspecting no danger. He put the grown people to the sword,

and took a prodigious number of children of both sexes captive. He

was intending also to push his conquest farther among these savages,

when he was called to Gondar by the death of his prime minister and

confident, Ras Fasa Christos.

Besides his attention to hunting and government, the king had a very

great taste for architecture, which, in Abyssinia, is a very popular

one, though scarcely any thing is built but churches. In the season

that did not permit him to be in the field, he bestowed a great deal of

leisure and money this way; and he was, at this time, busy erecting a

magnificent church to the Nativity, about a mile below Gondar, on the

small river Kahha.

But the season of hunting returning before he had finished it, he left

it to repair to Bet Malo, a place in the Kolla, where he had built a

hunting-seat, not far distant from the Shangalla, called Baasa. Here

he had a most successful hunting-match of the buffalo, rhinoceros,

and elephant, in which he often put himself in great danger, and

distinguished himself in dexterity and horsemanship greatly above any

of his court. He returned upon news, that persons, whom he had secretly

employed, had apprehended Betwudet Basilé, and his son Claudius, who

had escaped when the last conspirators were seized. Both these he

sentenced immediately to lose their eyes.

These hunting-matches, so punctually observed, and so eagerly followed

by a man already past the flower of his youth, had, in their first

appearance, nothing but sound policy. The king’s title was avowedly a

faulty one; and the many conspiracies that had been formed had shewn

him the nobility were not all of them disposed to bear his yoke;

nothing then was more political than to keep a considerable number of

them employed in field-exercises, to be informed of their inclinations,

and to attach them to his person by favours. At the head of this

little, but very active army, he was ready in a moment to fall upon

the disaffected, before they could collect strength sufficient for

resistance. Time, however, shewed this was not entirely the reason of

these continual intervals of absence for so long a time in the Kolla.

Notwithstanding the misfortune that had befallen the French ambassador,

M. du Roule, at Sennaar, in the reign of Yasous I. and Tecla Haimanout

his son, under Baady el Ahmer, there had still remained below, in

Atbara, some of those missionaries who had courage and address enough

to attempt the journey into Abyssinia, and they succeeded in it. Oustas

had probably been privy to their arrival in Yasous’s time, and had,

equally with him, a favourable opinion of the Romish religion.

These missionaries, though Yasous was now dead, were perfectly well

received by Oustas; he had given them in charge to Ain Egzie, an old

and loyal servant of Yasous, and governor of Walkayt. He had placed

also with them an Abyssinian priest, who had been in Jerusalem, and

was well-affected to the Romish faith, to be their interpreter, stay

with them always, and manage their interests, while he himself,

stealing frequently from the hunting-matches, heard mass, and received

the communion, returning back to his camp, as he flattered himself,

unperceived. These meetings with the priests were not, however, so well

concealed but that they came to the knowledge of many people about

court, both seculars and clergy. But the king’s character, for severity

and vigilance, made everybody confine their thoughts, whatever they

were, within their own breasts.

The employment of this year was a short journey to Ibaba, a large

market-town, where there is a royal residence, below Maitsha, on the

west, or Gojam side of the Nile, from which it is about three days

distance. From this he returned again, and went to Tcherkin, a small

village in Kolla, beyond Ras el Feel, in the way to Sennaar, the

principal abode of the elephant. But, in the first day’s hunting,

Yared, master of his household, and a considerable favourite, being

torn to pieces by one of these quadrupeds, he gave over the sport, and

returned very sorrowful to bury him at Gondar, leaving three of his

servants to execute a design he had formed against the Baasa in that

neighbourhood.

From the constant interruptions Oustas had met with in all these

hunting-matches, and his success, notwithstanding, whenever he had

himself attended, the divining monks had prophesied his reign was to

be short, and attended with much bloodshed; nor were they for once

distant from the truth; for, in the month of January 1714, while he

was over-looking the workmen building the church of Abba Antonius at

Gondar, he was taken suddenly ill, and, suspecting some unwholesomeness

or _witchcraft_ in his palace, he ordered his tent to be pitched

without the town till the apartments should be smoaked with gunpowder.

But this was done so carelessly by his servants, that his house was

burnt to the ground, which was looked upon as a very bad omen, and made

a great impression upon the minds of the people.

The 27th of January it was generally understood that the king was

dangerously ill, and that his complaint was every day increasing. Upon

this the principal officers went, according to the usual custom, to

condole with and comfort him. This was at least what they pretended.

Their true errand, however, was pretty well known to be an endeavour to

ascertain whether the sickness was of the kind likely to continue, till

measures could be adopted with a degree of certainty to take the reins

of government out of his hand.

The king easily divined the reason of their coming. Having had a good

night, he used the strength that he had thereby acquired to rouse

himself for a moment, to put on the appearance of health, and shew

himself, as usual, engaged in his ordinary dispatch of business. The

seeming good countenance of the king made their condolence premature.

Some excuse, however, for so formal a visit, was necessary; but

every apology was not safe. They adopted this, which they thought

unexceptionable, that hearing he was sick, which they happily found he

was not, they came to propose to him a thing equally proper whether he

was sick or well; that he would, in time, settle the succession upon

his son Fasil, then in the mountain of Wechné, as a means of quieting

the minds of his friends, preventing bloodshed, and securing the crown

to his family.

Oustas did the utmost to command himself upon this occasion, and to

give them an answer such as suited a man in health who hoped to live

many years. But it was now too late to play such a part; and, in spite

of his utmost dissimulation, evident signs of decay appeared upon him,

which his visitors conjectured would soon be past dissembling, and they

agreed to stay with the king till the evening.

But the soldiers on guard, who heard the proposal of sending for

Oustas’s son, and who really believed that these men spoke from their

heart, and were in earnest, were violently discontented and angry at

this proposal. They began to be weary of novelty, and longed for a

king of the ancient royal family. As soon, therefore, as it was dark

they entered Gondar, and called together the several regiments, or

bodies of soldiers, which composed the king’s household. Having came

to a resolution how they were to act, they returned to their quarters

where they were upon guard, and meeting the great officers coming out

of Oustas’s tent, where they, too, had probably agreed upon the same

measure, though it was not known, the soldiers drew their swords,

and slew them all, being seven in number. Among these were Betwudet

Tamerté, and the Acab Saat; the one the principal lay-officer, the

other the chief ecclesiastic in the king’s house.

This massacre seemed to be the signal for a general insurrection,

in the course of which, part of the town was set on fire. But the

soldiers, at their first meeting in the palace[88], had shut up the

coronation-chamber, and the other royal apartments, and possessed

themselves of the kettle-drum by which all proclamations were made at

the gate, driving away, and rudely treating the multitude on every

side. At last they brought out the drum, though it was yet night, and

made this proclamation:--“David, son of our late king Yasous, is our

king.” The tumult and disorder, nevertheless, still continued; during

all which, it was very remarkable no one ever thought of offering an

injury to Oustas.

While these things were passing at Gondar, a violent alarm had seized

all the princes upon the mountain of Wechné. They had been treated

with severity during Oustas’s whole reign. Their revenues had been

with-held, or at least not regularly paid, and they had been reduced

nearly to perish for want of the necessaries of life. When, therefore,

the accounts of Oustas’s illness arrived, and that the principal

people had proposed to name Fasil his son, then their fellow-prisoner,

to succeed him, their fears no longer reminded them of the hardships

of his father’s reign, as they expected utter extirpation as the only

measure by which he could provide for his own security. Full of these

fears, they agreed, with one consent, to let down from the mountain

fifty princes of the greatest hopes, all in the prime of life, and

therefore most capable of defending their own right, and securing

the lives of those that remained upon the mountain, from the cruel

treatment they must obviously expect if they fell into the hand of an

usurper or stranger.

The brother of Betwudet Tamerté, who, with the six others, had been

murdered before Oustas’s tent, was, at this time, guardian of the

mountain of Wechné. His brother’s death, however, and the unsettled

state of government, had so much weakened both his authority and

attention, that he either did not choose, or was not able, to prevent

the escape of these princes, all flying for their lives, and for the

sake of preserving the ancient constitution of their country. And that

this, and no other was their object, appeared the instant the danger

was removed; for, as soon as the news that David was proclaimed at

Gondar arrived at the mountain, all the princes returned of their own

accord, excepting Bacuffa, younger brother to the king, who fled to the

Galla, and lay concealed among them for a time.

On David’s arrival at Gondar, all the old misfortunes seemed to be

forgotten. The joy of having the ancient royal line restored, got the

better of those fears which first occasioned the interruption. The

prisons were thrown open, and David was crowned the 30th of January

1714, amidst the acclamations of all ranks of people, and every

demonstration of festivity and joy.

David was son of Yasous the Great, and consequently brother to the

parricide Tecla Haimanout, but by another mother. At his coronation he

was just twenty-one years of age, and took for his inauguration name

Adebar Segued.

In all this time, however, Oustas was alive. Oustas was, indeed, sick,

but still he was king; and yet it is surprising that David had been now

nine days at Gondar, and no injury had been offered to Oustas, nor any

escape attempted for him by his friends.

It was the 6th of February, the day before Lent, when, the king

sent the Abuna Marcus, Itchegué Za Michael, with some of the great

officers of state, to interrogate Oustas judicially, for form’s sake,

as to his title to the crown. The questions proposed are very short

and simple--“Who are you? What brought you here?” To these plain

interrogatories, Oustas, then struggling with death, answered, however,

as plainly, and without equivocation, “Tell my king David, that true it

is I have made myself king, as much as one can be that is not of the

royal family; for I am but a private man, son of a subject, Kasmati

Delba Yasous: all I beg of the king is to give me a little time, and

let me die with sickness, as I shortly shall, without putting me to

torment or pain.”

On the 10th day of February, that is four days after the interrogation,

Oustas died, but whether of a violent or natural death is not known.

The historian of his reign, a cotemporary writer, says, some reported

that he died of an amputation of his leg by order of the king; others,

that he was strangled; but that most people were of opinion that he

died of sickness; and this I think the most probable, for had the king

been earnestly set upon his death, he would not have allowed so much

time to pass, after his coronation, before his rival was interrogated;

nor was there any reason to allow him four days after his confession.

David’s moderation after the death, moreover, seems to render this

still more credible; for he ordered his body to be buried in the church

of the Nativity, which he had himself built, with all the honours and

public ceremonies due to his rank as a nobleman and subject, who had

been guilty of no crime, instead of ordering his body to be hewn in

pieces, and scattered along the ground without burial, to be eat by

the dogs; the invariable punishment, unless in this one instance, of

high-treason in this country.

Posterity, regarding his merit more than his title, have, however, kept

his name still among the list of kings; and tradition, doing him more

justice still than history, has ranked him among the best that ever

reigned in Abyssinia.

[Illustration]

DAVID IV.

From 1714 to 1719.

_Convocation of the Clergy--Catholic Priests executed--A

second Convocation--Clergy insult the King--His severe

Punishment--King dies of Poison._

The moderation of the king, both before and after the death of Oustas,

and perhaps some other favourable appearances now unknown to us, set

the monks, the constant pryers into futurity, upon prophecying that the

reign of this prince was to be equal in length to that of his father

Yasous the Great, and that it was to be peaceable, full of justice and

moderation, without execution, or effusion of civil blood.

David, immediately upon his accession, appointed Fit-Auraris Agnè,

Ozoro Keduste’s brother[89], his Betwudet, and Abra Hezekias his

matter of the household; and was proceeding to fill up the inferior

posts of government, when he was interrupted by the clamours of a

multitude of monks demanding a convocation of the clergy.

These assemblies, however often solicited, are never called in

the reign of vigorous princes, but by the special order of the

sovereign, who grants or refuses them purely from his own free-will.

They are, however, particularly expected at the accession of a new

prince, upon any apprehension of heresy, or any novelty or abuse in

church-government.

The arrival of a new-Abuna from Egypt is also a very principal reason

for the convocation. These assemblies are very numerous. Many of the

most discreet members of the church absent themselves purposely. On

the other hand, the monks, who, by vows, have bound themselves to the

most painful austerities and sufferings; those that devote themselves

to pass their lives in the deep and unwholesome valleys of the country;

hermits that starve on the points of cold rocks; others that live in

deserts surrounded with, and perpetually exposed to wild beasts; in

a word, the whole tribe of fanatics, false prophets, diviners, and

dreamers, people who affect to see and foreknow what is in future

to happen, by living in perfect ignorance of what is passing at the

present; people in constant habits of dirt and nastiness, naked, or

covered with hair; in short, a collection of monsters, scarcely to

be described or conceived, compose an ecclesiastical assembly in

Abyssinia, and are the leaders of an ignorant and furious populace,

who adore them as saints, and are always ready to support them in some

violation of the laws of the country, or of humanity, to which, by

their customs and manner of life, their very first appearance shews

they have been long strangers.

David, however averse to these assemblies, could not decently refuse

them, now a new prince was set on the throne, a new Abuna was come

from Egypt, and a complaint was ready to be brought that the church

was in danger. The assembly met in the usual place before the palace.

The Itchegué, or head of the monks of Debra Libanos, was ready with a

complaint, which he preferred to the king. He stated it was notorious,

but offered to prove it if denied, that three Romish priests, with an

Abyssinian for their interpreter, were then established in Walkayt,

and, for several years, had been there maintained, protected, and

consulted by the late king Oustas, who had often assisted at the

celebration of mass as solemnized by the church of Rome.

David was a rigid adherent to the church of Alexandria, and educated

by his mother in the tenets of the monks of Saint Eustathius, that is,

the most declared enemies of every thing approaching to the tenets of

the church of Rome. He was consequently, not by inclination, neither

was he by duty, obliged to undertake the defence of measures adopted by

Oustas, of which he was besides ignorant, having been confined in the

mountain of Wechné. He ordered, therefore, the missionaries, and their

interpreter, whose name was Abba Gregorius, to be apprehended.

These unfortunate people were accordingly produced before the most

prejudiced and partial of all tribunals. Abba Masmarè and Adug Tesfo

were adduced to interrogate and to interpret to them, as they

understood the Arabic, having been at Cairo and Jerusalem. The trial

neither was, nor was intended to be long. The first question put was

a very direct one; Do you, or do you not, receive the council of

Chalcedon as a rule of faith? and, Do you believe that Leo the pope

lawfully and regularly presided at it, and conducted it? To this the

prisoners plainly answered, That they looked upon the council of

Chalcedon as the fourth general council, and received it as such,

and as a rule of faith: that they did believe pope Leo lawfully and

regularly presided at it, as being head of the Catholic church,

successor to St Peter, and Christ’s vicar upon earth. Upon this a

general shout was heard from the whole assembly; and the fatal cry,

“Stone them.”--“Whoever throws not three stones, he is accursed, and an

enemy to Mary,” immediately followed.

One priest only, distinguished for piety and learning among his

countrymen, and one of the chief men in the assembly, with great

vehemence declared, they were tried partially and unfairly, and

condemned unjustly. But his voice was not heard amidst the clamours

of such a multitude; and the monks were accordingly by the judges

condemned to die. Ropes were instantly thrown about their necks, and

they were dragged to a place behind the church of Abbo, in the way to

Tedda, where they were, according to their sentence, stoned to death,

suffering with a patience and resignation equal to the first martyrs.

The justice, however, which we owe to the memory of the deceased M. du

Roule, must always leave a fear in every Christian mind, that, spotted

as these missionaries were with the horrid crime of the premeditated,

unprovoked murder of that ambassador, the indifference they testified

at the approach, and in the immediate suffering of death, had its

origin rather in hardness of heart than in the quietness of their

consciences. Many fanatics have been known to die, glorying in having

perpetrated the most horrid crimes to which the sentence of eternal

damnation is certainly annexed in the book before them.

I have often, both on purpose and by accident, passed by this place,

where three large, and one small pile of stones, cover the bodies of

these unfortunate sufferers; and, with many heavy reflections, upon

my own danger, I have often wondered how these three priests, of

whatever nation they were, passed unnoticed among the number of their

fraternity, whose memory is honoured with long panegyrics by the Romish

writers of those times, as destined one day to appear in the kalendar.

Though those that compose the long list of Tellez died with piety

and resignation, they were surely guilty in the way they almost all

were engaged, contrary to the laws and constitution of the country,

in actions and designs that can be fairly qualified by no other name

than that of treason, while no such political meddling out of their

profession ever was reproached to these three, even by their enemies.

Tellez says not a word of them; Le Grande, a zealous Catholic writer

of these times, but little; though he publishes an Arabic letter to

consul Maillet, which mentions their names, their sufferings, and other

circumstances attending them. I shall, therefore, take the liberty of

offering my conjecture, as I think this silence, or the suppression of

a fact, gives me a title to do; but shall first produce the letter of

Elias Enoch, upon which I found my judgment.

TRANSLATION _of an_ ARABIC LETTER _wrote to_ M. DE MAILLET.

“After having assured M. de Maillet, the consul, of my respects, and

of the continuation of my prayers for his health, as being a gentleman

venerable for his merits, distinguished by his knowledge and great

penetration, of a noble birth, always beneficent, and addicted to

pious actions, (may God preserve his life to that degree of honour due

to so respectable a person), I now write you from the town of Mocha.

I left Abyssinia in the year 1718, and came to this town of Mocha in

extreme poverty, or rather absolutely destitute. God has assisted me:

I give praise to him for his bounty, and always remain much obliged to

you. What follows is all that I can inform you as touching the news of

Abyssinia. King Yasous is long since dead: his son, Tecla Haimanout,

having seized upon the kingdom by force, caused his father to be

assassinated. This king Yasous, having given me leave to go to Sennaar,

furnished me with a letter addressed to the king there, in which he

desired him to put no obstacles in the way of du Roule the French

ambassador’s journey, but to suffer him to enter Ethiopia. He also gave

me another letter addressed to the basha and officers of Grand Cairo;

and another letter to the ambassador himself, by which he signified

to him that he might enter into Ethiopia without fear. Accordingly I

had departed with these letters for Sennaar; but king Tecla Haimanout,

son of king Yasous, having taken possession of the kingdom while I was

yet in Abyssinia, I returned and delivered to him the letters which

had been given me by his father. It was now three months since Tecla

Haimanout had been upon the throne; he approved of the letters, and

caused them to be transcribed in his own name; and ordered me to go and

join du Roule the ambassador, and accompany him back again to Gondar.

King Yasous had already sent an officer to meet the ambassador at

Sennaar; and he had been gone six months without my knowledge; but that

officer, having trifled away his time in trading, did not enter Sennaar

till that king had caused the ambassador to be murdered, together with

those that were with him. As for me, not knowing what had happened,

I was advancing with the orders of Tecla Haimanout, when, being now

within three days journey of Sennaar, I heard of the ambassador’s

death, and that of his companions; and being terrified at this, I

returned into Abyssinia to let Tecla Haimanout know what the king of

Sennaar had done. Immediately upon hearing of this, Tecla Haimanout

formed a resolution to declare war against the king of Sennaar, but was

soon after slain in a mutiny of the soldiers. He reigned two years.

Tifilis, brother of Yasous, succeeded him, and reigned three years and

three months. Oustas, nephew of king Yasous, succeeded Tifilis, and

usurped the kingdom, of which he was actually prime minister, being

son of a sister of Yasous. Oustas was dethroned, and died soon after.

David, son of Yasous, succeeded him, and reigned five years and five

months. The _friars_, who arrived in Ethiopia in the reign of Oustas,

were stoned to death, upon the succession of David to the throne, by

those that were of the party of David. A son of _Michael_, whom he

had by a slave, aged only six years, was stoned with him. It was the

_fourth_ son he had. I made Yasous believe that the religion of the

French was the same with that of Ethiopia,” &c. &c.

From this letter, we see a boy of six years old, son of one of these

priests or friars, was stoned to death with them; and his heap of

stones appears with those of the others. It was, indeed, a common

test of the people suspected to be priests, who stole into Abyssinia,

to offer them women, their vows being known, and that they could not

marry. I apprehend, to avoid detection, one at least of them had

broken his vow of celibacy and chastity, and that this child was the

consequence, but not the only one, as Enoch says, in his letter, he had

three others; and this probably was the reason why the Catholics of

those times had consigned their merit to oblivion, rather than record

it with their failings.

For although we know that there were friars who had been in Ethiopia

since the time of Oustas, we should not have been informed who they

were, had it not been for a small sheet, published at Rome in the year

1774, by a capuchin priest called Theodosius Volpi, sent to me by my

learned and worthy friend the honourable Daines Barrington. From this

we find, that these three were, Liberato de Wies, apostolical prefect

in Austria; Michael Pius of Zerbe, in the province of Padua; and Samuel

de Beumo, of the Milanese. The account of their death is the same as

already given, though the publisher suppresses the stoning of the

child, and the existence of the three other, fruits of the seraphic

mission, through the endeavours of father Michael Pius of Zerbe, of the

province of Milan. The child, too, stoned to death with his father,

was six years old, and was, as Elias says, fourth son of Michael;

and it was in 1714 this catastrophe happened, so that this will bring

these fathers entrance into Nubia about the time of the murder of M. du

Roule: so consistent with every crime is fanaticism and false religion.

The barbarous monks, gratified in the first instance, would not be

contented without extending their vengeance to Abba Gregorius, the

Abyssinian priest, the interpreter. But David, who found upon trial

that, in going to attend the priests in Walkayt, he had only obeyed the

express command of Oustas, then his sovereign, absolutely refused to

suffer him to be either tried or punished, but dismissed him, without

further censure or question, to his native country.

While David was thus employed at Gondar, news were brought to him

that his brother Bacuffa had left the Galla, and was then in a small

town in Begemder, called Wetan. It was this prince who, together with

fifty others of the royal family, were let down from the mountain of

Wechné, upon Oustas’s son being proposed, and he alone refused to

return upon his brother’s accession to the throne. David sent Azaleffi,

Guebra Mehedin, and Badjerund Welled de l’Oul, to Wetan, where they

apprehended Bacuffa by surprise, and lodged him in the mountain of

Wechné, after having cut off a very small part of the tip of his nose,

which was scarcely discernible when he came to the throne.

Kasmati Georgis, had been banished to the mountain in the reign of the

late king, where he had contracted an intimate friendship with David.

He had also married a sister of Ozoro Mamet, by whom Yasous had several

children, particularly one Welleta Georgis, a prince then of years

to govern, and confined to the mountain. David, on his coming to the

throne, did not forget his old friendship on the mountain; and, passing

by Emfras, he sent to Wechné to bring down Kasmati Georgis to Arringo,

one of the king’s palaces in Begemder, where he intended to pass the

summer. On his return he gave him the government of Gojam; and his

favourite Agné, his uncle, dying at this time, very much regretted,

Georgis was also created Betwudet in his place.

This year Abuna Marcus died; and his successor, Abuna Christodulus,

arriving the third day of November, this made the calling of another

assembly of the clergy absolutely necessary, although, from the humour

the last was in, the whole time of their meeting, the king was very

little inclined to it.

The monks in Abyssinia, as I have often said, are divided into two

bodies, those of Debra Libanos and those of Abba Eustathius. Some have

imagined that the difference between these two bodies arises from a

dispute about two natures in Christ. But this is from misinformation;

for, were a dispute to arise about the two natures in Christ, each

party would declare the other a heretic; but at present a few equivocal

words, used to define the mode and moment of our Saviour’s incarnation,

though neither opinion is thought heretical[90], have the effect to

make these two sects enemies all their lives.

The Abuna is the head of the Abyssinian church; yet, as he is known to

be a slave of the Mahometans, upon his first arrival, and permission

obtained from the king, the assembly meets in a large outer court,

or square, before the palace, where he is interrogated, and where he

declares which of the two opinions he adopts. If he has been properly

advised, he declares for the ruling and strongest party; though

sometimes he is determined, by the address of those about him, to side

with the weakest; and very often, if he has had no instruction on his

arrival, he does not know what this reference means; for no trace of

such dispute exists among his brethren in Cairo, from whence he came.

He is, moreover, a stranger to the language, and the words containing

either opinion, which, for shortness sake, are made to mean a great

deal more than they at first seem to import; and, whether freely or

literally translated, are equally unintelligible to a foreigner. After

the Abuna has declared his choice, this is announced by beat of drum to

the people, and is called _Nagar Haimanout_, or, the Proclamation of

the Faith. The only ordinary effect this declaration has, is to make

the person who is at the head of one party an adversary to him who is

the head of the other, all his life after.

The king at his accession makes his declaration also. The clergy

maintain, that he should do this in an assembly called for that

purpose, though the king denies that there is any necessity for

the clergy to be present; but he considers it as his privilege to

choose his own time and place, and announces it to the people, by

proclamation, at what time, and in what manner, he thinks most

convenient.

Although David had given his permission to assemble the clergy to hear

the Abuna’s declaration, he did not think himself bound to assist at

it, and, therefore, he sent to the monks of Debra Libanos, and those of

Abba Eustathius, to go to the Abuna with Betwudet Georgis, who should

interrogate the Abuna, and report the answer to the king, who thereupon

would order it to be proclaimed to the people. The monks of Debra

Libanos refused this, as they did not consider Georgis as indifferent,

being known to be a staunch Eustathian. They declared, therefore, they

would neither hear nor regard what the Abuna said, unless it was in

the king’s presence; and this was just what David was resolved not to

humour them in.

Betwudet Georgis, the great officers of state, and most of the people

of consideration about Gondar, waited upon the Abuna as the king had

commanded; and the Betwudet having desired him to make his profession,

he would only give this evasive answer, That his faith was in all

respects the same as that of Abba Marcos and Abba Sanuda, the ancient

and orthodox Abunas.

This answer left every party at liberty to imagine that the Abuna was

their own. But this evasion did not content the king, who therefore

ordered the Betwudet, without taking further notice of the Abuna, to

make proclamation in terms of the profession of the monks of Abba

Eustathius. This occasioned great heats among the monks of Debra

Libanos. They ran all with one accord to the Itchegué’s house, for he

is their general, or chief of their convent, and here they came to

the most violent resolutions, declaring that they would die either

together, or man by man, in support of their privileges and the

freedom of their assemblies. From the Itchegué’s house they ran to

the Abuna’s, without soliciting or receiving any permission from the

king; and, upon interrogation, they succeeded with the Abuna to the

height of their wishes; for he answered in the precise words of their

profession--“One God, of the Father alone, united to a body perfectly

human, consubstantial with ours, and by that union becoming the

Messiah;” in direct opposition to what was proclaimed by the king’s

order at the gate of the palace the day before--Perfect God and perfect

man, by the union one Christ, whose body is composed of a precious

substance, called _Bahery_, not consubstantial with ours, or derived

from his mother.

Had they stopt here it had been well; but the victory was too great,

too unexpected, and complete, to admit of their sitting quietly down

without a triumph. They returned, therefore, from the Abuna’s, frantic

with joy, shouting, and singing, and more peculiarly one kind of song,

or hallelujah, used always upon victories obtained over infidels. As

they passed the door of the king’s palace, some of the officers of

the household, Azage Zakery, Azage Tecla Haimanout, and Badjerund

Welleta David, moderate men, lovers of peace, and inclined to no party,

endeavoured to persuade them to content themselves with what they

had done, to disperse, and each go to his home, before some mischief

overtook them. But they were too high-minded. They redoubled their

songs; and, in this manner, again assembled in the Itchegué’s house to

deliberate on what further they were to attempt; when one of the monks,

a prophet, or dreamer, declared, “That God had opened his eyes, and

that he then saw a cherub with a flaming sword guarding the Itchegué’s

gate:” with such a centinel they concluded that they were perfectly

safe from any attempts of man.

In the mean time, however, the king was violently affected at the

seditious behaviour of the monks; nor did he hesitate a moment in

what manner he was to punish it. As they had employed the song which

was sung only for victories obtained over infidels, by which they

meant to allude particularly to the king, he detached a body of Pagan

Galla to punish them; having surrounded the Itchegué’s house, where

the monks were assembled, they forced open the gate, (and the cherub

with the flaming sword not interfering) they fell, sword in hand, upon

the unarmed priests, and in an instant laid above a hundred of the

principal of them dead upon the floor. They then sallied out with their

bloody weapons into the street, and hewed to pieces those that attended

the procession, and who were still diverting themselves with their

song. Gondar now appeared like a town taken by storm; every street was

covered with the dead, and dying; and this massacre continued till next

day at noon, when, by proclamation, the king ordered it to cease.

David, now satisfied as to the priests, thought he owed to the Abuna

a mortification for his double-dealing. He sent, therefore, the

soldiers to take him out of his house, and bring him to the gate of

the palace, where the poor wretch, half dead with fear, expected every

moment to fall by the bloody hands of the Djawi. Having enjoyed his

panic some time, the king ordered him to be placed close beside the

kettle-drum, and a profession of faith was made in the royal presence,

and announced by beat of drum to the people, agreeing in every respect

to that published the first day by Betwudet Georgis, and directly

contradicting what he had said with his own mouth to the monks of Debra

Libanos, which was the occasion of the riot.

This bloody, indiscriminate massacre had comprehended too many men

of worth and distinction not to occasion great discontent among the

principal people both within and without the palace. Conspiracies

against the king were now everywhere openly talked of, the fruits of

which soon appeared. David fell sick, and those about him endeavoured

to persuade him that it was the remains of an injury which he had

lately received from a fall off his horse. But, upon the meeting of a

council on the 9th of March 1719, it was discovered and proved, that

Kasmati Laté and Ras Georgis had employed Kutcho, keeper of the palace,

to give a strong poison to the king, which he had taken that morning

from the hands of a Mahometan. Ras Georgis was then brought before the

council, and scarcely denied the fact; upon which his only son was

ordered to be hewn to pieces before his face, and immediately after the

father’s eyes were pulled out. Kutcho, keeper of the palace, and the

Mahometan who gave the poison, were hewn to pieces with swords before

the gate of the palace, and their mangled bodies thrown to the dogs.

The king died that evening in great agony.

The king’s favourite, Betwudet Georgis, found himself now in a most

dangerous situation. David his protector was dead, and he was left now

alone to answer for those bloody measures of which he was universally

believed to be the adviser. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, if

possible, to secure a successor of David’s own family, who might stop

the prosecutions against him for steps the king had adopted as his own,

and as such had carried into execution.

We have already observed, that, when banished to the mountain of Wechné

by Oustas, he had contracted there, first a friendship with David,

and, at the same time, with another prince, Ayto Welled Georgis, who

was son to Yasous by Ozoro Mamet, whose sister Georgis had married,

and consequently was uncle to Ayto Welleta Georgis, as having married

his aunt, sister to Ozoro Mamet. When this prince now arrived at

manhood, he knew himself perfectly secure; and, therefore, a number

of the men in power being then assembled at his house, he lost no

time, but surrounded it with a body of soldiers. He proposed to them

Welled Georgis as immediate successor to David. The people present,

seeing themselves in the soldiers hands, and convinced from the

recent examples, that Georgis was not very tender in the use of them,

in appearance chearfully, and without hesitation, approved of the

Betwudet’s choice; and Lika Jonathan, one of the chief civil judges,

performed the office of crier, proclaiming with an audible voice,

“Ayto Welled Georgis, brother to our late king David, son of our great

king Yasous, he is now our king. Mourn for the king that is dead, but

rejoice with the king that is alive.” This is the ordinary stile of

the proclamation. Mutual congratulations and promises passed among the

members of the meeting, but with very different resolutions.

All the company, escorted by a body of archers, and another of

fuzileers, with Betwudet Georgis at their head, repaired to the great

place before the palace to make the same proclamation by beat of drum

that they had done in the Betwudet’s house. They found the drum ready,

and the whole body of the king’s household troops under arms, and

drawn up before it. Upon the sight of their companions, the soldiers

left the Betwudet, and fell into a proper place reserved vacant for

them by their brethren. Without loss of time the drum was beat, and a

proclamation made, “Bacuffa, son of Yasous, is our king! Mourn for the

dead, and rejoice with the living.” Loud acclamations from the people

were echoed back again by the soldiers, and Bacuffa’s name was received

with universal acclamations. Some of the principal people then went

to the council-chamber, and sent proper officers, with a good body of

troops, to escort the king from Wechné.

Upon their arrival they found the sentiments of the princes upon the

election were widely different from those testified by the people.

They all to a man declared their dissent from that election. They

upbraided Bacuffa for his brutal manners; for his violent, unsociable,

unrelenting temper, from the which, they said, they had the cruelest

consequences to apprehend; and, indeed, it was not without great reason

that they made these remonstrances; for Bacuffa, when he escaped from

the mountain, fled for refuge among the Galla, and received there

a very strong tincture of the savage manners of that nation, which

neither those of Gondar nor the army could have an opportunity to judge

of. Resolute, active, and politic, he was very well formed to hold

the reins of government in unsettled times; but his temper of itself

exceedingly suspicious, and the little regard he had for the life of

man, made his whole reign (as it was feared) one continued tragedy. So

that, notwithstanding the goodness of his understanding, and many acts

of wisdom and justice, he is considered as a bloody, merciless tyrant,

and his memory regarded with the greatest detestation.

On the first news of the insurrection of the princes on Wechné, Kasmati

Amha Yasous, governor of Begemder, marched with his whole force and

encamped under the mountain. He then received Bacuffa, as king, having

rescued him from the hands of his relations; and, in order to obviate,

as much as possible, any future trouble, he obliged the different

branches of the royal family to a reconciliation with each other,

making Bacuffa, on the one side, swear that he was not to remember nor

revenge any injury or affront received upon the mountain; and them on

the mountain swear also, that they would forget all old disagreements,

consider Bacuffa as their king, and not create him any trouble in his

reign by escapes, or other rebellious practices.

As it was then night, Bacuffa staid in the house of Azage Assarat,

and the next morning came to Serbraxos, whence he sent to the monks

of Tedda to meet him there. From Tedda he proceeded to Gondar, where

he was met by the Abuna and Itchegué amidst the acclamations of a

prodigious number of people.

[Illustration]

BACUFFA.

From 1719 to 1729.

_Bloody Reign--Exterminates the Conspirators--Counterfeits

Death--Becomes very popular._

Honest men, who loved their country, saw the dangerous situation it was

then in. Every day had produced instances of a growing indifference to

that form of government which, from the earliest times, they had looked

upon as sacred; and upon every slight and unreasonable disgust a person

of consequence thought he had met with, a party was immediately formed,

and nothing less was agreed on than directly imbruing their hands in

the blood of their sovereign.

A prince was necessary who had qualities of mind proper to enable him

to put a stop to these enormities before they involved the state in

one scene of anarchy and ruin. Bacuffa was thought to answer these

expectations; and, in the end, he was found to exceed them. Silent,

secret, and unfathomable in his designs, surrounded by soldiers

who were his own slaves, and by new men of his own creation, he

removed those tyrants who opposed their sovereigns upon the smallest

provocation. Conspiracy followed conspiracy, and rebellion; but all

were defeated, as soon as they had birth, by the superior activity and

address of the king.

I have said he was called Bacuffa by the Galla; but, in compliance

with the custom of Abyssinia, already mentioned, he had assumed still

two other names, which were, Atzham Georgis, his name of baptism, and

Adebar Segued, which means “reverenced by the towns or inhabited places

of the country,” given him at his inauguration. As for that of Bacuffa,

which meant the _inexorable_, it was the less dishonourable from having

been given him by impartial strangers from their own observation while

he was yet in private life; his whole conduct afterwards shewed how

justly.

The king has near his person an officer who is meant to be his

historiographer. He is also keeper of his seal, and is obliged to make

a journal of the king’s actions, good or bad, without comment of his

own upon them. This, when the king dies, or at least soon after, is

delivered to the council, who read it over, and erase every thing false

in it; whilst they supply any material fact that may have been omitted,

whether purposely or not. This would have been a very dangerous book

to have been kept in Bacuffa’s time; and, accordingly, no person chose

ever to run that risk; and the king’s particular behaviour afterwards

had still the further effect, that nobody would supply this deficiency

after his death, a general belief prevailing in Abyssinia that he is

alive to this day, and will appear again in all his terrors. It is

owing to this circumstance that we have nothing complete of this king’s

reign; only a few anecdotes are preserved, some of them very odd ones.

I shall only, for the present, choose such of those as lead me to the

subject I have in hand.

Bacuffa was exceedingly fond of divinations, dreams, and prophecies,

so are all the Abyssinians; but he imbibed an additional propensity

to these, among the Pagans to whom he had fled. One day, when walking

alone, he perceived a priest exceedingly attentive in observing the

forms that little pieces of straw, cut to certain lengths, made upon a

pool of water into which ran a small stream. From the combination of

these in letters, or figures, as they chanced to fall, an answer is

procured to the doubt proposed, which, if you believe these idlers, is

perfectly infallible.