Volume 2 — SOCINIOS, or MELEC SEGUED. From 1605 to 1632.

Socinios embraces the Romish Religion—War with Sennaar—With the Shepherds—Violent Conduct of the Romish Patriarch—Lasta rebels—Defeated at Wainadega—Socinios restores the Alexandrian Religion—Resigns his Crown to his eldest Son.

Socinios, now universally acknowledged as king, began his reign with a degree of moderation which there was no reason to expect of him. Often as he had been betrayed, many and inveterate as his enemies were, now he had them in his power, he sought no vengeance for injuries which he had suffered, but freely pardoned every one, receiving all men graciously without reproach or reflections, or even depriving them of their employments.

Being informed, however, that one Mahardin, a Moor, had been the first to break through that respect due to a king, by wounding Za Denghel at the battle of Bartcho, he ordered him to be brought at noon-day before the gate of his palace, and his head to be there struck off with an ax, as a just atonement for violated majesty.

The king, now retired to Coga, gave his whole attention to regulate those abuses, and repair those losses, which this long and bloody war had occasioned. He had two brothers by the mother’s side, men of great merit, Sela Christos, and Emana Christos, destined to share the principal part in the king’s confidence and councils.

Bela Christos, a man of great family, who had been attached to him since he formed his first pretensions to the crown, was called to court to take his share in the glory and dangers of this reign, which it was easy to see would be a very active one; for every province around was full of rebels and independents, who had shaken off the yoke of government, paid no taxes, nor shewed other respect to the king than just what at the moment consisted with their own interest or inclination.

The Portuguese soldiers, remnants of the army which came into Abyssinia under Christopher de Gama, had multiplied exceedingly, and their children had been trained by their parents in the use of fire-arms. They were at this time incorporated in one body under John Gabriel a veteran officer, who seems to have constantly remained with the king, while his soldiers (at least great part of them) had followed the fortune they thought most likely to prevail ever since the time of Claudius.

Menas did not esteem them enough to keep them in his army at the expence of enduring the seditious conversations of their priests reviling and undervaluing his religion and government. He therefore banished them the kingdom; but, instead of obeying, they joined the Baharnagash, then confederated with the Turks and in rebellion against his sovereign, as we have already mentioned. Sertza Denghel seems to have scarcely set any value upon them after this, and made very little use of them during his long reign. Upon the infant Jacob’s being put upon the throne they all adhered to him; and, after Jacob’s banishment, part of them had attached themselves to Za Denghel, and behaved with great spirit in the battle of Bartcho.

Upon Jacob’s restoration they had joined him, and with him were defeated at the decisive battle of Lebart, being all united against Socinios; so that, on whatever side they declared themselves, they were constantly beaten by the cowardice of the Abyssinians with whom they were joined. Yet, tho’ they had been so often on the side that was unfortunate, their particular loss had been always inconsiderable; because, whatever was the fate of the rest of the army, none of the country troops would ever stand before them, and they made their retreat from amidst a routed army in nearly the same safety as if they had been conquerors; because it was not, for several reasons, the interest of the conquerors to attack them, nor was the experiment ever likely to be an eligible one to the assailants.

Socinios followed a conduct opposite to that of Menas. He determined to attach the Portuguese wholly to himself, and to make them depend upon him entirely. For this reason he made great advances to their priests, and sent for Peter Paez to court, where, after the usual disputes upon the pope’s supremacy, and the two natures in Christ, mass was said, and a sermon preached, much with the same success as it had been in the time of Za Denghel, and with full as great offence to the Abyssinian clergy.

The province of Dembea, lying round the lake Tzana, is the most fertile and the most cultivated country in Abyssinia. It is entirely flat, and seems to have been produced by the decrease of water in the lake, which, from very visible marks, appears to have formerly been of four times the extent of what it is at present. Dembea, however fruitful, has one inconvenience to which all level countries in this climate are subject: A mortal fever rages in the whole extent of it, from March to Heder Michael, the eighth day of November, when there are always gentle showers. This dangerous fever stops immediately upon the falling of these rains, as suddenly as the plague does upon the first falling of the nucta, or dew, in Egypt.

On the south side of this lake the country rises into a rocky promontory, which forms a peninsula and runs far into the lake. Nothing can be more beautiful than this small territory, elevated, but not to an inconvenient height, above the water which surrounds it on all sides, except the south. The climate is delightful, and no fevers or other diseases rage here. The prospect of the lake and distant mountains is magnificent beyond European conception, and Nature seems to have pointed this place out for pleasure, health, and retirement. Paez had asked and obtained this territory from the king, who, he says, gave him a grant of it in perpetuity. The manner of this he describes: “A civil officer is sent on the part of the king, who calls together all the proprietors of the neighbouring lands, and visits the bounds with them; they kill a goat at particular distances, and bury the heads under ground upon the boundary line of this regality; which heads, Paez says, it is felony to dig up or remove; and this is a mark or gift of land in perpetuity.”

Without contradicting the form of burying the goats heads, I shall only say, I never saw or heard of it, nor is there such a thing as a gift of land in perpetuum known in Abyssinia. All the land is the king’s; he gives it to whom he pleases during pleasure, and resumes it when it is his will. As soon as he dies the whole land in the kingdom (that of the Abuna excepted) is in the disposal of the crown; and not only so, but, by the death of every present owner, his possessions, however long enjoyed, revert to the king, and do not fall to the eldest son. It is by proclamation the possession and property is reconveyed to the heir, who thereby becomes absolute master of the land for his own life or pleasure of the king, under obligation of military and other services; and that exception, on the part of the Abuna, is not in respect to the sanctity of his person, or charge, but because it is founded upon treaty47, and is become part of the constitution.

The Abyssinians saw, with the utmost astonishment, the erection of a convent strongly built with stone and lime, of which before they had no knowledge, and their wonder was still increased, when, at desire of the king, Paez undertook, of the same materials, to build a palace for him at the southmost end of this peninsula, which is called Gorgora. It was with amazement mixed with terror that they saw a house rise upon house, for so they call the different storeys.

Paez here displayed his whole ingenuity, and the extent of his abilities. He alone was architect, mason, smith, and carpenter, and with equal dexterity managed all the instruments used by each profession in the several stages of the work. The palace was what we shall call wainscoted with cedar, divided into state-rooms, and private apartments likewise for the queen and nobility of both sexes that formed the court, with accommodations and lodgings for guards and servants.

As the king had at that time a view to attack the rebels, the Agows and Damots, and to check the inroads of the Galla into Gojam, he saw with pleasure a work going on that provided the most commodious residence where his occupation in all probability was chiefly to lie. His principal aim was to bring into his kingdom a number of Portuguese troops, which, joined to those already there, and the converts he proposed to make after embracing the Catholic religion, might enable him to extirpate that rebellious spirit which seemed now universally to have taken possession of the hearts of his subjects, and especially of the clergy, of late taught, he did not seem to know how, that most dangerous privilege of cursing and excommunicating kings. He had not seen in Peter Paez and his fellow-priests any thing but submission, and a love of monarchy; their lives and manners were truly apostolical; and he never thought, till he came afterwards to be convinced upon proof, that the patriarch from Rome, and the Abuna from Cairo, tho’ they differed in their opinion as to the two natures in Christ, did both heartily agree in the desire of erecting ecclesiastical dominion and tyranny upon the ruins of monarchy and civil power, and of effecting a total subordination of the civil government, either to the chairs of St Mark or St Peter.

In the winter, during the cessation from work, Socinios called Paez from Gorgora to Coga, where he enlarged the territory the Jesuits then had at Fremona. After which he declared to him his resolution to embrace the Catholic religion; and, as Paez says, presented him with two letters, one to the king of Portugal, the other to the pope: the first dated the 10th of December 1607, the latter the 14th of October of the same year. These letters say not a word of his intended conversion, nor of submission to the see of Rome; but complain only of the disorderly state of his kingdom, and the constant inroads of the Galla, earnestly requesting a number of Portuguese soldiers to free them from their yoke, as formerly, under the conduct of Christopher de Gama, they had delivered Abyssinia from that of the Moors.

While these things passed at Coga, two pieces of intelligence were brought to the king, both very material in themselves, but which affected him very differently. The first was, that the traitor Za Selassé, while making one of his incursions into Gojam, had fallen into an ambush laid for him by the Toluma Galla, guardians of that province on the banks of the Nile, and that these Pagans had slain him and cut off his head, which they then presented to the king, who ordered it to be exposed on the lance whereon it was fixed, in the most conspicuous place in the front of his palace.

This was the end of Ras Za Selassé, a name held in detestation to this day throughout all Abyssinia. Though his death was just such as it ought to have been, yet, as it was in an advanced time of life, he still became a hurtful example, by shewing that it was possible for a man to live to old age in the continual practice of murder and treason.

He was of low birth, as I have already observed, of a Pagan nation of Troglodytes, of the lowest esteem in Abyssinia, employed always in the meanest and most servile occupations, in which capacity he served first in a private family. Being observed to have an active, quick turn of mind, he was preferred to the service of Melec Segued, upon whose death he was so much esteemed by his son Jacob, for the expertness and capacity he shewed in business, that he gave him large possessions, and appointed him afterwards to several ranks in the army; having regularly advanced through the subordinate degrees of military command, always with great success, he was made at last general; and being now of importance sufficient to be able to ruin his benefactor, he joined Ras Athanasius, who had rebelled against Jacob, by whom he was taken prisoner, and, being mercifully dealt with, only banished to Narea. From this disgraceful situation he was freed by Za Denghel, who conferred upon him the most lucrative important employment in the state. In return, he rebelled against Za Denghel; and at Bartcho deprived him of his kingdom and life. Upon Jacob’s accession he was appointed Betwudet, the first place in Ethiopia, after the king, and governor of Gojam, one of the largest and richest provinces in Abyssinia. But he soon after again forsook Jacob, swore allegiance to Socinios, and joined him.

Not content with all this, he began to form some new designs while with the court at Coga; and, having said to some of the king’s servants, over wine, that it was prophesied to him he should kill three kings, which he had verified in two, and was waiting for the third, this speech was repeated to Socinios, who ordered Za Selassé to be apprehended; and, though he most justly deserved death, the king mercifully commuted his punishment to banishment to the top of Oureé Amba, which signifies the Great Mountain upon the high ridge, called Gusman, near the banks of the Nile; and, though close confined in the caves on the top of that mountain, after a year’s imprisonment he escaped to Walaka, and there declared himself captain of a band of robbers, with which he infested the province of Gojam, when he was slain by a peasant, and his head cut off and sent to Socinios, who very much rejoiced in the present, and disposed of it as we have mentioned.

The second piece of intelligence the emperor received was that in the mountains of Habab, contiguous to Masuah, where is the famous monastery of the monks of St Eustathius, called Bisan; a person appeared calling himself Jacob, son of Sertza Denghel, and pretending to have escaped from the battle of Lebart; thus, taking advantage of the circumstance of Jacob’s body not having been found in the field among the dead after that engagement, he pretended he had been so grievously wounded in the teeth and face that it was not possible to suffer the deformity to appear; for which reason, as he said, but, as it appeared afterwards, to conceal the little resemblance he bore to Jacob, he wrapped about his head the corner of his upper cloth, and so concealed one side of his face entirely.

All Tigré hastened to join this impostor as their true sovereign; who, finding himself now at the head of an army, came down from the mountains of Bisan, and encamped in the neighbourhood of Dobarwa upon the Mareb, where he had a new accession of strength.

The shape of the crown in Abyssinia is that of the hood, or capa, which the priests wear when saying mass. It is composed of silver, sometimes of gold, sometimes of both metals, mixed and lined with blue silk. It is made to cover part of the forehead, both cheeks, and the hind-part of the neck likewise to the joining of the shoulders. A crown of this shape could not but be of great service in hiding the terrible scars with which the impostor’s face was supposed to be deformed. He had accordingly got one made at Masuah, beat very thin out of a few ounces of gold which he had taken from a caravan that he had robbed. He wore it constantly upon his head as a token that he was not a candidate for the crown, but real sovereign, who had worn that mark of power from his infancy.

The news of this impostor, with the usual exaggeration of followers, soon came to Sela Christos, governor of Tigré, who, seeing that the affair became more serious every day, resolved to attempt to check it. He conceived, however, he had little trust to put in the troops of his province, who all of them were wavering whether they should not join the rebel. His sole dependence, then, was upon the troops of his own household, veteran soldiers, well paid and cloathed, and firmly attached to his person, and likewise upon the Portuguese. Above all, being himself a man of consummate courage and prudence, he was far from judging of the power of his enemy by the multitude of rabble which composed it.

As soon as the armies came in presence of each other, Jacob offered the governor battle. But no sooner did the impostor’s troops see the eagerness with which the small but chosen band rushed upon them, than they fled and dispersed; and though Sela Christos had taken every precaution to cut off the pretended Jacob from his usual sculking places, it was not possible to overtake or apprehend him; for he arrived in safety in one of the highest and most inaccessible mountains of the district, whence he looked down on Sela Christos and his army without apprehension, having behind him a retreat to the more distant and less known mountains of Hamazen, should his enemies press him further.

As long as Sela Christos remained with his little army in that country, the impostor Jacob continued on the highest part of the mountains, accompanied only by two or three of his most intimate friends, who being people whose families dwelt in the plain below, brought him constant intelligence of what passed there.

Sela Christos, wishing by all means to engage the enemy, marched into a considerable plain called Mai-aquel; but, seeing on every side the top of each mountain guarded by troops of soldiers, he was afraid he had advanced too far; and, apprehensive lest he should be inclosed in the midst of a multitude so posted, he began to think how he could best make his retreat before he was surrounded by so numerous enemies. But they no sooner saw his intention by the movement of his army, than, leaving their leader as a spectator above, they fell on all sides upon Sela Christos’s troops, who, having no longer any safety but in their arms, began to attack the hill that was next them, which they stormed as they would do a castle. Finding the small resistance that each of these posts made, the governor divided his small army into so many separate bodies, leaving his cavalry in the plain below, who, without fighting, were only employed in slaughtering those his troops had dislodged from their separate posts.

The day after, the impostor assembling his scattered troops, retreated towards the sea into the territory of Hamazen, between the country of the Baharnagash and the mountains of the Habab.

Sela Christos, finding that, while he pursued his victory in these distant parts, the spirit of rebellion increased nearer home, resolved to inform the king his brother of the unpromising state of his affairs in Tigré, and the great necessity there was of his presence there. Nor did Socinios lose a moment after receiving this intelligence from Sela Christos, although it had found him, in one respect, very ill prepared for such an undertaking; for he had sent all his horse from Coga upon an expedition against the Shangalla and Gongas, nations on the north-west border of this kingdom; so that, when he marched from Wainadega, his cavalry amounted to 530 men only, besides a small reinforcement brought by Emana Christos, governor of Amhara.

It was at Aibo the king turned off the road to Tigré towards Begemder, and that day encamped at Wainadega. From Wainadega he advanced to Davada; and, crossing the Reb, he turned off by the way of Zang, and encamped at Kattamè. He then proceeded to Tzamè, and arrived at Hader. At this place some spies informed him that an advanced party of the Galla Marawa were strongly lodged in a hill not far off. Upon receiving this notice, Socinios ordered his army to refresh themselves, to extinguish all lights, and march with as little noise as possible.

While it was scarce dawn of day, a strong detachment of the king’s army surrounded the hill where the Galla were, and found there a small number of these savages placed like piquets to give the alarm and prevent surprise. Eleven Galla were slain, and their heads cut off and carried to the king, the first fruits of his expedition.

Resolving to profit by this early advantage, Socinios followed with all diligence, and came in sight of the army of the enemy, without their having taken the smallest alarm. They were lying closely and securely in their huts that they had made. A large ravine full of trees and stumps divided the two armies, and in part concealed them from each other. The king ordered Emana Christos, and Abeton Welleta Christos, to pass the ravine with the horse, and fall upon the Galla suddenly, throwing the heads of those of the advanced guard they had cut off on the ground towards them.

Before the king’s horse had passed the ravine, the Galla were alarmed, and mounted on horseback. As they never fight in order, it required no time to form; but they received the king’s cavalry so rudely, that, though Emana Christos and the young prince behaved with the utmost courage, they were beat back, and obliged to fly with considerable loss, being entangled in the bushes. No sooner did the king observe that his horse were engaged, than he ordered his troops to pass the ravine to support them, and was desirous to bring on a general engagement. But a panic had seized his troops. They would not stir, but seemed benumbed and overcome by the cold of the morning, spectators of the ruin of the cavalry.

Emana Christos, and those of the cavalry that had escaped the massacre, had repassed the ravine, and dispersed themselves in the front of the foot; while the victorious Marawa, like ignorant savages, pushed their victory to the very front of the king’s line. Socinios, ordering all the drums of the army to beat and trumpets to sound, to excite some spirit in his troops, advanced himself before any of his soldiers, and slew the first Galla within his reach with his own hands. The example and danger the king exposed himself to, raised the indignation of the troops. They poured in crowds, without regarding order, upon the Marawa, great part of whom had already passed the ravine, and all that had passed it were cut to pieces.

The Galla, unable to stand this loss, fled from the field, and immediately after left Begemder. The want of horse on the king’s part saved their whole army from the destruction which would infallibly have been the consequence of a vigorous pursuit, through a country where every inhabitant was an enemy. The king after this returned to his palace at Coga to finish the business he had in hand.

In the mean time, a report was spread through all Tigré, that the king had been defeated by the Galla, and that Ras Sela Christos had repaired to Gondar in consequence of that disaster. The impostor Jacob lost no time in taking advantage of this report. He descended from his natural fortress, and, in conjunction with the governor of Axum, slew several people, and committed many ravages in Siré. The Ras no sooner learned that he was encamped on plain ground, than he presented himself with the little army he had before; and, though the odds against him were excessive, yet by his presence and conduct, the rebels, though they fought this time with more than ordinary obstinacy, were defeated with great loss, and their leader, the supposed Jacob, forced again to his inaccessible mountains.

Socinios having now finished the affairs which detained him at Coga, and being informed that the southern Galla, resenting the defeat of the Marawa, had entered into a league to invade Abyssinia with united forces, and a complete army to burn and lay waste the whole country between the Tacazzé and Tzana, and to attack the emperor in his capital of Coga, which they were determined to destroy, sent orders to Kasmati Julius, his son-in-law, to join him immediately with what forces he had, as also to Kesla Christos; and, being joined by both these officers and their troops, he marched and took post at Ebenaat in the district of Belessen, in the way by which the Galla intended to pass to the capital, and he resolved to await them there.

The Galla advanced in their usual manner, burning and destroying churches and villages, and murdering without mercy all that were so unfortunate as to fall into their hands. The king bore these excesses of his enemy with the patience of a good general, who saw they contributed to his advantage. He therefore did not offer to check any of their disorders, but by not resisting rather hoped to encourage them. He had an army in number superior, and this was seldom the case; but in quality there was no comparison, five of the king’s troops being equal to twenty of the enemy, and this was the general proportion in which they fought. He, therefore, contented himself with choosing proper ground to engage, and improving it by ambushes such as the nature of the field permitted or suggested.

It was the 7th of January 1608, early in the morning, that the Galla presented themselves to Socinios in battle, in a plain below Ebenaat, surrounded with small hills covered with wood. The Galla filled the whole plain, as if voluntarily devoting themselves to destruction, and from the hills and bushes were destroyed by fire-arms from enemies they did not see, who with a strong body took possession of the place through which they entered, and by which they were to return no more.

Socinios that day, for what particular reason does not appear, distinguished himself among the midst of the Galla, by fighting like a common soldier. It is thought by the historians of those times, that he had received advice while at Coga, that his son-in-law Julius intended to rebel, and therefore he meant to discourage him by comparison of their personal abilities. This, however, is not probable; the king’s character was established, and nothing more could be added to it. However that may be, all turned to the disadvantage of the Galla. No general or other officer thought himself entitled to spare his person more than the king; all fought like common soldiers; and, being the men best armed and mounted, and most experienced in the field, they contributed in proportion to the slaughter of the day. About 12,000 men on the part of the Galla were killed upon the spot; the very few that remained were destroyed by the peasants, whilst 400 men only fell on the part of the king, so it was a massacre rather than a battle.

Socinios now resolved to try his fortune against the impostor Jacob, and with that resolution he crossed Lamalmon, descending to the Tacazzé in his way to Siré. Here, as on the frontiers of his province, he was met by Sela Christos, who brought Peter Paez along with them. Both were kindly received by the king, who encamped in the large plain before Axum, in consequence of a resolution he had long taken of being crowned with all the ancient ceremonies used on this occasion by former kings, while the royal residence was in the province of Tigré.

It was on the 18th of March, according to their account, the day of our Saviour’s first coming to Jerusalem, that this festival began. His army consisted of about 30,000 men. All the great officers, all the officers of state, and the court then present, were every man dressed in the richest and gayest manner. Nor was the other sex behind-hand in the splendour of their appearance. The king, dressed in crimson damask, with a great chain of gold round his neck, his head bare, mounted upon a horse richly caparisoned, advanced at the head of his nobility, passed the outer court, and came to the paved way before the church. Here he was met by a number of young girls, daughters of the umbares, or supreme judges, together with many noble virgins standing on the right and left of the court.

Two of the noblest of these held in their hands a crimson cord of silk, somewhat thicker than common whip-cord, but of a looser texture, stretched across from one company to another, as if to shut up the road by which the king was approaching the church. When this cord was prepared and drawn tight about breast-high by the girls, the king entered, advancing at a moderate pace, curvetting and shewing the management of his horse. He was stopped by the tension of this string, while the damsels on each side asking who he was, were answered, “I am your king, the king of Ethiopia.” To which they replied with one voice, “You shall not pass; you are not our king.”

The king then retires some paces, and then presents himself as to pass, and the cord is again drawn across his way by the young women so as to prevent him, and the question repeated, “Who are you?” The king answered, “I am your king, the king of Israel.” But the damsels resolved, even on this second attack, not to surrender but upon their own terms; they again answer, “You shall not pass; you are not our king.”

The third time, after retiring, the king advances with a pace and air more determined; and the cruel virgins, again presenting the cord and asking who he is, he answers, “I am your king, the king of Sion;” and, drawing his sword, cuts the silk cord asunder. Immediately upon this the young women cry, “It is a truth, you are our king; truly you are the king of Sion.” Upon which they begin to sing Hallelujah, and in this they are joined by the court and army upon the plain; fire-arms are discharged, drums and trumpets sound; and the king, amidst these acclamations and rejoicings, advances to the foot of the stair of the church, where he dismounts, and there sits down upon a stone, which, by its remains, apparently was an altar of Anubis, or the dog-star: At his feet there is a large slab of free-stone, on which is the inscription mentioned by Poncet, and which shall be quoted hereafter, when I come to speak of the ruins of Axum.

After the king comes the nebrit, or keeper of the book of the law in Axum, supposed to represent Azarias the son of Zadock; then the twelve umbares, or supreme judges, who with Azarias accompanied Menilek, the son of Solomon, when he brought the book of the law from Jerusalem, and these are supposed to represent the twelve tribes. After these follow the Abuna at the head of the priests, and the Itchegué at the head of the monks; then the court, who all pass through the aperture made by the division of the silk cord, which remains still upon the ground.

The king is first anointed, then crowned, and is accompanied half up the steps by the singing priests, called Depteras, chanting psalms and hymns. Here he stops at a hole made for the purpose in one of the steps, and is there fumigated with incense and myrrh, aloes and cassia. Divine service is then celebrated; and, after receiving the sacrament, he returns to the camp, where fourteen days should regularly be spent in feasting, and all manner of rejoicing and military exercise.

The king is, by the old custom, obliged to give a number of presents, the particulars of which are stated in the deftar, or treasury-book, the value, the person to whom they are due, and the time of giving; but a great part of these are gone into desuetude since the removal of the court from Tigré, as also many of the offices are now suppressed, and with them the presents due to them.

The nobles and the court were likewise obliged to give presents to the king upon that occasion. The present from the governor of Axum is two lions and a fillet of silk, upon which is wrote, “Mo Anbasa am Nizilet Solomon am Negadé Jude—The lion of the tribe of Judah and race of Solomon hath overcome;” this serves as a form of investiture of lands that the king grants, a ribband bearing this inscription being tied round the head of the person to whom the lands are given.

This governor was then in rebellion, so did not assist at the ceremony. Notwithstanding the difference of expence which I have mentioned, by suppressing places, presents, and dues, the king Tecla Haimanout told me at Gondar, that when he was in Tigré, driven there by the late rebellion, Ras Michael had some thoughts of having him crowned there in contempt of his enemies; but, by the most moderate calculation that could be made, not to turn the ceremony into ridicule by parsimony, it would have cost 20,000 ounces of gold, or L. 50,000 Sterling; upon which he laid aside the thoughts of it, saying to the king, “Sir, trust to me, 20,000 ounces of Tigré iron shall crown you better; if more is wanted, I will bestow it upon your enemies with pleasure till they are satisfied;” meaning the iron balls with which his soldiers loaded their musquets.

After the coronation was over, the king passed the Mareb, desiring to finish his campaign by the death of his competitor Jacob; but that impostor knew too well the superiority of his rival, and hid himself in the inmost recesses, without other attendants than a few goats, who furnished him with their milk, as well as their society.

Socinios left the affair of the rebel Jacob to be ended by Amsala Christos, an officer of great prudence, whom he made governor of Tigré; and, taking his brother Ras Sela Christos along with him, returned to Coga48. Amsala Christos being seized with a grievous sickness, saw how vain it was for him to pursue the suppression of a rebellion conducted by such a head as this impostor Jacob, and therefore secretly applied to two young men, Zara Johannes and Amha Georgis, brothers, and sons of the Shum Welled Georgis, who had committed murder, and were outlawed by Socinios, and, keeping hid in the mountains, had joined in fellowship with the impostor Jacob.

These, gained by the promise of pardon given them by Amsala Christos, chose an opportunity which their intimacy gave them, and, falling upon Jacob unawares in his retirement, they slew him, cut his head off, and sent it to the king at Coga, who received it very thankfully, and returned it to Tigré to Amsala Christos, to be exposed publicly in all the province to undeceive the people; for it now appeared, that he had neither scars in his face, broken jaw, nor loss of teeth, but that the covering was intended only to conceal the little resemblance he bore to king Jacob, slain, as we have seen, at the battle of Lebart; and he was now found to have been a herdsman, in those very mountains of Bisan to which he had so often fled for refuge while his rebellion lasted.

The king, in his return from Tigré, passing by Fremona, sent to the Jesuits there thirty ounces of gold, about L. 75 Sterling, for their immediate exigency; testifying, in the most gracious manner, his regret, “That the many affairs in which he was engaged had prevented him from hearing mass in their convent, as he very sincerely wished to do; but he left with them the Abuna Simon, to whom he had recommended to study their religion, and be a friend to it.”

In this he shewed his want of penetration and experience; for though he had seen wars between soldier and soldier, who, after having been in the most violent state of enmity, had died in defence of each other as friends, he was not aware of that degree of enmity which reigns upon difference of opinion, not to say religion, between priest and priest. It was not long, however, before he saw it, and the example was in the person of his present friend the Abuna Simon.

While Socinios was yet in Tigré, news were brought to Coga from Woggora to Sanuda Tzef Leham49 of Dembea, who could not accompany the king to Tigré on account of sickness, but was left with the charge of the capital and palace during the king’s absence, that Melchizedec, one of the meanest and lowest servants of the late king Melec Segued, had rebelled, and was collecting troops, consisting of soldiers, servants, and dependents of that prince, and had slain some of Socinios’s servants. Sanuda was a brave and active officer; but, being without troops, (the king having carried the whole army to Tigré) immediately set out from Maitsha to the town of Tchelga, one of the frontiers of Abyssinia, possessed by Wed Ageeb prince of the Arabs.

It is here to be observed, that though the territorial right of Tchelga did then, and does still appertain to the kingdom of Abyssinia, yet the possession of it is ceded by agreement to Wed Ageeb, under whose protection the caravans from Egypt and Sennaar, and those from Abyssinia to Sennaar and Egypt, were understood to be ever since they were cut off in the last century by the basha of Suakem, for this purpose, that a customhouse might be erected, and the duties divided between the two kingdoms equally. The same is the case with Serké, a town belonging to Sennaar, ceded for the same purpose to the king of Abyssinia.

It happened that Abdelcader50, son of Ounsa, late king of Sennaar, or of Funge, as he is called in the Abyssinian annals, had been deposed by his subjects in the 4th year of his reign, and remained at Tchelga under the mutual protection of Wed Ageeb and the emperor of Abyssinia, a kind of prisoner to them both; and had brought with him a number of soldiers and dependents, the partakers of his former good fortune, who, finding safety and good usage at Tchelga, were naturally well-affected to the king. These, ready mounted and armed, joined Sanuda immediately upon his declaring the exigency; and with these he marched straight to Coga, to the defence of the palace with which he had been intrusted.

Melchizedec, whose design was against Coga, no sooner heard Sanuda was arrived there than he marched to surprise him, and a very bloody and obstinate engagement followed. The Funge, piqued in honour to render this service to their protector, fought so obstinately that they were all slain, and Sanuda, mounted that day upon a fleet horse belonging to Socinios, escaped with difficulty, much wounded.

As soon as Socinios heard of this misfortune, he sent Ras Emana Christos, who marched straight to Woggora, creating Zenobius, son of Imael, governor of that district; and there he found Sanuda Zenobius and Ligaba Za Denghel together, in a place called Deberasso.

As soon as the rebel Melchizedec heard Emana Christos was come, and with him the fore-mentioned noblemen, he set himself to exert the utmost of his power to draw together forces of all kinds from every part he could get them, and his army was soon increased to such a degree as, notwithstanding the presence of Emana Christos, to strike terror into all the territory and towns of Dembea. Nothing was wanted but a king of the royal race for whom to fight. Without a chief of this kind, it was evident that the army, however often successful, would at last disperse. They, therefore, brought one Arzo, a prince of the royal blood, from his hiding-place in Begemder. Arzo, in return for a throne, conferred the place of Ras upon Melchizedec. Za Christos, son of Hatzir Abib, was appointed to the command of the army under him; and, having finished this and many such necessary preparatives, they marched straight to meet Emana Christos, with a better countenance than rebel armies generally bear.

It was the 9th of March 1611, at 9 in the morning, when the two armies were first in sight of each other, nor did they long delay coming to an engagement. The battle was very obstinate and bloody; Melchizedec re-established his character for worth, at least as a soldier; the same did Za Christos. Of the competitor Arzo, history makes no mention; his blood, probably, was too precious to risk the spilling of it, being so far-fetched as from king Solomon. After a most obstinate resistance, part of Za Christos’s army was broken and put to flight; but it rallied so often, and sold the ground it yielded so dear, that it gave time to Emana Christos to come up to his army’s assistance.

The Ras, who was as brave a soldier as he was a wise and prudent general, saw it was a time when all should be risked, and threw himself into the midst of his enemies; and he was now arrived near the place where Melchizedec fought, when that rebel, seeing him advancing so fast among his slaughtered followers, guessing his intention, declined the combat, turned his horse and fled, while affairs even yet appeared in his favour. This panic of the general had the effect it ordinarily has in barbarous armies. Nobody considered how the prospect of the general issue stood; they fled with Melchizedec, and lost more men than would have secured them victory had they stood in their ranks.

A body of troops, joined by some peasants of Begemder, pursued Melchizedec so closely that they came up with him and took him prisoner, together with Tensa Christos, a very active partizan, and enemy to Emana Christos. Having brought them to the camp, before the Ras returned to Coga, they were tried and condemned to die for rebellion, as traitors, and the sentence immediately executed, after which their heads were sent to the king. Very soon after this, Arzo, and his general Za Christos, were taken and sent to the king, who ordered them to be tried by the judges in common form, and they underwent the same fate.

The king was employed in the winter season while he resided at Coga, in building a new church, called St Gabriel. But the season of taking the field being come, he marched out with his army and halted at Gogora, sending Emana Christos and Sela Christos against the rebels; these were not in a particular clan, or province, for all the country was in rebellion, from the head of the Nile round, eastward, to the frontiers of Tigré. Part of them indeed were not in arms, but refused to pay their quota of the revenue; part of them were in arms, and would neither pay, nor admit a governor from the king among them; others willingly submitted to Socinios, and were armed, only thereby to exempt themselves from payment.

Sela Christos fell upon the inhabitants of the mountainous district of Gusman, on the Nile, whose principal strong-hold, Oureé Amba, he forced, killing many, and carrying away their children as slaves, which, upon the intercession of Peter Paez, were given to the Jesuits to be educated as Catholics.

The next attempt was upon the Gongas, a black Pagan nation, with which he had the same success; the rest were the Agows, a very numerous people, all confederates and in arms, and not willing to hear of any composition. The king ordered one of these tribes, the Zalabassa, to be extirpated as far as possible, and their country laid waste. But notwithstanding this example, which met with great interruption in the execution, the Agows continued in rebellion for several years afterwards, but much impoverished and lessened in number by variety of victories obtained over them.

The two next years were spent in unimportant skirmishes with the Agows of Damot, and with the Galla, invaders of Gojam. In 1615, the year after, Tecla Georgis made governor of Samen, and Welled Hawaryar, shum of Tsalemat51, were both sent against a rebel who declared himself competitor for the crown. His name was Amdo. He pretended to be the late king Jacob, son of Melec Segued; and this character he gave himself, without the smallest communication with the relations or connections of that prince. As soon as Assera Christos and Tecla Garima, servants of Welled Hawaryat, heard of this adventurer, they surprised him in Tsalemat, and, putting him in irons, confined him in the house of Assera Christos.

Gideon, king of the Jews, whose residence was on the high mountain of Samen, upon hearing that Amdo was prisoner, sent a body of armed men who surprised Assera Christos in his own house in the night, and killed him, bringing with them his prisoner Amdo to Samen, and delivered him to Gideon there; who not only took him into protection, but assisted him in raising an army by every means in his power. There were not wanting there idle vagabonds and lawless people enough, who fled to the standard of a prince whose sole view seemed to be murder, robbery, and all sort of licentiousness. It was not long till Amdo, by the assistance of Gideon, found himself at the head of an army, strong enough to leave the mountain, and try his fortune in the plain below, where he laid waste Shawada, Tsalemat, and all the countries about Samen which persevered in their duty to the king.

Socinios, upon this, appointed Julius his son-in-law governor of Woggora, Samen, Waag, and Abbergalé, that is, of all the low countries from the borders of the Tacazzé to Dembea. Abram, an old officer of the king, desirous to stop the progress of the rebel, marched towards him, and offered him battle; but that brave officer had not the success his intention deserved, for he was defeated and slain; which had such an effect upon Julius, that, without hazarding his fortune farther, he sent to beseech the king to march against Amdo with all possible expedition, as his affairs were become desperate in that part of his dominions.

The king hereupon marched straight to Woggora, and joined Julius at Shimbra-Zuggan; thence he descended from Samen, and encamped upon Tocur-Ohha, (the black river) thence he proceeded to Debil, and then to Sobra; and from this last station he sent a detachment of his army to attack a strong mountain called Messiraba, one of the natural fortresses of Gideon, which was forced by the king’s troops after some resistance, and the whole inhabitants, without distinction of age or sex, put to the sword, for such were the orders of the king.

This first success very much disheartened the rebels, for Messiraba was, by nature, one of the strongest mountains, and it, besides, had been fortified by art, furnished with plenty of provisions, and a number of good troops. The next mountain Socinios attacked was Hotchi, and the third Amba Za Hancassé, where he had the like success, and treated the inhabitants in the same manner; thence he removed his army to Seganat, where he met with a very stout resistance; but this mountain, too, was at last taken, Gideon himself escaping narrowly by the bravery of his principal general, who, fighting desperately, was slain by a musqueteer.

The constant success of the king, and the bloody manner in which he pursued his victory, began to alarm Gideon, lest the end should be the extirpation of his whole nation. He, therefore, made an overture to the king, that, if he would pardon him and grant him peace, he would deliver the rebel Amdo bound into his hands.

The king assented to this, and Amdo was accordingly delivered up; and, being convicted of rebellion and murder, he was sentenced to be nailed to a cross, and to remain there till he died. But the terrible cries and groans which he made while they were fixing him to the cross, so much shocked the ears of the king, that he ordered him to be taken down, and his head struck off with an ax, which was executed in the midst of the camp.

Socinios after this retired to Dancaz, and ordered Kefla governor of Gojam, and Jonael his master of the household, to march suddenly and surprise Belaya, a country belonging to the Gongas and Guba, Pagan nations, on whom, every year, he made war for the sake of taking slaves for the use of the palace. These two officers, with a large body, mostly horse, fell unawares upon the savages at Belaya, slaying part, and bringing away their children. But not content with doing this, they likewise attacked the two districts of Agows, Dengui and Sankara, then in peace with the king, and drove away an immense number of cattle, which the king no sooner heard, than he ordered a strict search to be made, and the whole cattle belonging to the Agows to be gathered together, and restored to their respective owners; a piece of justice which softened the hearts of this people more than all the severities that had been hitherto used; and the good effects of which were soon after seen upon the Agows, though it produced something very different in the conduct of Jonael.

The king this year, 1616, left his capital at the usual time, in the month of November, and ordered his whole household to attend him. His intention was against the Galla on the west of Gojam, especially the tribe called Libo. But this campaign was rendered fruitless by the death of the king’s eldest son, Kennaffer Christos, a young prince of great hopes, esteemed both by the king and the people. He had an excellent understanding, and the most affable manners possible, to those even whom he did not like; was very fond of the soldiers; merciful, generous, and liberal; and was thought to be the favourite of the king his father, who buried him with great pomp in the church of Debra Roma, built by king Isaac, in the lake Tzana.

In the midst of this mourning, there came a very bloody order52 from the king. History barely tells us the fact, but does not assign any other reason than the wanton manner in which Gideon king of the Jews had endeavoured to disturb his reign and kingdom, which was thought a sufficient excuse for it. However this may be, the king gave orders to Kasmati Julius, Kasmati Welled Hawaryat, Billetana Gueta Jonael, and Fit-Auraris Hosannah, to extirpate all the Falasha that were in Foggora, Janfakara, and Bagenarwè, to the borders of Samen; also all that were in Bagla, and in all the districts under their command, wherever they could find them; and very few of them escaped, excepting some who fled with Phineas.

In this massacre, which was a very general one, and executed very suddenly, fell Gideon king of that people; a man of great reputation, not only among his subjects, but throughout all Abyssinia, reputed also immensely rich. His treasures, supposed to be concealed in the mountains, are the objects of the search of the Abyssinians to this day.

The children of those that were slain were sold for slaves by the king; and all the Falasha in Dembea, in the low countries immediately in the king’s power, were ordered upon pain of death to renounce their religion, and be baptised. To this they consented, seeing there was no remedy; and the king unwisely imagined, that he had extinguished, by one blow, the religion which was that of his country long before Christianity, by the unwarrantable butchery of a number of people whom he had surprised living in security under the assurance of peace. Many of them were baptised accordingly, and they were all ordered to plow and harrow upon the sabbath-day.

The king next sent orders to Sela Christos, and Kefla governor of Gojam, that, assembling their troops, they should transfer the war into Bizamo, a province on the south side of the Nile, called also in the books a kingdom. Through this lies the road of the merchants leading to Narea. It is inhabited by several clans of Pagans, which together make the great division of these nations into Boren, and Bertuma Galla53.

The army passed the Nile, laying waste the whole country, driving off the cattle, collecting the women and children as slaves, and putting all the men to the sword; without these people, though they make constant inroads into Gojam, appearing anywhere in force to stop the desolation of their country. The whole tract between Narea and the Nile was now cleared of enemies, and a number of priests at that time sent to revive drooping Christianity in those parts.

In the year 1617, a league was again made among the Boren Galla, that part of them should invade Gojam, while the others (namely the Marawa) should enter Begemder. Upon hearing this, the king in haste marched to Begemder, that he might be ready in case of need to assist Tigré. He then fixed his head-quarters at Shima, but from this he speedily removed; and, passing Emfras, came to Dobit, a favourite residence of the emperor Jacob, where he held a council to determine which of the two provinces he should first assist.

It was the general opinion of his officers, that to march at that time of the year into Tigré by Begemder, was to destroy the army, and distress both provinces; that an army, well provided with horse, was necessary for acting with success against the Galla, and that, in effect, though the royal army at present was so appointed, yet there was no grass at that time of the year in all that march for the subsistence of the cavalry, and very little water for the use of man or beast, an inconvenience the Galla themselves must experience if they attempted an invasion that way. It was, moreover, urged, that, if the king should march through Woggora and Lamalmon, they might get more food for their beasts, and water too; but then they would throw themselves far from the place where the Galla had entered, and would be obliged to fall into the former road, with the inconveniencies already stated. The consequence of this deliberation was, that it was with very great regret the good of the common-weal obliged them to leave Tigré to the protection of Providence alone for a time, and hasten to meet the enemy that were then laying Gojam waste.

With this view the king left Dobit, and came to the river Gomara in Foggora. He then passed the Nile near Dara, and came to Selalo, where he heard that the Djawi had passed the Nile from Bizamo, and entered Gojam at the opposite side to where he then was. He there left his baggage, and, by a forced march, advancing three days journey in one, he came to Bed, upon the river Sadi; but, instead of finding the enemy there, he received intelligence from Sela Christos, that he had met the Galla immediately after their passing the Nile; had fought them, and cut their army to pieces, without allowing them time to ravage the country.

Upon this good news the king turned off on the road to Tchegal and Wainadassa, and ordered Bela Christos to assemble as great an army as he could, and fall upon the Djawi and Galla in Walaka and Shoa, as also Ras Sela Christos, to pass the Nile and join him there.

That general lost no time, but marched straight to Amca Ohha, or the river Amca, where he found the Edjow, who fled upon his coming, without giving him any opportunity of bringing them to an engagement, abandoning their wives, children, and substance, to the mercy of the enemy. Sela Christos, having finished this expedition as he intended, returned to join the king, whom he found encamped upon the river Suqua, near Debra Werk, guarding those provinces in the absence of Sela Christos. From this the king, retreating towards Dembea, passed the Nile near Dara, and encamped at Zinzenam, whence he marched round the lake into Dembea to his palace at Gorgora.

This village, whose name signifies rain upon rain, affords us a proof of what I have said in speaking of the cause of the overflowing of the Nile, in contradiction to the Adulitic inscription, that no snow falls in Abyssinia, or rather, that though snow may have fallen in the course of centuries, it is a phænomenon so rare as not to have a name or word to express it in the whole language, and is entirely unknown to the people in general, at least to the west of the Tacazzé.

The Abyssinian historian, from whom these memoirs are composed, says, “That this village, called Zinzenam, has its name from an extraordinary circumstance that once happened in these parts, for a shower of rain fell, which was not properly of the nature of rain, as it did not run upon the ground, but remained very light, having scarce the weight of feathers, of a beautiful white colour like flour; it fell in showers, and occasioned a darkness in the air more than rain, and liker to mist. It covered the face of the whole country for several days, retaining its whiteness the whole time, then went away like dew, without leaving any smell or unwholesome effect behind it.”

This was certainly the accidental phænomenon of a day; for, notwithstanding the height of the mountains Taranta and Lamalmon, snow never was seen there, at least for ages past; and Lasta, in whose mountains armies have perished by cold, as far as a very particular inquiry could go, never yet had snow upon them; and Zinzenam is not in these mountains, or in any elevated situation. On the contrary, it is adjoining to the plain country of Foggora, near where it borders upon Begemder, not above 20 miles from the second cataract, or 40 miles from Gondar; so that this must have been a short and accidental change of the atmosphere, of which there are examples of many different kinds, in the histories of all countries.

As soon as the weather permitted, the king left his palace at Gorgora in the way to Tocussa, where he staid several days; removed thence to Tenkel, where he continued also four days, and proceeded to Gunkè, where he halted. From his head-quarters at Gunkè, the king, meditating an expedition against Atbara, sent a messenger to Nile Wed Ageeb, prince of the Arabs, desiring a meeting with him before he attacked the Funge, for so they call the subjects of the new monarchy, lately established at Sennaar by the conquest of the Arabs, under Wed Ageeb, a very considerable part of whose territory they had taken by force, and now enjoyed as their own possessions.

Abdelcader, son of Ounsa, was the ninth prince of the race of Funge then reigning; a weak, and ill-inclined man, but with whom Socinios had hitherto lived in friendship, and, in a late treaty, had sent him as a present, a nagareet, or kettle-drum, richly ornamented with gold, with a gold chain to hang it by. Abdelcader, on his part, returned to Socinios a trained falcon, of an excellent kind, very much esteemed among the Arabs.

Soon after this, Abdelcader was deposed by his brother Adelan, son of Ounsa, and fled to Tchelga, under protection of the king of Abyssinia, who allowed him an honourable maintenance; a custom always observed in such cases in the East, by princes towards their unfortunate neighbours.

Baady, son of Abdelcader, an active and violent young prince, although he deposed his uncle Adelan, took this protection of his father in bad part. It was likewise suggested to him, that the present sent by Socinios, a nagareet, or kettle-drum, imported, that Socinios considered him as his vassal, the drum being the sign of investiture sent by the king to any one of his subjects whom he appoints to govern a province, and that the return of the falcon was likely to be considered as the acknowledgement of a vassal to his superior. Baady, upon his accession to the throne, was resolved to rectify this too great respect shewn on the part of his father, by an affront he resolved to offer. With this view, he sent to Socinios two old, blind, and lame horses.

Socinios took this amiss, as it was intended he should, and the slight was immediately followed by the troops of Atbara, under Nile Wed Ageeb, sent by Baady to make an inroad into Abyssinia, to lay waste the country, and drive off the people, with orders to sell them as slaves.

Among the most active in this expedition, were those of the town of Serké. When Baady complained that his father and rival was protected in his own town of Tchelga, it had been answered, That true it was, Tchelga had been ceded and did belong to Sennaar, for every purpose of revenue, but that the sovereignty of the place had never been alienated or surrendered to the king of Sennaar, but remained now, as ever, vested in the king of Abyssinia. Serkè stood precisely in the same situation with respect to Abyssinia, as Tchelga did to Sennaar, when Socinios demanded satisfaction for the violence committed against him by his own town of Serkè. The same answer was given him, That for all fiscal purposes Serkè was his, but owed him no allegiance; for, being part of the kingdom of Sennaar, it was bound to assist its sovereign in all wars against his enemies.

Socinios, deeply engaged in the troubles that attended the beginning of his reign, passed over for a time both the affront and injury, but sent into Atbara to Nile Wed Ageeb, proposing a treaty with him independent of the king of Sennaar.

There were, at this time, three sorts of people that inhabited the whole country from lat. 13° (the mountains of Abyssinia) to the tropic of Cancer (the frontiers of Egypt.) The first was the Funge, or negroes, established in Atbara since the year 1504, by conquest. The second, the old inhabitants of that country, known in very early ages by the name of Shepherds, which continues with them to this day; and these lived under a female government. The third, the Arabs, who came hither after the conquest of Egypt, in an army under Caled Ibn el Waalid, or Saif Ullah, the Sword of God, during the Khalifat of Omar, destined to subdue Nubia, and, still later, in the time of Salidan and his brother.

These Arabs had associated with the first inhabitants, the Shepherds, from a similarity of life and manners, and, by treaty, the Funge had established a tribute to be paid them from both; after which, these were to enjoy their former habitations without further molestation.

This prince of the Arabs, Nile Wed Ageeb, embraced the offer of the king of Abyssinia very readily; and a treaty was accordingly made between Socinios and him, and a territory in Abyssinia granted him on the frontiers, to which he could retire in safety, as often as his affairs were embroiled with the state of Sennaar.

It happened soon after this, that Alico, a Mahometan, governor of the Mazaga for Socinios, that is, of Nara and Ras el Feel, a low country, as the name imports, of black earth, revolted from his master, and fled to Sennaar, carrying with him a number of the king’s horses. Socinios made his complaint to the king of Sennaar, who took no notice of it, neither returned any answer, which exasperated Socinios so much that it produced the present expedition, and was a cause of much bloodshed, and of a war which, at least in intention, lasts to this day between the two kingdoms.

Wed Ageeb, upon Socinios’s first summons, came to Gunkè, his head-quarters, attended by a number of troops, and some of the best horse in Atbara. Upon his entering the king’s tent, he prostrated himself, (as is the Abyssinian custom) acknowledged himself the king’s vassal, and brought presents with him to a very considerable value. Socinios received him with great marks of distinction and kindness. He decorated him with a chain and bracelets of gold, and gave him a dagger of exquisite workmanship, mounted with the same metal; clothed him in silk and damask after the Abyssinian fashion, and confirmed the ancient treaty with him. The fruit of all this was presently seen; the king and his new ally fell suddenly upon Serké, put all the male inhabitants to the sword, sold the women and children as slaves, and burned the town to the ground. The same they did to every inhabited place on that side of the frontier, west to Fazuclo. After which, the king, having sent a sarcastic compliment to Baady, returned to Dancaz, taking Wed Ageeb with him.

Socinios had only ravaged the frontier of the kingdom of Sennaar to the westward, from Serkè towards Fazuclo. This was but a part of the large scheme of vengeance he had resolved to execute progressively from Serkè, in reparation of the affront he had received from the king of the Funge. But he delegated what remained to the two princes his sons, and to the governor of Tigré.

Welled Hawaryat, at the head of the Koccob horse, and another body of cavalry reckoned equal in valour, called Maia, and the greatest part of the king’s household troops, were ordered to fall upon that part of the frontier of Sennaar which the king had left from Serké eastward. Melca Christos, with the horse of Siré and Samen, was appointed to attack the frontier still farther east, opposite to the province of Siré. Tecla Georgis, governor of Tigré, was directed to lay waste that part of the kingdom of Sennaar bordering upon the frontiers of his province.

The whole of this expedition succeeded to a wish; only Melea Christos, in passing through the country of Shangalla, was met by a large army of that people, who, thinking the expedition intended against them, had attacked him in his passage, with some appearance of advantage; but by his own exertions, and those of his troops alarmed at their prince’s danger, he not only extricated himself from the bad situation he was in, but gave the Shangalla so entire an overthrow, that one of their tribes was nearly exterminated by that day’s slaughter, and crowds of women and children sent slaves to the king at Dancaz.

The delay that this occasioned had no bad effect upon the expedition. The victorious troops poured immediately into Atbara under Melca Christos, and completed the destruction made by Welled Hawaryat, and the governor of Tigré. All Sennaar was filled with people flying from the conquerors, and an immense number of cattle was driven away by the three armies. Baady seems to have been an idle spectator of this havock made in his kingdom; and the armies returned without loss to Dancaz, loaded with plunder.

Still the vengeance of Socinios was not satisfied. The Baharnagash, Guebra Mariam, was commanded to march against Fatima queen of the Shepherds, called at that time Negusta Errum, queen of the Greeks. This was a princess who governed the remnant of that ancient race of people, once the sovereigns of the whole country, who, for several dynasties, were masters of Egypt, and who still, among their ancient customs, preserved that known one, of always placing a woman upon the throne. Her residence was at Mendera54, on the N. E. of Atbara, one of the largest and most populous towns in it; a town, indeed, built like the rest, of clay, straw, and reeds, but not less populous or flourishing on that account. It was in the way of the caravans from Suakem, both to Abyssinia and Sennaar, as also of those large caravans to and from Sudan, the Negro country upon the Niger, which then came, and still use that road in their way to Mecca. Its female sovereign was considered as guardian of that communication, and the caravans passing it.

The Baharnagash had in orders from Socinios to pursue this queen till he had taken her prisoner, and to bring her in that condition into his presence. The enterprise was by no means an easy one. Great part of the road was without water; but Guebra Mariam, the Baharnagash, was an active and prudent officer, and perfectly acquainted with the several parts of the country. With a small, but veteran army, he marched down the Mareb, between that river and the mountains, destroying all the places through which he passed, putting the inhabitants unmercifully to the sword, that no one might approach him, nor any report be made of his numbers, which were everywhere magnified by those that escaped, and who computed them from the greatness of the desolation they had occasioned.

On the 13th day he came before Mendera, and sent a summons to the queen Fatima to surrender. Being told that she had fled on his approach, he answered, That he cared not where she was; but that, unless she surrendered herself prisoner before he entered Mendera, he would first set the town on fire, and then quench the flames by the blood of its inhabitants.

Fatima, though old and infirm, was too great a lover of her people to risk the fulfilling this threat from any consideration of what might happen to her. She surrendered herself to Guebra Mariam, with two attendants; and he, without loss of time, marched back to his own country, abstaining from every sort of violence or excess in his way, from respect to his female prisoner, whom he brought in triumph before Socinios to Dancaz, and was the first messenger of his own victory.

Socinios received this queen of the Greeks on his throne; but, in consideration of her infirmities, dispensed with the ceremony of prostration, constantly observed in Abyssinia on being introduced to the presence of the king: seeing that she was unable to stand during the time of her interrogation, he ordered a low stool to be set for her on the ground; a piece of consideration very rarely shewn to any stranger in Abyssinia, however great their dignity and quality.

Socinios sternly demanded of his prisoner, “Why she and her predecessors, being vassals to the crown of Abyssinia, had not only omitted the payment of their tribute, but had not even sent the customary presents to him upon his accession to the throne?”

To this the queen answered with great frankness and candour, “That it was true, such tributes and presents were due, and were also punctually paid from old times by her ancestors to his, as long as protection was afforded them and their people, and this was the principal cause of paying that tribute; but the Abyssinians having first suffered the country to be in great part conquered by the Arabs, and then again by the Funge, without ever interfering, she had concluded a peace with the Funge of Sennaar, and paid the tribute to them, in consequence of which they defended her from the Arabs: That she had had no soldiers but such as were employed in keeping a strict watch over the road through the desert to Suakem, which was anciently trusted to her; that the other part of her subjects was occupied in keeping and rearing great herds of cattle for the markets of Sennaar and other towns, as well as camels for the caravans of Mecca, Cairo, and Sudan, both employments being of public benefit; and, therefore, as she did harm to none, she had a greater reason to wonder what could be his motive of sending so far from home to seek her, and her harmless subjects, in the desert, with such effusion of innocent blood.”

The king hearing this sagacious answer, which was followed by many others of the kind, was extremely pleased; but assured her, “That he intended to maintain his ancient right both over her subjects, and the Arabs under Wed Ageeb, who was now his vassal, in all the country from Fazuclo to Suakem; that he considered the Funge as usurpers, and would certainly treat them as such.” After this Socinios dismissed the queen, and gave her assurances of protection, having first cloathed her as his vassal in silk and damask, after the fashion of women in her own country.

But it was not long before this train of success met with a considerable check. Very soon afterwards, the king being in Gojam, a message was brought to him from the principal people of Narea, informing him plainly, “That Benero, having become cruel and avaricious, put many people to death wantonly, and many more for the sake of their money; having taken from them their wives and daughters, either for his own pleasure, or to sell them as slaves to the Galla—they had at last murdered him, and chosen a man in his room distinguished for his virtue and goodness.”

The king was very much exasperated at this message. He told them, however bad Benero might have been, he considered his murder as an insult done to himself, and had, therefore, dispatched Mustapha Basha with some troops, and given command to all the Mahometans in Narea to assist him, and to inquire into the death of Benero, and the merit of his successor.

At the same time, the Galla made an inroad into Begemder; and Welled Hawaryat, assembling what troops he could, in haste, to stop the desolation of that province, and having come in sight of the enemy, he was forsaken by his army, and slain, together with the Cantiba of Dembea, Amdo, and Nile Wed Ageeb prince of the Arabs, after fighting manfully for the king. Socinios, upon the arrival of this news, gave himself up to immoderate sorrow; not so much for the loss of his army which had misbehaved, as for the death of Welled Hawaryat his favourite son, and Amdo and Nile, the two best officers in his army.

It will now be necessary that we look back a little to the state of religious affairs in Abyssinia, which began from this time to have influence in every measure, and greatly to promote the troubles of that empire; though they were by no means their only cause, as some have said, with a view to throw greater odium upon the Jesuits, who surely have enough to answer for, without inflaming the account by any exaggeration.

Paez, in the course of building the palace at Gorgora, had deservedly astonished the whole kingdom by a display of his universal genius and capacity. If he was assiduous and diligent in raising this fabric, he had not neglected the advancing of another, the conversion of Abyssinia to the obedience of the see of Rome.

Ras Sela Christos (if we believe these missionaries) had converted himself, by reading with attention the Abyssinian books only. Being about to depart from Gojam to fight against the Galla, he wanted very much to have made his renunciation and confession in the presence of Peter Paez. But, as he was busied at Gorgora building a convent and palace there, he contented himself with another Jesuit, Francisco Antonio d’Angelis; and, being victorious in his expedition, he gave the fathers ground and a sum of money to build a monastery at Collela, which was now the third in Abyssinia belonging to the Jesuits.

As for the king, though probably already determined in his own mind, he had not taken any step so decisive as could induce the compliance of others. Disputes were constantly maintained, for the most part in his presence, between the missionaries and the Abyssinian monks, chiefly concerning the long-agitated question, the two natures in Christ, in which, although the victory declared always in favour of the Jesuits, if we may credit their representations, no conviction followed on the part of the adversaries. At last Abuna Simon complained to the king, that unusual and irregular things had been permitted without his knowledge; that disputes upon articles of faith had been held without calling him, or his being permitted to give his clergy the advantage of his support in these controversies.

The king, who did not believe that the Abuna’s eloquence or learning would make any great alteration, ordered the disputations to be held a-new in the Abuna’s presence. That priest’s ignorance made the matter worse; and the king, holding this point as now settled, made his first public declaration, that there were two natures in Christ, perfect God and perfect man, really distinct between themselves, but united in one divine person, which is the Christ.

At this time, letters came by way of India, both from the king of Spain, Philip II. dated in Madrid the 15th of March 1609, and from the pope Paul V. of the 4th of January 1611. These letters contain nothing but general declamatory exhortations to Socinios to persevere in the Christian faith, assuring him of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, instead of those Portuguese regiments which he had solicited. However, the affair of the conversion being altogether settled between the king and Paez, it was thought proper to make the renunciation first, and then depend upon the king of Spain and the pope for sending the soldiers, if their prayers were not effectual.

It was necessary that Socinios should write to the pope, notifying his submission to the see of Rome. But letters on such a subject were thought of too great consequence to be sent, as former dispatches to Europe had been, without being accompanied by proper persons, who, upon occasion, might assume the character of ambassadors, and give any assurance or explanation needful.

It was at the same time considered, that the way by Masuah was so liable to accidents, the intermediate province of Tigré being still as it were in a state of rebellion, that it would be easy for the enemies of the Catholic faith to intercept these messengers and letters by the way, so that their contents might be published amongst the king’s enemies in Abyssinia, without ever being made known in Europe. Some proposed the longer, but, as they apprehended, the more secure way, by passing Narea and the provinces south of the frontiers of that kingdom, partly inhabited by Gentiles, partly by Mahometans, to Melinda, on the Indian Ocean, where they might embark for Goa.

Lots were cast among the missionaries who of their number should undertake this long and dangerous journey. The lot fell upon Antonio Fernandes, a man of great prudence, much esteemed by the king, and by the general voice allowed to be the properest of all the society for this undertaking. He, on his part, named Fecur Egzie (beloved of the Lord) as his companion, to be ambassador to the king of Spain and the pope. This man had been one of the first of the Abyssinians converted to the Catholic faith by the Jesuits, and he continued in it steadily to his death. He was a person of tried courage and prudence, and of a pleasant and agreeable conversation.

It was the beginning of March 1613 Antonio Fernandes55 set out for Gojam, where was Ras Sela Christos. Fecur Egzie had set out before, that he might adjust his family affairs, and took with him ten Portuguese, six of whom were to go no farther than Narea, and return, the other four to embark with him for India.

The governor detained the small company till he procured guides from among the Shats and Gallas, barbarous nations near Narea, and eastward of it, from whom he took hostages for properly protecting this caravan in their way, paying them well, as an encouragement for behaving honestly and faithfully.

On the 15th of April they had set out from Umbarma, then the head-quarters of Sela Christos, who gave them for guards forty men armed with shields and javelins. Nor was it long before their difficulties began. Travelling about two days to the west, they came to Senaffé, the principal village or habitation of the Pagan Gongas, very recently in rebellion, and nearly destroyed, rather than subdued. To the first demand of safe conduct, they answered in a manner which shewed that, far from defending the travellers from others, they were resolved themselves to fall upon them, and rob or murder them in the way. One Portuguese offered himself to return with Fernandes to complain of these savages to Sela Christos; who, upon their arrival, dispatched three officers with troops to chastise these Pagans, and convey the ambassador and his attendants out of their territory and reach.

The Gongas, being informed that a complaint was sent to Sela Christos, which would infallibly be followed by a detachment of troops, gave the ambassador the safeguard he demanded, which carried him in three days to Minè56. This is the name of some miserable villages, often rebuilt, and as often destroyed, upon a ford of the Nile, over which is the ordinary passage for the Mahometan merchants into Bizamo, the way to the mountainous country of Narea and Caffa. As the rains had begun to fall here with violence, when Fernandes and his companions arrived, they were obliged to pass the river on skins blown full of wind.

The distance from Minè to Narea is 50 leagues due south, with little inclination to west. The road to it, and the places through which you pass, are very distinctly set down in my map, and, I believe, without any material error; it is the only place where the reader can find this route, which, till now, has never been published.

The next day our travellers entered the kingdom of Bizamo, inhabited by Pagan Galla. These people came in crowds with arms in their hands, insisting upon being paid for liberty of passing through their country; but, seeing the company of the ambassador take to their arms likewise, they compounded for a few bricks of salt and coarse cotton cloaths, and thereupon suffered them to pass. The same day, the guide, sent from Narea to conduct them by crooked and unfrequented paths out of the way of the Pagan Galla, made them to enter into a large thicket through which they could scarcely force themselves; after which they came to a river called Maleg, when it was nearly night. Next day they could find no ford where they could pass. They now entertained a suspicion, that the guard from Narea had betrayed them, and intended to leave them in these woods to meet their death from the Galla.

The day after, they found the ford, and passed it without difficulty; and, being on the other side, they began to be a little more composed, as being far from the Pagans, and now near entering the territory of Narea. After ascending a high mountain, they came to Gonea, where they found a garrison under one of the principal officers of that kingdom, who received them with great marks of honour and joy, on account of the warm recommendation Sela Christos had given them, and perhaps as much for a considerable present they had brought along with them.

Narea, the southmost province of the Abyssinian empire, is still governed by its native princes, who are called the Beneros; its territory reached formerly to Bizamo.

The Galla have quite surrounded them, especially on the south-east and north. What is to the west is a part of Africa, the most unknown. The people of Narea have a small trade with Melinda on the Indian Ocean, and with Angola on the western, by means of intermediate nations. Narea is abundantly supplied with gold from the Negro country that is nearest them. Some have, indeed, said there is gold in Narea; but, after a very diligent investigation, I find it comes chiefly from towards the Atlantic.

The kingdom of Narea stands like a fortified place in the middle of a plain. Many rivers, rising in the fourth and fifth degrees of latitude, spread themselves, for want of level, over this flat country, and stagnate in very extensive marshes from south by east, to the point of north, or north-west.

The foot of the mountains, or edge of these marshes nearest Narea, is thick overgrown with coffee-trees, which, if not the only, is the largest tree known there. Then comes the mountainous country of Narea Proper, which is interspersed with small, unwholesome, but very fertile valleys. Immediately adjoining is the more mountainous country of Caffa, without any level ground whatever. It is said to be governed by a separate prince: they were converted to Christianity in the time of Melec Segued, some time after the conversion of Narea. The Galla, having settled themselves in all the flat ground to the very edge of the marshes, have, in great measure, cut off the communication with Abyssinia for many years together; so that their continuance in the Christian faith seems very precarious and uncertain, for want of books and priests to instruct them.

The Nareans of the high country are the lightest in colour of any people in Abyssinia; but those that live by the borders of the marshes below are perfect blacks, and have the features and wool of negroes: whereas all those in the high country of Narea, and still more so in the stupendous mountains of Caffa, are not so dark as Neopolitans or Sicilians. Indeed it is said that snow has been seen to lie on the mountains of Caffa, as also in that high ridge called Dyre and Tegla; but this I do not believe. Hail has probably been seen to lie there; but I doubt much whether this can be said of a substance of so loose a texture as snow.

There is great abundance both of cattle, grain, and all sorts of provisions in Narea, as well in the high as in the low country. Gold, which they sell by weight, is the medium of commerce within the country itself; but coarse cotton cloths, stibium, beads, and incense, are the articles with which their foreign trade to Angola, and the kingdoms on the Atlantic, is carried on.

The Nareans are exceedingly brave. Though they have been conquered, and driven out of the low country, it has been by multitudes—nation after nation pouring in upon them with a number of horse to which they are perfect strangers: But now, confined to the mountains, and surrounded by their marshes and woods, they despise all further attempts of the Galla, and drive them from their frontiers whenever they approach too near.

In these skirmishes, or in small robbing parties, those Nareans are taken, whom the Mahometan merchants sell at Gondar. At Constantinople, India, or Cairo, the women are more esteemed as slaves than those of any other part of the world, and the men are reckoned faithful, active, and intelligent. Both sexes are remarkable for a chearful, kind disposition, and, if properly treated, soon attach themselves inviolably to their masters. The language of Narea and Caffa is peculiar to that country, and is not a dialect of any neighbouring nation.

Antonio Fernandes in this journey, seeking to go to India by Melinda in company with Fecur Egzie ambassador, passed through this country; but none of the Jesuits ever went to Narea with a view of converting the people, at which I have been often surprised. There was enough of gold and ignorance to have allured them. That softness and simplicity of manners for which the Nareans are remarkable, their affection for their masters and superiors, and firm attachment to them, would have been great advantages in the hands of the fathers. Every Abyssinian would have encouraged them at the beginning of this mission; and, if once they had firmly established themselves in a country of so difficult access, they might have bid defiance to prince Facilidas, and the persecution that destroyed the progress of the Catholic faith in that reign.

From Gonea, in six days they came to the residence of Benero, the sovereign of the country; since the conquest and conversion under Melec Segued, he is called Shum. The ambassador and Fernandes were received by the Benero with an air of constraint and coolness, though with civility. They found afterwards the cause of this was the insinuation of a schismatic Abyssinian monk, then at the court of that prince, who had told him that the errand of the ambassador and missionary to India was to bring Portuguese troops that way into Abyssinia, which would end in the destruction of Narea, if it did not begin with it.

Terrified at a danger so near, the Benero called a council, in which it was resolved that the ambassador should be turned from the direct road into the kingdom of Bali, to a much more inconvenient, longer, and dangerous one; and, the ambassador hesitating a little when this was proposed, the Benero told him plainly, that he would not suffer him to pass further by any other way than that of Bali.

Bali was once a province belonging to Abyssinia, and was the first taken from them by the Galla. It is to the north-east of Narea, to the west of the kingdom of Adel, which separates it from the sea; of which ample mention has been already made in the beginning of this history.

This was to turn them to Cape Gardefan, the longest journey they could possibly make by land, and in the middle of their enemies; whereas the direction of the coast of the Indian Ocean running greatly to the westward, and towards Melinda, was the shortest journey they could make by land. Melinda, too, had many rich merchants, who, though Moors, did yet traffic in the Portuguese settlements on the coast of Malabar, and had little intelligence or concern with the religious disputes which raged in Abyssinia.

However, I very much doubt whether this nearest route could be accomplished, at least by travellers, such as Fecur Egzie, Fernandes, and their companions, all ignorant of the language, and, therefore, constantly at the discretion of interpreters, and the malice or private views of different people through whose hands they must have passed.

The Benero, having thus provided against the dangers with which his state was threatened, if our travellers went by Melinda, made them a present of fifty crusades of gold for the necessaries of their journey; and, as their way lay through the small state of Gingiro, and an ambassador from the sovereign of that state was then at Narea, he dispatched that minister in great haste, recommending the Portuguese to his protection so long as they should be in his territory.

Fecur Egzie and his company set out with the ambassador of Gingiro in a direction due east; and the first day they arrived at a post of Narea, where was the officer who was to give them a guard to the frontiers; and who, after some delay, in order to see what he could extort from them, at last gave them a party of eighty soldiers to conduct them to the frontiers.

After four long days journey through countries totally laid waste by the Galla, keeping scouts constantly before them to give advice of the first appearance of any enemy, that they might hide themselves in thickets and bushes; at mid-day they began to descend a very steep craggy ridge of mountains, when the ambassador of Gingiro, now their conductor, warned them, that, before they got to the foot of the mountain, they should enter into a very thick wood to hide themselves till night, that they might not be discovered by the Galla shepherds feeding their flocks in the plain below; for only at night, when they had retired, could those plains be passed in safety.

At four o’clock in the afternoon they began to enter the wood, and were lucky in getting a violent shower of rain, which dislodged the Galla sooner than ordinary, and sent them, and their cattle home to their huts. But it was, at the same time, very disagreeable to our travellers on account of its excessive coldness. Next day, in the evening, descending another very rugged chain of mountains, they came to the banks of the large river Zebeé, as the Portuguese call it; but its true name is Kibbeé, a name given it by the Mahometan merchants, (the only travellers in this country) from its whiteness, approaching to the colour of melted butter, which that word signifies.

The river Zebeé, or Kibbeé, surrounds a great part of the kingdom of Gingiro. It has been mistaken for the river El Aice, which runs into Egypt in a course parallel to the Nile, but to the west of it.

Narea seems to be the highest land in the peninsula of Africa, so that here the rivers begin to run alternately towards the Cape of Good Hope and Mediterranean; but the descent at first is very small on either side. In the adjoining latitudes, that is 4° on each side of the Line, it rains perpetually, so that these rivers, though not rapid, are yet kept continually full.

This of Zebeé, is universally allowed by the merchants of this country to be the head of the river Quilimancy, which, passing through such a tract of land from Narea to near Melinda, must have opened a very considerable communication with the inland country.

This territory, called Zindero, or Gingiro, is a very small one. The father and Fecur Egzie rested the sixth day from their setting out from Narea. The river Zebeé, by the description of Fernandes, seems to incline from its source in a greater angle than any river on the north of that partition. He says it carries more water with it than the Nile, and is infinitely more rapid, so that it would be absolutely impassable in the season of rains, were it not for large rocks which abound in its channel.

The passage was truly tremendous; trees were laid from the shore to the next immediate rock; from that rock to the next another tree was laid; then another that reached to the shore. These trees were so elastic as to bend with the weight of a single person. At a great distance below ran the foaming current of the river, so deep an abyss that it turned the heads of those who were passing on the moveable elastic support or bridge above.

Yet upon this seeming inconvenience the existence of that country depended. The Galla that surrounded it would have over-run it in a month, but for this river, always rapid and always full, whose ordinary communication by a bridge could be destroyed in a moment; and which, though it had one ford, yet this was useless, unless passengers had assistance from both sides of the river, and consequently could never be of service to an enemy.

The terrible appearance of this tottering bridge for a time stopped the ambassador and missionary. They looked upon the passing upon these trembling beams as certainly incurring inevitable destruction. But the reflection of dangers that pressed them behind overcame these fears, and they preferred the resolution to run the risk of being drowned in the river Zebeé, rather than, by staying on the other side all night, to stand the chance of being murdered by the Galla. But, after all the men only could pass the bridge, they were obliged to leave the mules on the other side till the next morning, with instructions to their people, that, upon the first appearance of the Galla, they should leave them, and make their best way over the bridge, throwing down one of the trees after them. The next morning, two peasants, subjects of Gingiro, shewed them the ford, where their beasts passed over with great difficulty and danger, but without loss.