# Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 2/Book 4/Chapter 3

YASOUS I.
From 1680 to 1704.
Brilliant Expedition of the King to Wechnè—Various Campaigns against the Agows and Galla—Comet appears—Expedition against Zeegam and the Eastern Shangalla—Poncet's Journey—Marat's Embassy—Du Roule's Embassy—Du Roule murdered at Sennaar—The King is assassinated.
Yasous succeeded his father Hannes with the approbation of the whole kingdom. He had, as we have seen, twice in Hannes's life-time absconded from the palace; and this was interpreted as implying an impatience to reign. But I rather think the cause was a difference of manners, his father being extremely bigotted, sordid, and covetous; for he never, in those elopements, pretended to make a party contrary to his father's interest, nor shewed the least inclination to give either the army or the people a favourable impression of himself, to the disadvantage of the king. There was, besides, a difference in religious principles. Yasous had a great predilection for the monks of Debra Li​banos, or the high church; while Hannes, his father, had done every thing in his power to instil into his son a prepossession in favour of those of Abba Eustathius.
To these opinions, therefore, so widely different, as well in religion as the things of the world, I attribute the young prince's disinclination to live with his father. This seems confirmed by the first step he took upon his mounting the throne, which was to make an alteration in the church government from what his father had left it at his deaths.
It was on the 7th of July 1680 he was proclaimed king; the next day he deposed the Acab Saat Constantius, and gave his place to Asera Christos. He then called a council of the clergy on the 27th of September, when he deposed Itchegué Tzaga Christos, and in his room named Cyriacus.
It was now the time that, according to custom, he was to make his profession in regard to the difference I have formerly mentioned that subsisted between the two parties about the incarnation of Christ. But this he refused to do in the present state of the church, as there was then no certain Abuna in Abyssinia. For Hannes, before he died, had written to the patriarch of Alexandria to depose both Abuna Christodulus and Marcus, who, in case of death, was to have succeeded him, and this under pretence that, he had varied in his faith between the two contending parties.
​Hannes, therefore, desired the patriarch to appoint Abuna Sanuda, a man known to be devoted to the monks of St Eustathius and their tenets; whereas the other two priests were supposed to be inclined to the monks of Debra Libanos. Yasous told his clergy that he would not suffer Sanuda to be elected; and the assembly, with little opposition, conformed to the sentiments of the king, who sent immediately thereupon to Cairo, demanding peremptorily that Marcus might be appointed Abuna, and declaring his resolution to admit no other. He then ordered the church of Tecla Haimanout to be consecrated with great solemnity; he repaired and adorned it with much magnificence, and endowed it with lands, which increased its revenue very considerably.
These two circumstances (especially the last) shewed distinctly to the whole kingdom his affection for the high church, as explicitly as any proclamation could have done. And in this he continued steady during his whole life, notwithstanding the many provocations he met with from that restless body of men.
Having thus settled the affairs of the church, he proceeded to those of the state, and appointed Anastasius (then governor of Amhara) to be Ras, or lieutenant-general, in his whole kingdom, allowing him also to keep his province of Amhara. In this he shewed a wisdom and penetration that gained him the good opinion of every one; for Anastasius was a man advanced in years, of great capacity and experience, and of a most unblemished character among his neighbours, who, in all their own affairs, had recourse to, and were determined by, his counsels.
​The king then took a journey of a very extraordinary nature, and such as Abyssinia had. never before seen. Attended only by his nobility, of whom a great number had flocked to him, he sat down at the foot of the mountain of Wechné, and ordered all the princes of the royal family who were banished, and confined there, to be brought to him.
During the last reign, the mountain of Wechné, and those forlorn princes that lived upon it, had been, as it were, totally forgotten. Hannes having sons of an age fit to govern, and his eldest son Yasous living below with his father, no room seemed to remain for attempting a revolution, by the young candidates escaping from the mountain. This oblivion to which they were consigned, melancholy as it was, proved the best state these unhappy prisoners could have wished; for to be much known for either good or bad qualities, did always at some period become fatal to the individuals. Punishment always followed inquiries after a particular prince; and all messages, questions, or visits, at the instance of the king, were constantly forerunners of the loss of life, or amputation of limbs, to these unhappy exiles. To be forgotten, then, was to be safe; but this safety carried very heavy distress along with; it. Their revenues were embezzled by their officers or keepers, and ill paid by the king; and the sordid temper of Hannes had often reduced them all to the danger of perishing with hunger and cold.
Yasous, as he was well acquainted, with, all these circumstances, so he was, in his nature and disposition, as perfectly willing to repair the injuries that were past, and prevent ​the like in future. Nothing tended so much to conciliate the minds of the people to their sovereign as this behaviour of Yasous.
In the midst of his relations there now appeared (as risen from the dead) Claudius, son of Socinios, the first exile who was sent to the mountain of Wechnè by his brother Facilidas, grandfather of Yasous. This was the prince who, as we have already stated, was fixed upon by the Jesuits to succeed his father, and govern that country when converted to the Romish religion by their intrigues, and conquered by the arms of the Portuguese: This was the prince who, to make their enemies appear more odious, these Jesuits have asserted was slain by his brother Facilidas, one instance by which we may judge of the justice of the other charges laid against that humane, wife, and virtuous prince, whose only crime was an inviolable attachment to the religion and constitution of his country, and the just abhorrence he most reasonably had, as an independent prince, to submit the prerogatives of his crown, and the rights of his people to the blind controul of a foreign prelate.
There came from the mountain also the sons of Facilidas, with their families; and likewise his own brothers. Ayto Theophilus, and Ayto Claudius, sons of his father Hatzè Hannes. The light of so many noble relations, some advanced in years, some in the flower of their youth and some yet children; all, however, in tatters, and almost naked, made such an impression on the young king that he burst into tears. Nor was his behaviour to the respective degrees of them less proper or engaging. To the old he paid that reverence and respect due to parents; to those about his ​own age, a kind and liberal familiarity; while he bestowed upon the young ones caresses and commendations, sweetened with the hopes that they might see better times.
His first care was to provide them all plentifully with apparel and every necessary. His brothers he dressed like himself, and his uncles still more richly. He then divided a large sum of money among them all.
In the month of December, which is the pleasantest season of the whole year, the sun being moderately hot, the sky constantly clear and without a cloud, all the court was encamped under the mountain, and the inferior sort strewed along the grass. All were treated at the expence of the king, passing the day and night in continual festivals. It is but right, said the king, that I should pay for a pleasure so great that none of my predecessors ever dared to taste it; and of all that noble assembly none seemed to enjoy it more sincerely than the king. All pardons solicited for criminals at this time were granted. In this manner having spent a whole month, before his departure the king called for the destar, (i. e. the treasury book) in which the account of the sum allowed for the maintenance of these prisoners is stated; and having inquired strictly into the expenditure, and cancelled all grants that had been made of any part of that sum to others, and provided in future for the full, as well as yearly payment of it, he, for his last act, gave to the governor of the mountain a large accession of territory, to make him ample amends for the loss of the dues he was understood to be intitled to from that revenue. After this, he embraced them all, assuring them of his constant protection; and, mounting his horse, he took the ​keeper along with him, leaving all the royal family at their liberty at the foot of the mountain.
This last mark of confidence, more than all the rest, touched the minds of that noble troop, who hurried every man with his utmost speed to restore themselves voluntarily to their melancholy prison, imputing every moment of delay as a step towards treason and ingratitude to their munificent, compassionate, and magnanimous benefactor. All their way was moistened with tears flowing from sensible and thankful hearts; and all the mountain resounded with prayers for the long life and prosperity of the king, and that the crown might never leave the lineal descendents of his family. It was very remarkable, that, during this long reign, though he was constantly involved in war, no competitor from the mountain ever appeared in breach of those vows they had so voluntarily undertaken.
There was another great advantage the king reaped by this generous conduct. All the most powerful and considerable people in the kingdom had an opportunity, at one view, to see each individual of the royal family that was capable of wearing the crown, and all with one voice agreed, upon the comparison made, that, if they had been then assembled to elect a king, the choice would not have fallen upon any but the present.
Though the country of the Agows of Damot is generally plain and laid out in pasture, each tribe has some mountains to which, upon the alarm of an enemy, they retire with their flocks. The Galla, being their neighbours on the other, side of the Nile to the south, and the Shangalia in the ​low country immediately to the west, these natural fortresses are frequently of the greatest use during the incursions of both.
They alone, of all the nations of Abyssinia, have found it their interest so far to cultivate their neighbours the Shangalla, that there are places set apart in which both nations can trade with each other in safety; where the Agows fell copper, iron, beads, skins, or hides, and receive an immense profit in gold; for, below these to the south and west, is the gold country nearest Abyssinia, none of that metal being anywhere found in Abyssinia itself.
Yasous, from this country of the Agows, descended into that of the Shangalla; where, conforming to the ancient custom of Abyssinia, he hunted the elephant and rhinoceros, the ordinary first expedition in the kings his predecessors reigns, but the second in his; the first having been (as before stated) spent in charity and mercy, much more nobly, at the foot of the mountain of Wechne.
Yasous is reported to have been the most graceful and dexterous horseman of his time. He distinguished himself in this hunting as much for his address and courage against the beasts, as he had, for a short while before, done by his affability, generosity, and benevolence, amidst his own family. All was praise, all was enthusiasm, wherever the young king presented himself; the ill-boding monks and hermits had not yet dared to foretel evil, but every common mouth predicted this was to be an active, vigorous, and glorious reign, without being thought by this to have laid any pretension to the gift of prophecy.
​It was now the second year of his reign when the king took the field with a small, but very well chosen army. The Edjow and Woolo, two of the most powerful tribes of southern Galla, taking advantage of the absence of Ras Anastasius, had entered Amhara by a pass, on the side of which is situated Melec Shimfa, one of the principal towns of the province.
The king, leaving old Anastasius to the government of Gondar, took upon himself the relief of Amhara; and, being joined by all the troops in his way, he arrived at Melec Shimfa before the Galla had any intelligence of him. The Galla always chose for their residence a very level country, because they are now become all horsemen. The country of Amhara, on the contrary, is full of high mountains, and only accessible by certain narrow passes. The king, therefore, instead of marching directly to the enemy, passed above them, and left them still advancing, burning the villages and churches in the country below. He then took possession of the pass (through which he knew they must retreat) with a strong body of troops; and filled the entrance of the defile, which was very rugged ground, with fusileers and his bell foot armed. with lances: after this, he separated his horse into two divisions, and, reserving one half to himself, gave the other to Kasmati Demetrius. He then placed the troops conducted by himself in a wood, about half a mile from the entrance of the pass, and ordered Demetrius to fall upon the Galla briskly on the plain, but to retreat as if terrified by their numbers, and to make the best of his way then to the pass in the mountains.
​Demetrius, finding the enemy's parties scattered wide wasting the country, fell upon them, and slew many, till he had arrived near the middle of their body, when the Galla, used to such expeditions, poured in from all sides, and presently united, Demetrius, surrounded on every side, was slain, fighting to the last in the most desperate manner, and his party, much diminished in number, fled in a manner that could not be mistaken for stratagem. They were closely pursued, and followed into the pass by the Galla, who thought they had thus entirely cut them off from Amhara. But they were soon received by a close fire from the foot among the bushes, and by the lances that mingled with them from every side of the mountain.
The king, upon the first noise of the musquetry, advanced quickly with his horse, and met the Galla, in the height, of their confusion, flying back again into the plain. Here they fell an easy sacrifice to the fresh troops led by Yasous, and to the peasants, exasperated by the havoc they before had made in the country. Of the enemy, about 6000 men fell this day on the field; a few were brought to Gondar, and, in contempt, sold for slaves. Few on the king's side were slain, excepting those that fell with Demetrius, the account of whose death the king heard without any signs of regret: — "I told the man (says the king) that he should shew himself and retire; if I wanted a victory I would have led the army in person; I march against the Galla, not as a king, but as an executioner, because my aim is to extirpate them."
Although Yasous was stedfast in his own opinion as to his religion, or, as it may be more properly called, the ​disputes and quibbles with the monks concerning it, yet he suffered each sect to enjoy its own, and, probably, in his heart he perfectly despised both.
The monks, however, were far from possessing any such spirit of toleration. They considered the deposing of Acab Saat, Constantius, and the Itchegué Tzaga Christos, as a declaration of dislike the king entertained towards their party. They bore with great impatience and indignation, that Abuna Sanuda, who was once their zealous partizan in the time of Hannes, should now suddenly change his sentiments, and declare implicitly for those of the king, and thereby increase both the number and the consequence of their adversaries. They declared that they would suffer every thing rather than live under a king who shewed himself so openly a favourer of Debra Libanos, though it was now but their turn, having in the last reign had a king more partial, and more attached to St Eustathius, than ever Yasous was to any set of monks whatever.
The ringleaders in all these seditious declarations were Abba Tebedin, superior of the monastery of Gondga, and Kasmati Wali of Damot, by origin a Galla. These two turbulent men, having first drawn over to their party the Agows and province of Damot, passed over the Nile to Goodero and Basso, whom they joined, and then proclaimed king one Isaac, grand son of Socinios a prince, who was never sent to the mountain, but whose predecessors, being at liberty when Facilidas first banished his brothers and children to Wechne, had fled to the Galla, and there remained in obscurity, waiting the juncture which now happened to declare his royal descent, and offer himself for king.
​The Galla, who fought but a pretence for invading Abyssinia, readily embraced this opportunity, and swarmed to him on all sides. His army, in a very short time, was exceedingly numerous, and the Agows and all Damot were ready to join him when he should repass the Nile. This revolt was indeed likely to have proved general, but for the activity and diligence of the king, who, on the first intelligence, put himself so suddenly in motion that he was on the banks of the Nile before the Galla on the one side were ready for their junction with the confederates on the Other.
The king's presence imposed upon the Agows and the. rebels of Damot, so that they let him pass quietly over the Nile into the country of the Galla, hoping that, as their designs were not discovered, he might again return through their country in peace if victorious over the Galla; but, i£ he was beaten, they then were ready to intercept him.
But the Galla, who expected that they would have had to fight with an army already fatigued and half-ruined by an action with the Agows on the other side of the river, no sooner saw it pass the Nile unmolested in full force, than they began to think how far it was from their interest to make their country a feat of war, when so little profit was to be expected. On the approach, therefore, of the king's army, many of them deserted to it, and made their peace with him. The few that remained faithful to Isaac were dispersed after very little resistance; and he himself being taken prisoner, and brought before the king, was given up to the soldiers, who put him to death in his presence. On ​the king's side, no person of consideration was slain but Kasmati Mazire, and very few on the part of the enemy.
This year 1685, the 5th of Yasous's reign, there was no military expedition. He had pardoned Abba Tebedin, and Kasmati Wali, and the monks again desired an assembly of the clergy, which was granted. But the king seeing, at its first meeting, that it was to produce nothing but wrangling and invectives; with great calmness and resolution told the assembly, "That their disputes were of a nature so confused and unedifying, that he questioned much their being really founded in scripture; and the rather so, because the patriarch of Alexandria seemed neither to know, nor concern himself about them, nor was the Abuna, at his first coming, ever instructed on any one of those points. If they were, however, founded in scripture, one of them was confessedly in the wrong; and, if so, he doubted it might be the case with both; that he had, therefore, come to a resolution to name several of the best-qualified persons of both parties, who, in the presence of the Itchegue and Abuna, might inspect the books, and from them settle some premises that might be hereafter accepted and admitted as data by both."
This being assented to, the very next year he ordered two of the priests of Debra Libanos then at Gondar, together with Abba Tebedin, Colmas of Aruana, the Abuna Sanuda, and the Itchegue, forthwith to repair to Debra Mariam, an island in the lake Tzana, where, sequestered from the world, they might discus their several opinions, and settle some points admissible by both sides. After which, without giving any opportunity for reply, he dissolved the assembly, and took the field with his army.
​The king, though perfectly informed of the part that the whole province of Damot had taken in the rebellion of Isaac, as also great part of the Agows, but most of all that tribe called Zeegam, yet had so well dissembled, that most of them believed he was ignorant of their fault, and all of them, that he had no thoughts of punishing them, for he had returned through Damot, after the defeat of Isaac, without shewing any mark of anger, or suffering his troops to commit the smallest hostility. He now passed in the same peaceable manner through the country of Zeegam, intending to attack the Shangalla of Geesa and Wumbarea.
These two tribes are little known. Like the other Shangalla they are Pagans, but worship the Nile and a certain tree, and have a language peculiar to themselves. They are woolly-headed, and of the deepest black; very tall and strong, straighter and better-made about the legs and joints than the other blacks; their foreheads narrow, their cheek-bones high, their noses flat, with wide mouths, and very small eyes. With all this they have an air of chearfulness and gaiety which renders them more agreeable than other blacks. Their women are very amorous, and fell at a much greater price than other blacks of the sex.
This country is bounded on the south by Metchakel; on the west by the Nile; the east by Serako, part of Guesgue and Kuara; and, on the north, by Belay, Cuha, and the Hamidge of Sennaar. They make very frequent inroads, ​and surprise the Agows, whole children they fell at Guba, to the Mahometans, who traffic there for gold and slaves, and get iron and coarse cotton-cloths in return. Their country is full of woods, and their manner of life the same as has been already described in speaking of the other tribes.
The Geesa live close upon the Nile, to which river they give their own name. It is also called Geesa by the Agows, in the small district of Geesh where it rises from its source. They never have yet made peace with Abyssinia, are governed by the heads of families, and live separately for the sake of hunting, and, for this reason, are easily conquered. The men are naked; having a cotton rag only about their middle. The nights are very cold, and they lie round great-fires; but the fly is not so dangerous here as to the eastward, so that goats, in a small number, live here. Their arms are bows, lances, and arrows; large wooden clubs, with knobs, nearly as big as a man's head, at the end of them; their shields are oval. They worship the Nile, but no other river, as I have said before; it is called Geesa, which, in their language, signifies the first Maker, or Creator. They imagine its water is a cure for most diseases.
East of the Geesa is Wumbarea, which reaches to Belay. The king fell first on the Geesa, part of whom he took, and the rest he dispersed. He then turned to the right through Wumbarea, and met with some resistance in the narrow passes in the mountains, in one of which Kasmati Kosté, (one of his principal officers) a man of low birth, but raised by his merit to his present rank, was slain by an arrow.
​The king then repassed the Agows of Zeegam, in the same peaceable manner in which he came, and then marched on without giving any cause of suspicion, taking up his quarters at Ibaba. It was here he had appointed an assembly of the clergy to meet, before whom the several delegates, chosen to confider the controverted points, and find some ground for a reconciliation, were to make their report. The Abuna, Itchegué, and all those who, for this purpose, were shut up in Debra Mariam, appeared before the king. But, however amicably things had been carried on while they were shut up in the island, the usual warmth and violence prevailed before the assembly. Ayto Christos, Abba Welled Christos of Debra Libanos, on one side, and Tebedin and Cosmas on the other, fell roundly, and without preface, upon a dispute about the incarnation, so that the affair from argument was likely to turn to sedition.
The turbulent Tebedin, leaving the matter of religion wholly apart, inveighed vehemently against the retirement to Debra Mariam, which he loudly complained of as banishment. Ras Anastasius and Abuna Sanuda reproved him sharply for the freedom with which he taxed this measure of the king, and in this they were followed by many of the wiser sort on both sides. Immediately after the assembly, the king ordered Tebedin to be put in irons, and sent to a mountainous prison. He then returned to Gondar.
This year, the 9th of Yasous reign, there appeared a comet, remarkable for its size and fiery brightness of its body, and for the prodigious length and distinctness of its tail. It ​was first taken notice of at Gondar, two days before the feast of St Michael, on which day the army takes the field. A fight so uncommon alarmed all sorts of people; and the prophets, who had kept themselves within very moderate bounds during this whole reign, now thought that it was incumbent upon them to distinguish themselves, and be silent no longer. Accordingly they foretold, from this phaenomenon, and published everywhere as a truth infallibly and immutably pre-ordained, that the present campaign was to exhibit a scene of carnage and bloodshed, more terrible and more extensive than any thing that ever had appeared in the annals of Ethiopia. That these torrents of blood, which were everywhere to follow the footsteps of the king, were to be stopped by his death, which was to happen before he ever returned again to Gondar; and, as the object of the king's expedition was still a secret, these alarming presages gained a great deal of credit.
But it was not so with Yasous, who, notwithstanding he was importuned, by learned men of all forts, to put off his departure for some days, absolutely refused, answering always such requests by irony and derision: "Pho! Pho! says he, you are not in the right; we must give the comet fair play; use him well, or he will never appear again, and then idle people and old women will have nothing to amuse themselves with."
He accordingly left Gondar at the time he had appointed; and he was already arrived at Amdaber, a few days distance from the capital, when an express brought him word of his mother's death, on which he immediately marched back to Gondar, and buried her in the island of Mitraha with all ​possible magnificence, and with every mark of sincere grief.
Though the prophets had not just succeeded in what they foretold, they kept nevertheless a good countenance. It is true that no blood was shed, nor did the king die before he returned to Gondar; but his mother died when he was away, and that was much, the fame thing, for they contended that it was not a great mistake, from the bare authority of a comet, to err only in the sex of the person that was to die; a queen for a king was very near calculation. As for the bloody story, and the king's death, they said they had mistaken the year in computing, but that it still was to happen (when it pleased God) some other time.
Every body agreed that these explanations were the best possible, excepting the king, who perceived a degree of malice in the foretelling his death and certain loss of his army just at the instant he was taking the field. But he disguised his resentment under strong irony, with which he attacked these diviners incessantly. He had inquired accurately the day of his mother's death: "How is it, says he to his chaplain, (or kees hatzé) that this comet should come to foretel my mother's death, when she was dead four days before it appeared?" Another day, to the same person he said, "I fear you do my mother too much honour at the expence of religion. Is it decent to suppose that such a star, the most remarkable appearance at the birth of Christ, should now be employed on no greater errand than to foretel the death of the daughter of Guebra Mascal?" These, and many more such railleries, accounted by these ​visionaries, as little short of impiety, so mortified Kollè (the kees hatzé,) a great believer in, and protector of the dreamers, that he resigned all his employments, and retired among the hermits into the desert of Werk-leva towards Sennaar, to study the aspects of the stars more accurately, and more at leisure.
Though we neither pay this comet the superstitious reverence the idle fanatics of Abyssinia shewed it, nor yet treat it with that contempt which this great king's good sense prompted him to do, we shall make some use of it, acknowledging our gratitude to the historian who has recorded it. We shall hereby endeavour to establish our chronology in opposition to that of the catholic writers, relating to the date of some transactions with which they were not cotemporaries, and only relate from hearsay, as happening before the arrival of the missionaries in this country.
Yasous the Great, of whom we are now writing, came to the throne upon the death of his father Hannes in 1680; the 9th year of this reign then was 1689.
Hedar is the 3d month of the Abyssinians, and answers to part of our November; and the 12th of that month, Hedar, is the feast; of St Michael the archangel, or 8th day of our month November, N. S.
Gondar is in lat. 12° 34' 30" N. and in long. 37° 33' 0" E. from the meridian of Greenwich. By the fiery appearance of the nucleus, or body of the comet, it certainly then was "very near the sun, and either was going down upon it to its ​perihelion, or had already passed it, and was receding to its aphelion; but by its increasing tail, already at a great length, we may conjecture it was only then going down to its conjunction, and was then near approaching to the sun.
From this we should conclude that this comet must have been seen, however rapidly it did move, some time before the 6th of November, or two days before the feast of St Michael. But this depends on the circumstances of the climate; for though the tropical rains cease the first of September, the cloudy weather continues all the month of October; at the end of these fall the latter rains in gentle showers, which allay the fevers in Dembea, and make the country wholesome for the march of the army, and these rains fall mostly in the night. From this it is probable that the comet, having at first little light and no tail, as yet at a distance from the sun, was not very apparent to the naked eye, till by its increased motion and heat it had acquired both tail and brightness, as it approached its perihelion.
Now we find by our European accounts, that, in the year 1689, there did appear a comet, the orbit of which was calculated by M. Pingre. And this comet arrived at its perihelion on the 1st day of December 1689, so was going down much inflamed, and with a violent motion to the sun, the 6th of November, when it was observed at Gondar, being but 25 days then from its perihelion.
As these circumstances are more than sufficient to constitute the identity of the comet, a phenomenon too rare to ​risk being confounded with another, we may hardly conclude the 9th year of Yasous the First to be the year 1689 of Christ, such as our chronology, drawn from the Abyssinian annals, states it to be; or, at least, if there is any error, it must be so small as to be of no sort of consequence to any sort of readers, or influence upon the narrative of any transactions.
The 10th year began with a sudden and violent alarm, which spread itself in an instant all over the kingdom without any certain authority. The Galla with an innumerable army were said to have entered Gojam, at several places, and laid waste the whole province, and this was the more extraordinary, as the Nile was now in the height of its inundation. On his march, the king learned that this story arose merely from a panic; and this formidable army turned out no more than a small band of robbers of that nation, who had passed the river in their usual way, part on horseback, while the foot were dragged over, hanging at the horses tails, or riding on goats skins blown up with wind. This small party had surprised some weak villages, killed the inhabitants, and immediately returned across the river. But the alarm continued, and there were people at Gondar who were ready to swear they saw the villages and churches on fire, and a large army of Galla in their march to Ibaba, at the same time that there was not one Galla on the Gojam side of the river.
The king, however, either considering this small body of Galla coming at this unseasonable time, and the panic that was so artificially spread, as a feint to throw him off his guard when a real invasion might be intended, or with a ​view to cover his own designs, summoned all the men of the province of Gojam to meet him in arms at Ibaba the 7th day of January, being the proper season for preparing an expedition into the country of the Galla. He himself in the mean time retired to Dek, an island in the lake Tzana, there to stay till his army should be collected.
While the king was in the island, a number of the malcontents among the monks, who had, in the several assemblies, been banished for sedition with Tebedin, came to him there, desiring to be heard before an assembly; and they brought with them Arca Denghel, of Debra Samayat, to support their petition. The king answered, that he was ready to call an assembly, provided the Abuna desired, or would promise to be present; but that the Abuna was then at Debra Mariam, where they might go and know his mind.
The Abuna, who foresaw little good could be expelled from such meetings, and knew how disagreeable they were to the king, absolutely refused to attend. On this they returned again to the king, desiring that, of his own mere prerogative, he would call their assembly without consulting further the Abuna. To this the king answered boldly, That he knew it was his right to call his subjects together, without any other reason for so doing but his will; yet, when the avowed cause of the meeting was to canvass matters of faith, he had made it a rule to himself, that the Abuna should always be present, or at least consent to the meeting. And with this answer he ordered them all to depart immediately.
​Many of the principal people about the king advised him to put these turbulent people in irons, for daring to come into his presence without leave. But Yasous was contented to remand each to the place of his banishment from whence he came. He then removed from Dek to Ibaba, on the 10th of January, the journey being no more than two easy days; but, whether it was that the Galla did not intend another invasion, or whether they were overawed by the king's preparations and presence, and did not think themselves safe even in their own country, none of them this year passed the Nile, or gave any uneasiness either to Gojam or Damot.
Though the whole nation believed that the king's attention was entirely engaged in the various expeditions against the Galla and Shangalla, which he executed with so much diligence and success, yet there was still a principal object superior to all these, which remained a secret in his own breast, after the parties concerned had absolutely forgot it. All his campaigns against the Shangalla were only designed to lull asleep those he considered as his principal enemies, that he might make the blow he aimed at them more certain and effectual.
Six years had now passed since the Agows, and particularly the most powerful tribe of them, the Zeegam, had, with those of Damot and the Galla, conspired to put the crown upon the head of the rebel prince Isaac, who had lost his life in the engagement which followed on the other side of the Nile. It will be remembered also, that the country of the Agows is in general open, full of rich plains, abundantly watered by variety of fine streams; in other parts, gentle ​risings and descents, but without mountains, saving that, almost in every tribe, Nature had placed one rugged mountain to which these people retired upon the approach of their neighbouring enemies the Galla and Shangalla. This description does, in a more extensive manner, belong to the country of the Zeegam, the most powerful, rich, and trading tribe of the whole nation.
Not one single mountain, but a considerable ridge, divides the country nearly in the middle, the bottom of which, and nearly one-third up, is covered with brush-wood, full of stiff bamboos and canes, bearing prickly fruit, with aloes, acacia very thorny, and of several dwarf shrubby kinds, interspersed with the kantuffa, a beautiful thorn, which alone is considered, where it grows thick and in abundance, as a sufficient impediment for the march of a royal army. Through these are paths known only to the inhabitants themselves, which lead you to the middle of the mountain, where are large caves, probably begun by Nature, and afterwards enlarged by the industry of man. The mouths of these are covered with bushes, canes, and wild oats, that grow so as to conceal both man and horse, while the tops of these mountains are flat and well-watered, and there they sow their grain out of the reach of the enemy. Upon the first alarm they drive the cattle to the top, lodge their wives and children in the caves, and, when the enemy approaches near, they hide the cattle in the caves likewise, some of which cavities are so large as to hold 500 oxen, and all the people to which they belong. The men then go down to ​the lowest part of the mountain, from whose thickets they sally, upon every opportunity that presents itself, to attack the enemy whom they find marauding in the plains.
The king had often assembled his army at Ibaba only four days march from Zeegam. He had done more; he had paired below the country, and returned by the other side of it, in his attack upon Geesa and Wumbarea; but he had never committed any act of hostility, nor shewn himself discontented with them. To deceive them still farther, he ordered now his army to meet him at Este in Begemder; and sent to Kasmati Claudius, governor of Tigre, to join him with all his forces as soon as he should hear he was arrived at Lama, a large plain before we descend the steep mountain of Lamalmon, which stands not far from the banks of the river Tacazze. He privately gave orders also to Kasmati Claudius, Kasmati Dimmo Christos of Tigré, and to Adera and Quaquera Za Menfus Kedus to inform themselves where the water lay below, and whether there was enough for his army in Betcoom, for so they call the territory of the eastern branch of Shangalla adjoining to Sire and Tigré. By this manoeuvre the enemy was deceived, as the most intelligent thought he was to attack Lasta, and the others, that knew the secret of the water were sure his march was against the Shangalla.
The king began his march from Ibaba, and crossed the Nile at the second cataract below Dara, where there is a bridge; and, entering Begemder, he joined his army at Este which was going in a route directly from Agow and Damot towards. Lasta. But no sooner was he arrived at Este than, that very night, he suddenly turned back the way he ​came, and, marching through Maitsha, he crossed the Nile, for the second time, at Gout to, above the first cataract.
The morning of the 3d of May, the sixth day of forced marches, without having encamped the whole way, he entered Zeegam at the head of his army. He found the country in perfect security, both people and cattle below on the plains and in the villages; and having put all to the sword who first offered themselves, and the principal of the conspirators being taken prisoners, he fold their wives and children at a public auction for slaves to the highest bidder. He then took the principal men among them along with him for security for paying six years tribute which they were in arrears, fined them 6000 oxen, which he ordered to be delivered upon the spot; and then collecting his army, he sent to the chiefs of Damot to meet him before he entered their territory, and to bring security with them for the fine he intended to lay upon them, otherwise he would destroy their country with fire and sword; and he advanced the same day to Assoa, south of the sources of the Nile, divided only from Damot by the ridge of mountains of Amid Amid.
The people of Damot, inhabiting an open level country without defence, had no choice but to throw themselves on the king's mercy, who fined them 500 ounces of gold and 100 oxen, and took the principal people with him in irons as hostages.
He then returned, leaving the sources of the Nile on his right, through Dengui, Fagitta, and Aroosi; crossed the river Kelti, having the Agow and Atchesser on his left, and ​turned to Gondar by Dingleber. He then gave 2000 cattle to the churches of Tecla Haimanout and Yasous, being nearest the king's palace, to the Itchegué Hannes, the judges and principal servants of his household, to all a share, without reserving one to himself. And the rains being now very constant, (for it was the 25th of June) he resolved to continue the rest of the winter in Gondar to regulate the affairs of the church.
This year the king resumed his expedition against the Shangalla, towards which he had taken several preparatory steps, while he was projecting the surprise of the Zeegam. These are the Troglodytes on the eastern part of Abyssinia, towards the Red Sea, south of Walkayt, Sire, Tigré, and Baharnagash, till they are there cut off by the mountains of the Habab. These, the most powerful of all their tribes, are comprehended under the general name of Dobenah; the tribe Baasa, which we have already spoken of as occupying the banks of the Tacazzé, are the only partners they have in the peninsula formed by that river and the Mareb, Their country and manner of life have been already abundantly described. It is all called Kolla, in opposition to Daga, which is the general name of the mountainous parts of Abyssinia.
The king, being informed by Kasmati Claudius that there was water in great plenty at Betcoom, marched from Gondar the 29th of October to Deba, thence to Kossoguè, after to Tamama. He then turned to the left to a village called Sidrè, nearer to the Shangalla. From this station he forbade the lighting fires in the camp, and took the road leading to the Mareb; then turning to the left, the 1st of December he surprised a village called Kunya. The king ​was the first who began the attack, and was in great danger, as Mazmur, captain of his guard, was killed by a lance at his side. But the soldiers rushing in upon fight of the king's situation, who had already slain two with his own hand, the village was carried, and the inhabitants put to the sword, refusing all to fly, and fighting obstinately to the last gasp.
From Kunya the king proceeded rapidly to Tzaada Amba, the largest and most powerful settlement of these savages. They have no water but what they get from the river Mareb, which, as I have elsewhere observed, rises above Dobarwa, and, after making the circle of that town, loses itself soon after in the sand for a space, then appears again, and, after a short course, hides itself a second time to the N. E. near the Taka, whose wells it supplies with fresh water. But in the rainy months it runs with a full stream, in a wide and deep bed, and unites itself to the Tacazze, with it making the northmost point of the ancient island of Meroe.
The king met the same success at Tzaada Amba that he had before experienced at Kunya, at which last village he passed the feast of the epiphany and benediction of the waters; a ceremony annually observed both by the Greek and Abyssinian church, the intent of which has been strangely mistaken by foreigners.
​From Kunya, his head-quarters, Yasous attacked the several nations of which this is, as it were, the capital, Zacoba, Fadè, Qualquou, and Sahale, and he returned again to Tzaada Amba, resolving to complete their destruction. The remains of these miserable people, finding resistance vain, had hid themselves in inaccessible caves in the mountains; and the thickest parts of the woods, where they lay perfectly concealed in the day-time, and only stole out when thirst obliged them at night. The king, who knew this, and that they had no other water but what they brought from the Mareb, formed a strong line of troops along the banks of that river, till the greatest part of the Shangalla of Tzaada Amba died with thirst, or were taken or slain by the army.
His next enterprize was to attempt Betcoom, a large habitation of Shangalla east of the Mareb, whose number; strength, and reputation for courage, had hitherto prevented the Abyssinians from molesting them, never having touched, unless the farthest skirts of their country. The names of their tribes inhabiting Betcoom are, Baigada, Dadé, Kerfè, Kicklada, Moleraga, Megaerbé, Gana, Selé, Hamta, Shalada, Elmsi, and Lentè. The small river of Lidda falling from a high precipice, when swelled with the winter rains, hollows out deep and large reservoirs below, which it leaves full of water when the rains cease, so that these people are here as well supplied with water as those that dwell on the large rivers the Mireb and Tacazzè. This was a circumstance unknown, till this sagacious and provident king ordered the place to be reconnoitred by Kasmati Claudius, then marched and encamped on the river ​Lidda, which, after a short but violent course, falls into the Mareb.
The Shangalla of Betcoom did nothing worthy of their reputation or numbers. They had already procured intelligence of the fate of great part of their nation, and had dispersed themselves in unknown and desolate places. The king, however, made a considerable number of slaves of the younger sort, and killed as many of the rest as fell into his hands.
Leaving Betcoom, the army proceeded still eastward; passed through the mountains of the Habab, into the low level country which runs parallel to the Red Sea, at the base of these mountains, where he spent several days hunting the elephant, some of which he flew with his own hand, and turned then to the left to Amba Tchou and Taka.
The Taka are a nation of Shepherds living near the extremity of the rains. They are not Arabs, but live in villages, and were part formerly of the Bagla, or Habab; they speak the language of Tigré, and are now reputed part of the kingdom of Sennaar.
While the king was at Taka, he received the disagreeable news, that, after he had left the Shangalla on the Mareb, Mustapha Gibberti, a Mahometan soldier in the service of Kasmati Fafa Christos of Dedgin, had, with a small number of men, ventured down, thinking that he should ​surprise the Shangalla of Tzaada Amba, before they recovered from their late misfortune. Thi, Mustapha had slain two or three Shangalla with fire-arms; and at first they stood aloof as fearing the king. But finding soon that it was no part of his army, and only a small body of adventurers, the Shangalla now collected in numbers, surrounded Mustapha and his party, whom they cut off to a man; and, pursuing their advantage, they entered and took Dedgin, wounded Kasmati Fafa Christos, and put the inhabitants of the town to the sword.
News of this misfortune were carried speedily to Kasmati Claudius, governor of Tigré: Cassem, a Mahometan, led the Gibbertis, the people of that religion in the province; and, as he was an advanced party, came speedily to blows with the Shangalla, and was closely engaged, with great appearance of success, when Claudius came up with an army that would soon have put an end to the contest. But no sooner was his army engaged with the Shangalla, than a panic seized him, and he founded a retreat; which, in an instant, became a most shameful flight. Cassem and his gibbertis fell, fighting to the last man in the middle of their enemies. The Shangalla followed their advantage, and great part of the Abyssinian army perished in the flight; Claudius, tho' he escaped, left his standard, kettle-drums, and his whole province in possession of the enemy.
The king, upon hearing this, returned hastily into Siré; and his presence established order and tranquillity in that province, already half abandoned for fear of the Shangalla, From Sirè the king proceeded to Axum, where he celebrated ​his victories over the Shangalla, by several days of feasting and thanksgiving.
In the midst of this rejoicing, news were brought that Murat, a servant of the king, whom he had dispatched to India with merchandise, to bring such commissions as he flood in need of, was arrived at Masuah, where Musa the Naybe, or Turkish governor of the island, had detained him, and seized his goods, under some vexatious pretences. There is not indeed a more merciless, thievish set of miscreants, than in that government of Masuah. But the king knew too well the few resources that island had, to be long in applying a remedy, without moving from Axum; after being fully informed of the affair, in all its circumstances, by Murat, he sent to Abba Saluce, Guebra Christos, and Zarabrook of Hamazen, the governors of the districts, that as it were surround Masuah, prohibiting all, upon pain of death, to suffer any provisions to be carried by any person whatever into the island of Masuah.
A severe famine instantly followed, which was to terminate in certain death, before any relief could come to them, unless from Abyssinia. The Naybe Musa, therefore, found into what a terrible scrape he had got; but hunger did not leave him a moment to deliberate. No third way remained, but either he must fee the king, or die; and without hesitation he chose the former. He, therefore, set out for Axum, bringing with him Murat and all the merchandises he had seized, as also several very considerable presents for Yasous himself, who accepted them, received his submission, and ordered the communication with Abyssinia to be open ​as before. This done, he dismissed the Naybe, who returned to Masuah in peace.
The next affair that came before the king was that of Kasmati Claudius, (governor of Tigre) who was accused and found guilty of having fled while the battle with the Shangalla was yet undecided, leaving his standard and kettle-drums in the power of the enemy. Besides his present misbehaviour, strong prejudice existed against him, drawn from his former character; for it was averred, from very credible authority, that on one occasion, upon a very slender appearance of sedition, he ordered his troops to fire upon several priests of Axum, some of whom were killed on the spot. Besides which, in the reign of Hatze Hannes, he was found guilty of capital crimes committed at Emfras, condemned to die, and was already hanging upon the tree, when a very seasonable reprieve arrived from the king, and he was thereupon cut down whilst yet alive. Yasous contented himself with depriving him of his employment, and afterwards sending him to perpetual banishment.
The next brought to their trial were Za Woldo, and Adera and his sons. These last were very near relations to the king, for they were sons of Ozoro Keduset Christos, daughter of Facilidas. They were accused of having deserted their country and left it waste to be over-run by wild beasts, and a rendezvous for the Shangalla, who thence extended their incursions as far as Waldubba. Of this there was ample proof against them, and they were therefore sentenced to die, but the king commuted their punishment ​to that of being imprisoned for life in a cave in the island of Dek.
As for the province of Sire itself, he declared all the inhabitants and nobility, degraded from their rank, and all lands, whether feus from the king, or held by any other tenure, were confiscated, resumed by, and re-united to the crown. He then reduced the whole province from a royal government to a private one, and annexed it to the province of Tigrè, whose governor was to place over it a shum, or petty officer, without any ensigns of power. And last of all, he gave the government of Tigrè to the Ras Feres, or master of the horse, in room of Kasmati Claudius degraded and banished.
The many striking examples which the king had lately given, one close upon the other, of his own personal bravery, his impartial justice, his secrecy in his expeditions, and the certain vengeance that followed where it was deserved, his punishment of the Zeegam, his expedition against the Shangalla, his affair with the Naybe Musa, and his behaviour to the cowardly Claudius and dastardly nobility of Sire, fully convinced his subjects of all degrees, that neither family, nor being related to the crown, nor the strength of their country, nor length of time since they offended, nor indeed any thing but a return to and continuance in their duty, could give them security under such a prince. Thus ended the campaign of the Dobenah, spoke of to this day in Abyssinia as the greatest warlike achievement of any of their kings. Twenty-six thousand men are said to have perished by thirst when the king took possession of the water at Tzaada Amba. And yet, notwithstanding the small-pox ​which, in some places, exterminated whole tribes, the Dobenah have not loft an inch of territory, but seem rather to be gaining upon Sirè.
Yasous arrived at Dancaz on the 8th of March 1592, having dismissed his army as he passed Gondar. From Dancaz he went to Lasta, and after a short stay there, came to Arringo in Begemder. At this place the king received accounts that far exceeded his expectations, and gratified his warmest wishes. He had long endeavoured to gain a party among the Galla to divide them; and, though no marks of success had yet followed, he still had continued to use his endeavours.
On his arrival at Arringo, he was met by a chief of the southern Galla, called Kal-kend, who brought him advice that, while he was busy with the Shangalla, an irruption had been made into Amhara by the Galla tribes of Liban and Toluma; that they, the king's friends, had come up with them at Halka, fought with them, and beat them, and freed Amhara entirely from all apprehension. The king, exceedingly rejoiced to see his most inveterate enemies become the defenders of his country, ordered the governor of Amhara to pay the Kal-kend 500 webs of cotton-cloth, 500 loads of corn, and escort both the men and the present till they were safely delivered in their own country.
The 30th of June the king arrived at Gondar from Arringo, and immediately summoned an assembly of the clergy to meet and receive a letter from the patriarch of Alexandria, brought by Abba Masmur of Agde, and Abba Dioscuros of Maguena, who were formerly sent to Egypt to ​ask the patriarch why he displaced Abuna Christodulus, and appointed Abba Sanuda in his room, and desiring that Abba Marcus should be made Abuna, and Sanuda deposed. The clergy met very punctually, and the patriarch's letter was produced in the assembly, the seal examined, and declared to be the patriarch's, and unbroken. The letter being opened by the king's order, it contained the patriarch's mandate to depose Abba Sanuda, and to put Marcus Abuna in his place, which was immediately done by command of the king.
While Yasous was thus busied in directing the affairs of his kingdom with great wisdom and success, both in church and state, a matter was in agitation, unknown to him, at a distance from his dominions, which had a tendency to throw them again into confusion.
Towards the end of the last century, there was settled at Cairo a number of Italian missionaries of the reformed Order of St Francis, who, though they lived in the same convent, and were maintained at the expence of the fathers of the Holy Land, yet did they still pretend to be independent of the guardian of Jerusalem, the superior of these latter.
The expence of their maintenance, joined with their pretensions to independence, gave great offence to those religious of the Holy Land, who thereupon carried their complaints to Rome, offering to be at the whole charge of the mission of Egypt, and to furnish from their own society subjects capable of attending to, and extending the Christian faith. This offer met with the desired success at Rome. The mission of Egypt, to the exclusion of every ​other Order, was given to the fathers of Jerusalem, or the Holy Land, whom we shall henceforth call Capuchin friars. These capuchins lost no time, but immediately dismissed the reformed Franciscans, whom we shall hereafter distinguish by the name of Franciscans, suffering only two of that Order to remain at Cairo.
The Franciscans, thus banished, returned all to Rome, and there, for several years together, openly defended their own cause, insisting upon the justice of their being replaced in the exercise of their ancient functions. This, however, they found absolutely impossible. They were a poor Order, and the interest of the capuchins had stopped every avenue of the sacred college against them. Finding, therefore, that fair and direct means could not accomplish their ends, they had recourse to others not so commendable, and by these they succeeded, and obtained their purpose. They pretended that, when the Jesuits were chased out of Abyssinia, a great number of Catholics, avoiding the persecution, had fled into the neighbouring countries of Sennaar and Nubia; that they still remained, most meritoriously preserving their faith amidst the very great hardships inflicted upon them by the infidels; but that, under these hardships, they must soon turn Mahometans, unless spiritual assistance was speedily sent them.
This representation, as totally void of truth as ever fable was, was confirmed by the two Franciscans, who still remained at Cairo by permission of the capuchins, or fathers of the Holy Land; and, when afterwards published at Rome, it excited the zeal of every bigot in Italy. All interested. themselves in behalf of these imaginary Christians of ​Nubia; and pope Innocent XII. was so convinced of the truth of the story, as to establish a considerable fund to support the expence of this, now called the Ethiopic mission, the sole conduct of which remains still with the reformed Franciscans.
To take care of these fugitive Christians of Nubia, though it was the principal, yet it was not the only charge committed to the fathers of his mission. They were to penetrate into Abyssinia, and keep the seeds of the Romish faith alive there until a proper time should present itself for converting the whole kingdom.
In order to this, a large convent was bought for them at Achmim, the ancient Panopolis in Upper Egypt, that here they might be able to afford a refreshment to such of their brethren as should return weary and exhausted by their preaching among the Nubian confessors; and, for further assistance, they had permission to settle two of their Order at Cairo, independent of the fathers of the Holy Land, notwithstanding the former exclusion.
Such is the state of this mission at the present time. No Nubian Christians ever existed at the time of their establishment, nor is there one in being at this day. But if their proselytes have not increased, their convents have. Achmim, Furshout, Badjoura, and Negade are all religious houses belonging to this mission, although I never yet was able to learn, that either Heretic, or Pagan, or Mahometan, was so converted as to die in the Christian faith at any one of these places; nor have they been much troubled with relieving their brethren, worn out with the toils of ​Abyssinian journies, none of them, as far as I know, having ever made one step towards that country; nor is this indeed to be regretted by the republic of letters, because, besides a poor stock of scholastic divinity, not one of them that I saw had either learning or abilities to be of the smallest use either in religion or discovery.
It was now the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis XIV. almost an Augustan age, and generally allowed so, both in France and among foreigners. Men of merit, of all countries and professions, felt the effects of the liberality of this great encourager of learning; public works were undertaken, and executed superior to the boasted ones of Greece or Rome, and a great number and variety of noble events constituted a magnificent history of his reign, in a series of medals. Religion alone had yet afforded no hint for these. His conduct in this matter, instead of that of a hero, shewed him to be a blind, bloody, merciless tyrant, madly throwing down in a moment, with one hand, what he had, with the assistance of great ministers, been an age in building with the other. The Jesuits, zealous for the honour of the king, their great protector, thought this a time to step in and wipe away the stain. With this view they set upon forwarding a scheme which might have furnished a medal superior to all the rest, had its inscription been, "The Kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts."
Father Fleuriau, a friend of father de la Chaife, the king's confessor, was employed to direct the consul of Cairo, that he should, in co-operation with the Jesuits privately send a fit person into Abyssinia, who might inspire the king of that country with a desire of sending an embassy into ​France, and, upon the management of this political affair, they founded their hopes of getting themselves replaced in the mission they formerly enjoyed, and of again superseding their rivals the Franciscans, in directing all the measures to be taken for that country's conversion. But this required the utmost delicacy, for it was well known, that the court of Rome was very much indisposed towards them, imputing to their haughtiness, implacability, and imprudence, the loss of Abyssinia. Their conduct in China, where they tolerated idolatrous rites to be blended with Christian worship, began also now to be known, and to give the greatest scandal to the whole church. It was, therefore, necessary to make the king declare first in their favour before they began to attempt to conciliate the pope.
Louis took upon him the protection of this mission with all the readiness the Jesuits desired; and the Jesuit Verseau was sent immediately to Rome, with strong letters to cardinal Jansen, protector of France, who introduced him to the pope.
Verseau knew well the consequence of the protection with which he was honoured. At his first audience he declared, in a very firm voice and manner, to the pope, that the king had resolved to take upon himself the conduct of the Ethiopic mission, and that he had cast his eyes upon them (the Jesuits) as the fittest persons to be entrusted with the care of it, for reasons best known to himself. The pope dissembled; he extolled, in the most magnificent terms, the king's great zeal for the advancement of religion, approved of the choice he had made of the Jesuits, and praised their resolution as highly acceptable to him, ​immediately consenting that Verseau, and five other Jesuits, should without delay pass into Abyssinia.
But it very soon appeared, that, however this might be the language of the pope, nothing could be more remote from his intentions; for, without the knowledge of the Jesuits, or any way consulting them, he appointed the superior of the Franciscans to be his legate a latere to the king of Abyssinia, and provided him with presents to that prince, and the chief noblemen of his court.
Some time afterwards, when, to prevent strife or concurrence, the Jesuits applied to the pope to receive his directions which of the two should first attempt to enter Abyssinia, the Franciscans, or their own Order, the pope answered shortly, That it should be those who were most expert. Whether this apparent indisposition of his Holiness intimidated Verseau is not known; but, instead of going to Cairo, he went to Constantinople, thence to Syria, to a convent of his Order of which he was superior, and there he staid. So that the Ethiopic mission at Cairo remained in the hands of two persons of different Orders, the one Paschal, an Italian Franciscan friar, the other a Jesuit and Frenchman, whose name was Brevedent.
Brevedent was a person of the most distinguished piety and probity, zealous in promoting his religion, but neither imprudent nor rash in his demonstrations of it; affable in his carriage, chearful in his disposition, of the most profound humility and exemplary patience. Besides this, he was reputed a man of good taste and knowledge in profane learning, and, what crowned all, an excellent ​mathematician. He seems indeed to me to have been a copy of the famous Peter Paez, who first gave an appearance of feasibility to the Portuguese conversion of Abyssinia; like him he was a Jesuit, but of a better nation, and born in a better age.
I must here likewise take notice of what I have already hinted, that in Abyssinia the character of ambassador is not known. They have no treaties of peace or commerce with any nation in the world: But, for purposes already mentioned, factors are employed; and, Abyssinia being everywhere surrounded by Mahometans, these of course have the preference; and, as they carry letters from their masters, the custom of the East obliges them to accompany these with presents to the sovereigns of the respective kingdoms through which they pass, and this circumstance dignifies them with the title of ambassador in the several courts at which they have business. Such was Musa, a factor of the king, whom we have seen detained, and afterwards delivered by the Naybe of Masuah, not many years before, in this king's reign; and such also was Hagi Ali, then upon his master's business at Cairo, when M. de Maillet was consul there, and had received his instructions from father Fleuriau at Paris, to bring about this embassy from Abyssinia.
Besides his other business, Hagi Ali had orders to bring with him a physician, if possible, from Cairo; for Yasous and his eldest son were both of a scorbutic habit, which threatened to turn into a leprosy. Hagi Ali, in former voyages, had been acquainted with a capuchin friar Paschal; and, having received medicines from him before, lie now applied to Paschal to return with him into Abyssinia, ​and undertake the cure of the king. Paschal very readily complied with this, upon condition that he should be allowed to take for his companion a monk of his own Order, friar Anthony; to which Hagi Ali readily consented, happy in being enabled to carry two physicians to his master instead of one.
The French consul was soon informed of this treaty with the friar Paschal; and, having very easy means to bring Hagi Ali to his house, he informed him, that neither Paschal nor Anthony were physicians, but that he himself had a man of his own nation, whose merit he extolled beyond any thing that had hitherto been said of Hippocrates or Galen. Hagi Ali very willingly accepted of the condition, and it was agreed that, as Verfeau had not appeared, Brevedent above mentioned should attend the physician as his servant.
This physician was Charles Poncet, a Frenchman, settled in Cairo, who was (as Mr Maillet says) bred a chymist and apothecary, and, if so, was necessarily better skilled in the effects and nature of medicine than those are who call themselves physicians, and practise in the east. Nothing against his private character was intimated by the consul at this time; and, with all deference to better judgment, I must still think, that if Poncet did deserve the epithets of drunkard, liar, babbler, and thief, which Maillet abundantly bestows upon him towards the end of this adventure, the consul could not have chosen a more improper person as the representative of his master, nor a more probable one to make the design he had in hand miscarry; nor could he, in this case, ever vindicate the preventing Paschal's journey, who must have been much fitter for all the ​employments intended than such a man as Poncet was, if one half is true of that which the consul said of him afterwards.
Maillet, having so far succeeded, prevailed upon one Ibrahim Hanna, a Syrian, to write five letters, according to his own ideas, in the Arabic language, one of which was to- the king, the four others to the principal officers at the court of Abyssinia: doubting, however, whether Ibrahim's expressions were equal to the sublimity of his sentiments, he directed him to submit the letters to the consideration of one Francis, a monk, capuchin, or friar of the Holy Land. Ibrahim knew not this capuchin; but he was intimate with another Francis of the reformed Franciscan Order, and to him by mistake he carried the letters.
These Franciscans were the very men from whom Mr de Maillet would have wished to conceal the sending Poncet with the Jesuit Brevedent; but the secret being now revealed, Ibrahim Hanna was discharged the French service for this mistake; and Hagi Ali departing immediately after with Poncet and Brevedent, no time remained for the Franciscans to take the steps they afterwards did to bring about the tragedy in the person of Poncet, which they completely effected in that of Mr Noir du Roule.
Mr Poncet, furnished with a chest of medicines at the expence of the factory, accompanied by father Brevedent, who, in quality of his servant, now took the name of Joseph, joined Hagi Ali, and the caravan destined in the first place, so Sennaar the capital of Nubia.
​Poncet set out from Cairo on the 10th of June of the year 1698, and, fifteen days after, they came to Monsalout, a considerable town upon the banks of the Nile, the rendezvous of the caravan being at Ibnah, half a league above Monsalout. Here they tarried for above three months, waiting the coming of the merchants from the neighbouring towns.
In the afternoon of the 24th of September, they advanced above a league and a half distance, and took up their lodging at Elcantara, or the bridge, on the eastern bank of the Nile. A large calish, or cut, from the Nile stretches here to the east, and, at that season, was full of water, the inundation being at its height,
Poncet believes he was on the eastern banks of the Nile; but this is a mistake. Siout and Monsalout, the cities he speaks of, are both on the western banks of that river; nor had the caravan anything to do with the eastern banks, when their course was for many days to the west, and to the southward of west. Nor was the bridge he passed a bridge over the Nile. There are no bridges upon that river from the Mediterranean till we arrive at the second cataract near the lake Tzana in Abyssinia. The amphitheatre and ruins he speaks of are the remains of the ancient city Ifiu; and what he took for the Nile was a calish from the river to supply that city with water.
The 2d of October the caravan set out in earnest, and passed, as he fays, into a frightful desert of sand, having first gone, through a narrow passage, which he does not ​mention, amidst those barren, bare, and stony mountains which border the valley of Egypt on the west.
The 6th of October they came to El-Vah, a large village, or town, thick-planted with palm-trees, the Oasis Parva of the ancients, the last inhabited place to the west that is under the jurisdiction of Egypt. By softening the original name, Poncet calls this Helaoue, which, as he says, signifies sweetness. But surely this was never given it from the productions he mentions to abound there, viz. senna and coloquintida. The Arabs call El-Vah a shrub or tree, not unlike our hawthorn either in form or flower. It was of this wood, they say, Moses's rod was made when, he sweetened the waters of Marah. With a rod of this wood, too, Kaleb Ibn el Waalid, the great destroyer of Christians, sweetened these waters at El-Vah, once very bitter, and gave it the name from this miracle. A number of very fine springs burst from the earth at El-Vah, which renders this small spot verdant and beautiful, though surrounded with dreary deserts on every quarter; it is situated like an island in the midst of the ocean.
The caravan rested four days at El-Vah to procure water and provisions for the continuation of the journey thro' the desert. Poncet's description of the unpleasantness of this, is perfectly exact, and without exaggeration. In two days they came to Cheb, where there is water, but strongly impregnated with alum, as the name itself signifies; and, three days after, they reached Selima, where they found the water good, rising from an excellent spring, which gives its name to a large desert extending westward forty-five days journey to Dar Fowr, Dar Sele, and Bagirma, three small ​principalities of Negroes that live within the reach of the tropical rains.
At Sehma they provided water for five days; and, on the 26th of October, having turned their course a little to the eastward, came to Moscho, or Machou, a large village on the western banks of the Nile, which Poncet still mistakes for the eastern, and which is the only inhabited place since the leaving El-Vah, and the frontiers of the kingdom of Dongola, dependent upon that of Sennaar, The Nile here takes the farthest turn to the westward, and is rightly delineated in the French maps.
Poncet very rightly says, this is the beginning of the country of the Barabra, or Berberians, (I suppose it is a mistake of the printer when called in the narrative Barauras). The true signification of the term is the land of the Shepherds, a name more common and better known in the first dynasties of Egypt than in more modern histories. The Erbab (or governor) of this province received him hospitably, and kindly invited him to Argos, his place of residence, on the eastern or opposite side of the Nile, and entertained him there, upon hearing from Poncet that he was sent for by the king of Abyssinia.
After refreshing themselves eight days at Moscho, they left it on the 4th of November 1698, and arrived at Dongola on the 13th of the same month. The country which he passed along the Nile is very pleasant, and is described by him very properly. It does not owe its fertility to the overflowing of the Nile, the banks of that river being considerably too high. It is watered, however, by the ​industry of the inhabitants, who, by different machines, raise water from the stream.
We are not to attribute to Poncet, but to those who published, the story here put into father Brevedent's mouth about the fugitive Christians in Nubia, which fable gave rise to the first institution of the Ethiopic mission. "It drew tears, says he, from the eyes of father Brevedent, my dear companion, when he reflected that it was not long since this was a Christian country; and that it had not lost the faith but only for want of some person who had zeal enough to consecrate himself to the instruction of this abandoned nation." He adds, that upon their way they found a great number of hermitages and churches half ruined; a fiction derived from the same source.
Dongola was taken, and apostatized early, and the stones of hermitages and churches had long before this been carried off, and applied to the building of mosques. Father Brevedent, therefore, if he wept for any society of Christians at Dongola, must have wept for those that had perished there 500 years before.
Poncet was much caressed at Dongola for the cures he made there. The Mek, or king, of that city wished him. much to stay and fettle there; but desisted out of respect, when he heard he was going to the emperor of Ethiopia. Dongola, Poncet has placed rightly on the eastern bank of the Nile, about lat. 20° 22'.
The caravan departed from Dongola on the 6th of January 1699; four days after which they entered into the kingdom ​of Sennaar, where they met Erbab Ibrahim, brother of the prime minister, and were received civilly by him. He defrayed their expences also as far as Korti, where they arrived the 13th of January.
Our travellers from Korti were obliged to enter the great desert of Bahiouda, and cross it in a S. E. direction till they came to Derreira, where they rested two days, which, Poncet says, was done to avoid the Arabs upon the Nile. These Arabs are called Chaigie; they inhabit the banks of that river to the N. E. of Korti, and never pay the king his revenue without being compelled and very ill-treated.
The country about Derreira is called Belled Ullah, from the cause of its plenty rather than the plenty itself. This small district is upon the very edge of the tropical rains, which it enjoys in part; and, by that, is more fruitful than those countries which are watered only by the industry of man. The Arabs of these deserts figuratively call rain Rahamet Ullah, 'the mercy of God', and Belled Ullah, 'the country which enjoys that mercy.'
Some days after the caravan came to Gerri. Poncet says, the use of this station was to examine caravans coming from the northward, whether they had the small-pox or not. This usage is now discontinued by the decay of trade. It must always have served little purpose, as the infection oftener comes in merchandise than by passengers. At Gerri great respect was shewn to Poncet, as going to Ethiopia.
I cannot conceive why Poncet says, that, to avoid the ​great windings of the Nile, he should have been obliged to travel to the north-east. This would have plainly carried him back to the desert of Bahiouda, and the Arabs: his course must have been S. W. to avoid the windings of the Nile, because he came to Herbagi, which he describes very properly as a delicious situation. The next day they came to Sennaar.
The reader, I hope,will easily perceive that my intention is not to criticise Mr Poncet's journey. That has been done already so illiberally and unjustly that it has nearly brought it into disrepute and oblivion. My intention is to illustrate it; to examine the facts, the places, and distances it contains; to correct the mistakes where it has any, and restore it to the place it ought to hold in geography and discovery. It was the first intelligible itinerary made through these deserts; and I conceive it will be long before we have another; at any rate, to restore and establish the old one will, in all sensible minds, be the next thing to having made a second experiment.
He surely is in some degree of mistake about the situation of Sennaar when he fays it is upon an eminence. It is on a plain close on the western banks of the Nile. A small error, too, has been made about its latitude. By an observation said to have been made by father Brevedent, the 21st of March 1699, he found the latitude of Sennaar to be 13° 4' north. The French maps, the most correct we have in all that regards the east, place this capital of Nubia in lat. 15° and a few minutes. But the public may rest assured, that the correct latitude of Sennaar, by a mean of very small ​ences of near fifty observations, made with a three-feet brass quadrant, in the course of several months I staid in that town, is lat 13° 34' 36" north.
What I have to say further concerning Sennaar will come more naturally in my own travels; and I shall only so far confider the rest of Poncet's route, as to explain and clear it from mistakes, Sennaar being the only point in which our two trails unite.
I shall beg the reader to remark, that, from the time of Poncet's setting out of Egypt till his arrival at Sennaar, so far was he from being ill looked upon, or any bad construction being put upon his errand, that he was, on the contrary, respected everywhere, as going to the king of Abyssinia. It never was then imagined he was to dry up the Nile, nor that he was a conjurer to change its course, nor that he was to teach the Abyssinians to cast cannon and make war, nor that he was loaded with immense sums of money. These were all pier fraudes lies invented by the priests and friars to incite these ignorant barbarians to a crime which, though it passed unrevenged, will justly make these brethren in iniquity the devestation of men of every religion in all ages.
Poncet left Sennaar the 12th of May 1699, and crossed the Nile at Basboch, about four miles above the town, where he stopped for three days. This he calls a fair village; but it is a very miserable one, confiding of scarce 100 huts, built of mud and reeds.
​He departed the 15th in the evening, and travelled all the night as far as Bacras, and arrived the day after at Abec; then at Baha, a long day's journey of about ten hours. He is mistaken, however, when he fays Baha is situated upon the banks of the Nile, for it is upon a small river that runs into it. Bin, at the season he passed it, most of thofe rivers were dried up.
On the 19th he came to Dodar, a place as inconsiderable as Baha; then to Abra, a large village; then to Debarke and Enbulbul. On the 25th they came to Giesim. Giesim is a large village situated upon the banks of the Nile, in the middle of a forest of trees of a prodigious height and size, all of which are loaded with fruit or flowers, and crowded with paroquets, and variety of other birds, of a thousand different colours. They made a long flay at this place, not less than nineteen days.
In this interval, father Brevedent is said to have made an observation of the latitude of the place, which, if admitted, would throw all the geography of this journey into confusion. Poncet says, that Giesim is half-way between Sennaar and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and that a small brook, a little beyond Serké, is the boundary between those states. Now, from Sennaar to Giesim are nine stages, and one of them we may call a double one, but between Giesim and Serké, only four; Giesim then cannot be half way between Sennaar and Serkè.— Again, the latitude of Sennaar is 13° 4' north, according to Brevedent, or rather 13° 34'. Now, if the latitude of Giesim be 10", then the distance between Sennaar and it must be about 250 miles which they
​had travelled in eight days, or more than thirty miles a-day, which, in that country, is absolutely impossible.
But what must make this evident is, that we know certainly that Gondar, the metropolis to which they were then going, is in lat. 12° 34' north. Giesim then would be south of Gondar, and the caravan must have passed it when the observation was made. But they were not yet arrived at the confines of Sennaar, much less to the capital of Abyssinia, to which they were indeed advancing, but were still far to the northward of it. There is a mistake then in this observation which is very pardonable, Brevedent being then ill of a mortal dysentery, which terminated in death soon after. We shall, therefore, correct this error, making the latitude of Giesim 14° 12' north, about 110 English miles from Sennaar, and 203 from Gondar.
The 11th of June they set out from Giesim for Deleb, then to Chow, and next to Abotkna. They rested all night, the 14th, in the delightful valley of Sonnone, and, two days after, they came to Serkè, a large town of trade, where there are many cotton weavers. Here ends the kingdom of Sennaar, the brook without this town being the boundary of the two states.
Arrived now in Abyssinia, they halted at Tambisso, a village which belongs to the Abuna; next at Abiad, a village upon the mountain. On the 23d they flopped in a valley full of canes and ebony-trees, where a lion carried away one of their camels. On the 24th they passed the Gandova, a large, violent, and dangerous river. The country being prodigiously woody, one of their beasts of carriage, ​straggling from the caravan, was bit on the hip by a bear, as Mr Poncet apprehends. But we are now in the country corresponding to that inhabited by the Shangalla, that is one of the hottest in the world, where the thermometer rises to 100° in the shade. Bears are not found in climates like this; and most assuredly there are none even in the higher and colder mountains above. Poncet does not say he saw the bear, but judged only by the bite, which might have been that of a lion, leopard, or many other animals, but more probably that of the hyaena.
The 27th they arrived at Girana, a village on the top of a mountain. Here they left their camels, and began to ascend from the Kolla into the more temperate climate in the mountains of Abyssinia. From Girana they came to Barangoa, and the next day to Tchelga, where anciently was the customhouse of Sennaar while peace and commerce subsisted between the two kingdoms. The 3d of July they arrived at Barcos, or Bartcho, about half a day's journey from Gondar; and on the 9th of August father Brevedent died. Poncet was himself detained by indisposition at this village of Barcos till the 21st of July, on which day he set out for Gondar and arrived in the evening, where he succeeded to his wishes, performing a complete cure upon his royal patient in a very short time; and so fulfilled this part of his mission as perfectly as the ablest physician could have done.
As for the other part with which he was charged, I doubt very much if it was in his power to perform it in another manner than he did. It required a mind full of ignorance and presumption, such as was that of Mr de Maillet and all ​the missionaries at the head of whom he was, to believe that it was possible for a private man, such as Poncet, without language, without funds, without presents, or without power or possibility of giving them any sort of protection in the way, to prevail upon 26 or 28 persons, on the word of an adventurer only, to attempt the traversing countries where they ran a very great risk of falling into slavery — to do what? why, to go to France, a nation of Franks whose very name they abhorred, that they might be instrusted in a religion they equally abhorred, to meet with certain death if ever they returned to their own country; and, unless they did return, they were of no sort of utility whatever.
M. de Maillet should have informed himself well in the beginning, if it was possible that the nobility in Abyssinia could be so contemptible as to suffer twelve of their children to go to countries unknown, upon the word of a stranger, at least of such a doubtful character as Poncet. I say doubtful, because, if he was such a man as M. de Maillet represents him, a drunkard, a liar, a thief, a man without religion, a perpetual talker, and a superficial practitioner of what he called his own trade, surely the Abyssinians must have been very fond of emigration, to have left their homes under the care of such a patron as this. When did M. de Maillet ever hear of an Abyssinian who was willing to leave his own country and travel to Cairo, unless the very few priests who go for duty's sake, for penances or vows, to Jerusalem? When did he ever hear of an Abyssinian layman, noble, or plebeian, attending even the Abuna though the first dignitary of the church? We shall see presently a poor slave, a Christian Abyssinian boy, immediately under the protection of M. de Maillet, and going directly from him into the ​pretence of his king, taken forcibly from the chancellor of the nation, and made a Mahometan before their eyes.
The Abyssinian embassy then demanded from France, and recommended to M. de Maillet, was a presumptuous, vain, impracticable chimera, which must have ended in disappointment, and which never could have closed more innocently than it did.
I shall pass over all that happened during Poncet's stay at Gondar, as he did not understand the language, and must therefore have been very liable to mistake. But as for what he says of armies of 300,000 men; of the king's dress at his audience; of his mourning in purple; of the quantity of jewels he had, and wore; of his having but one wife; and of large stone-crosses being erected on the corners of the palace at Gondar; these, and several other things, seem to me to have been superadded afterwards. Nor do I think what is said of the churches and Christians remaining in the kingdom of Dongola, nor the monstrous lie about the golden rod suspended in the air in the convent of Bifan is at all the narrative of Poncet, but of some fanatic, lying friar, into whose possession Poncet's manuscript might have fallen. The journey itself, such as I have restored it, is certainly genuine; and, as I believe it describes the best and safest way into Abyssinia, I have rectified some of the few errors it had, and now recommend it to all future travellers, and to the public.
​This is to be understood of his travels to Abyssinia, his journey in returning being much more inaccurate and incomplete, the reason of which we have in his own words: "I have not, says he, exactly noted down the places through which we passed, the great weakness I then lay under not permitting me to write as I could have wished." I shall, therefore, say little upon his return, as the deficiency will be carefully supplied by the history of my own journey from Masuah, the road by which he left the country being very nearly the same as that by which I entered.
It was on the 2d of May of the year 1700 that Poncet left Gondar and took his journey to the town of Emfras. Here there is a mistake in the very beginning. Emfras, at which place I staid for several weeks, is in lat. 12° 12' 38", and long. 37° 38' 30", consequently about 22 miles from Gondar, almost under the same meridian, or south from it; so that, as he was going to the east, and northward of east, this must have been so many miles out of his way; for, going towards Masuah, his first station must have been upon the river Angrab.
The same may be said of his next to Coga. It was a royal residence indeed, but very much out of his way. He has forgot likewise, when he says, that, in the way from Gondar to Emfras, you must go over a very high mountain. The way from Gondar to Emfras is the beaten way to Begemder, Foggora, and Dara, and so on to the second cataract of the Nile. It is on that plain the armies were encamped ​before the battle of Serbraxos, whence the road passes by Correva, which is indeed upon a rising ground, sloping gently to the lake Tzana, but is not either mountain or hill.
Seven or eight days are a space of time just enough for the passing through Woggora, where he justly remarks the heats are not so excessive as in the places he came from. He takes no notice of the passage of Lamalmon, which ought to have been very sensible to a man in a decayed state of health, the less so as he was only descending it. Every thing which relates to the passage of the Tacazzé is just and proper, only he calls the river itself the Tekesel, instead of the true name, the Tacazzé. It was the Siris of the ancients; and it is doing justice to both countries, when he compares the province of Siré with the most delicious parts of his own country of France. This province is that also where he might very probably receive the young elephant, which he says awaited him there as a present to the king of France, and which died a few days after.
He passed afterwards to Adowa. It is the capital of Tigré, is still the seat of its governor, and was that of Ras Michael in my time. All that he says of the intermediate Country and its productions, shew plainly that his work is genuine, and his remarks to be those of an eye-witness.
From this province of Tigré he enters the country of the Baharnagash, and arrives at Dobarwa, which he ​erroneously calls Duvarna, and says it is the capital of the province of Tigrè, whereas it is that of the Baharnagash. Isaac Baharnagash, when in rebellion against his sovereign, surrendered this town to the Turks in the year 1558, as may be seen at large in my history of the transactions of those times.
As the authenticity of this journey, and the reality of Poncet's having been in Abyssinia, has been questioned by a set of vain, ignorant, fanatic people, and that from malice only, not from spirit of investigation, of which they were incapable, I have examined every part of it, and compared it with what I myself saw, and shall now give one other instance to prove it genuine, from an observation Poncent has made, and which has escaped all the missionaries, though it was entire and visible in my time.
Among the ruins of Axum there is a very high obelisk, flat on both sides, and fronting the south. It has upon it no hieroglyphic, but several decorations, or ornaments, the fancy of the architect. Upon a large block of granite, into which the bottom of it is fixed, and which stands before it like a table, is the figure of a Greek patera, and on one side of the obelisk, fronting the south, is the representation of a wooden door, lock, and a latch to it, which first seems designed to draw back and then lift up, exactly in the manner those kind of locks are fashioned in Egypt at this very day. Poncet observed very justly, there are no such locks made use of ​in Abyssinia, and wonders how they should have represented a thing they had never seen, and, having done so, remained still incapable to make or use it. Poncet was no man of reading out of his own protection; he nowhere pretends it; he recorded this fact because he saw it, as a traveller should do, and left others to give the reason which he could not. Poncet calls this place Heleni, from a small village of that name in the neighbourhood. Had he been a scholar he would have known that the ruins he was observing were those of the city of Axum, the ancient metropolis of this part of Ethiopia.
Ptolemy Evergetes, the third Grecian king of Egypt, conquered this city and the neighbouring kingdom; resided some time there; and, being absolutely ignorant of hieroglyphics, then long disused, he left the obelisk he had erected for ascertaining his latitudes ornamented with ligures of his own choosing, and the inventions of his subjects the Egyptians, and particularly the door for a convenience of private life, to be imitated by his new-acquired subjects the Ethiopians, to whom it had hitherto been unknown.
From Dobarwa he arrived at Arcouva, which, he fays geographers miscal Arequies. M. Poncet might have spared this criticism upon geographers till he himself had been better informed, for both are equally miscalled, whether Arcoava or Arequies. The true and only name of, the place, known either to Mahometans or Christians, is Arkeeko, as the island to which he passed, crossing an arm of the sea, is called Masuah, not Messoua, as he everywhere spells it. ​From Masuah, Poncet crossed the Red Sea to Jidda, passing the island Dahalac and Korumbal, a high rock, the name of which is not known to many navigators.
Had old Murat, Musa, and Hagi Ah, happened at that time to have been upon some mercantile errand to Cairo, there is no doubt but they would have been presented and become ambassadors to France. They would have gone there, perplexed the minister and the consul with a thousand lies and contrivances, which the French never would have been able to unravel; they would have promised every thing; obtained from the king some considerable sum of money, on which they would have undertaken to fend the embassy in any form that was prescribed, and, after their return home, never been heard of more. But those worthies were, probably, all employed at this time; therefore the only thing Poncet could do was to bring Murat, since he was to procure at all events an ambassador.
He had been a cook to a French merchant at Aleppo; was a maker of brandy at Masuah; and probably his uncle old Murat's servant at the time. But he was not the worse ambassador for this. Old Murat, Hagi Ali, and Musa, had perhaps been also cooks and servants in their time. Prudence, sobriety, and good conduct, skill in languages, and acquaintance, with countries recommended them afterwards to higher trusts. Old Murat probably meant that his nephew should begin his apprenticeship with that embassy to France; and M. Poncet, to increase his consequence, and fulfil, the commission the consul gave him, allowed him to invent all the rest.
​Poncet, from Jidda, went to Tor, and thence to Mount Sinai, where, after some stay, being overtaken by Murar, they both made their entry into Cairo.
M. De Maillet, the consul, was an old Norman gentleman, exceedingly fond of nobility, consequently very haughty and overbearing to those he reckoned his inferiors, among which he accounted those of his own nation established at Cairo, though a very amiable and valuable set of men. He was exceedingly testy, choleric, obstinate, and covetous, though sagacious enough in every thing concerning his own interest. He lived for the most part in his closet, seldom went out of his house, and, as far as I could learn, never out of the city. There, however, he wrote a description of all Egypt, which since has had a considerable degree of reputation.
Maillet had received advice of the miserable state of this embassy from Jidda, that the Sherriffe of Mecca had taken from Poncet, by force, two female Abyssinian slaves, and that the elephant was dead; which particulars being written to France, he was advised in a letter from father Fleuriau by no means to promote any embassy to the court of Versailles; that a proper place for it was Rome; but that in France they looked upon it in the fame light as they did upon an embassy from Algiers or Tunis, which did no honour to those who sent it, and as little to those that received it; this, however, was a new light.
​M. De Maillet, by this letter, becoming master of the ambassador's destiny, began first to quarrel with him upon etiquette, or who should pay the first visit; and, after a variety of ill-usage, insisted upon seeing his dispatches. This Murat refused to permit, upon which the consul sent privately to the basha, desiring him to take the dispatches or letters from Murat, fending him at the fame time a considerable present.
The basha on this did not fail to extort a letter from Murat by threats of death. He then opened it. It was in Arabic, in very general and indifferent terms, probably the performance of some Moor at Masuah, written at Murat's instance. And well was it for all concerned that it was so; for had the letter been a genuine Abyssinian letter, like those of the empress Helena and king David III. proposing the destruction of Mecca, Medina, and the Turkish ships on the Red Sea, the whole French nation at Cairo would have been massacred, and the consul and ambassador probably impaled.
The Jesuits, ignorant of this manoevure of M. de Maillet, but alarmed and scandalized at this breach of the law of nations, for such the basha's having opened a letter, addressed to the king of France, was justly considered, complained to M. Feriol the French ambassador at Constantinople, who thereupon sent a capigi from the port, to inquire of the basha what he meant by thus violating the law of nations, and affronting a friendly power of such consequence as France.
​These capigis are very unwelcome guests to people in office to whom they are sent. They are always paid by those they are sent to. Besides this, the report they carry back very often costs that person his life. The basha, accused by the capigi at the instance of the French ambassador at Constantinople, answered like an innocent man, That he had done it by desire of the French consul, from a wish to serve him and the nation, otherwise he should never have meddled in the matter. The consequence was, M. de Maillet was obliged to pay the basha the expence of the capigi; and, having some time afterwards brought it in account with the merchants, the French nation at Cairo, by deliberation of the 6th of July of the year 1702, refused to pay 1515 livres, the demand of the basha, and 518 livres for thole of his officers.
The consul, however, had gained a complete victory over Murat, and thereupon determined to fend Monhenaut, chancellor of France at Cairo, with letters, which, though written and invented by himself, he pretended to be translations from the Ethiopian original.
But father Verseau, the Jesuit, now returned to Cairo, who had entered into a great distrust of the consul since the discovery of his intrigue with the basha about Murat's letter, resolved to be of the party. Poncet, who was likewise on bad terms with the consul, neither inclined to lose the merits of his travels into Abyssinia, nor trust the recital of it to Monhenaut, or to the manner in which it might be represented in the consul's letters. These three, Monhenaut, Poncet, and Verseau, set out therefore for Paris with very different views and designs. They embarked at Bulac, the ​shipping-place of Cairo upon the Nile, taking with them the ears of the dead elephant.
The remaining part of the present brought for the king of France by this illustrious embassy, was an Abyssinian boy, a slave bought by Murat, and who had been hid from the search of the Sheriffe, when he forcibly took from him the two Abyssinian girls, part of the intended present also. This boy no sooner embarked on board the vessel at Bulac than a great tumult arose. The janizaries took the boy out of the vessel by force, and delivered him to Mustapha Cazdagli, their kaya; nor could all the interest of M. de Maillet and the French nation, or all the manoeuvres of the Jesuits, ever recover him.
As for Monhenaut, Poncet, and Verseau, his protectors, they were obliged to hide themselves from the violence of the mob, nor dared they again to appear till the vessel sailed. And happy was it for them that this fell out at Cairo, for, had they offered to embark him at Alexandria, in all probability it would have coll all of them their lives.
I must beg leave here to suggest to the reader, how dangerous, as well as how absurd, was the plan of this embassy. It was to consist of twenty-eight Abyssinians, twelve of whom were to be sons of noble families, all to be embarked to France. What a pleasant day would the embarkation have been to M. de Maillet! What an honourable appearance for his king, in the eyes of other Christian princes, to have seen twenty-eight Christians under his immediate protection, twelve of whom we might say were princes, (as all the nobility in Abyssinia are directly of the family of the ​king), from motives of vanity only, by the pride of the Jesuits, and the ignorance of the consul, hurried in one day into apostacy and slavery! Whatever Maillet thought of Poncet's conduct, his bringing Murat, and him only, cook as he was, was the very luckiest accident of his life.
I know French flatterers will say this would not have happened, or, if it had, a vengeance would have followed, worthy the occasion and the resentment of so great a king, and would have prevented all such violations of the law of nations for the future. To this I answer, The mischief would have been irreparable, and the revenge taken, however complete, would not have restored them their religion, and, without their religion, they themselves would not have returned into their own country, but would have remained necessary sacrifices, which the pride and rashness of the Jesuits had made to the faith of Mahomet.
Besides, where is the threatened revenge for the assassination of M. du Roule, then actual ambassador from the king of France, of which I am now to speak? Was not the law of nations violated in the strongest manner possible by his murder, and without the smallest provocation? What vengeance was taken for this? — Just the same as would have been for the other injury; for the Jesuits and consul would have concealed the one, as tenderness for the Francisan Friars had made them cover the other, lest their abominable wickedness should be exposed. If the court of France did not, their consul in Cairo should have known what the consequence would be of decoying twenty-eight Abyssinians from their own country, to be perverted from ​their own religion, and remain slaves and Mahometans at Cairo, a nuisance to all European nations established there.
Upon the arrival of the triumvirate at Paris, Monhenaut immediately repaired to the minister; Verseau was introduced to the king, and Poncet, soon after, had the same honour. He was then led as a kind of show, through all Paris, cloathed in the Abyssinian dress, and decorated with his gold chain. But while he was vainly amusing himself with this silly pageantry, the consul's letters, and the comments made upon them by Monhenaut, went directly to destroy the credit of his ever having been in Abyssinia, and of the reality of Murat's embassy.
The Franciscan friars, authors of the murder of M. du Roule, enemies to the mission, as being the work of the Jesuits; M. Piques, member of the Sorbonne, a body never much distinguished for promoting discoveries, or encouraging liberal and free inquiry; Abbe Renaudot, M. le Grande, and some ancient linguists, who, with great difficulty, by the industry of M. Ludolf, had attained to a very superficial knowledge of the Abyssinian tongue, all fell furiously upon Poncet's narrative of his journey. One found fault with the account he gave of the religion of the country, because it was not so conformable to the rites of the church of Rome, as they had from their own imagination and prejudice, and for their own ends conceived it to be. Others attacked the truth of the travels, from improbabilities found, or supposed to be found, in the description of the countries through which he had passed; while others discovered the forgery of his letters, by faults found in the orthography of ​that language, not one book of which, at that day, they had ever seen.
All these empty criticisms have been kept alive by the merit of the book, by this alone they have any further chance of reaching posterity; while, by all candid readers, this itinerary, short and incomplete as it is, will not fail to be received as a valuable acquisition to the geography of these unknown countries of which it treats.
I think it but a piece of duty to the memory of a fellow-traveller, to the lovers of truth and the public in general, to state the principal objections upon which this outcry against Poncet was raised; that, by the answers they admit of, the world may judge whether they are or are not founded in candour, and that before they are utterly swallowed up in oblivion.
The first is, that of the learned Renaudot, who says he does not conceive how an Ethiopian could be called by the name of Murat. To this I answer, Poncet, de Maillet, and the Turkish Basha, say Murat was an Armenian, a hundred times over; but M. Renaudot, upon his own authority, makes him an Ethiopian, and then lays the blame upon others, who arc not so ignorant as himself.
Secondly, Poncet asserts Gondar was the capital of Ethiopia; whereas the Jesuits have made no mention of it, and this is supposed a strong proof of Poncet's forgery. I answer. The Jesuits were banished in the end of Socinios's reign, and the beginning of that of his son Facilidas, that is about the year 1632; they were finally extirpated in the end of this last prince's reign, that is before the year i665, by ​his ordering the last Jesuit Bernard Nogueyra, to be publicly hanged. Now Gondar was not built till the end of the reign of Hannes I. who was grandson to Socinios, that is about the year 1680. Unless, then, these holy Jesuits, who, if we believe the missionaries, had all of them a sight into futurity before their martyrdom, had, from these their last visions, described Gondar as capital of Abyssinia, it does not occur to me how they should be historians of a fact that had not existence till 50 years after they were dead.
Thirdly, Poncet speaks of towns and villages in Ethiopia; whereas it is known there are no towns, villages, or cities, but Axum. — I believe that if the Abyssinians, who built the large and magnificent city of Axum, never had other cities, towns, and villages, they were in this the most singular people upon earth; or, if places where 6000 inhabitants live together in contiguous houses, separated with broad streets where there are churches and markets, be not towns and villages, I do not know the meaning of the term; but if these are towns, Poncet hath said truth; and many more such towns, which he never did see nor describe, are in Abyssinia at this day.
Fourthly, The Abyssinians live, and always have lived, in tents, not in houses. — It would have been a very extraordinary idea in people living in tents to have built such a city as Axum, whose ruins are as large as those of Alexandria; and it would be still more extraordinary, that people, in such a climate as Abyssinia, in the whole of which there is scorching weather for six months, deluges of rain, storms of wind, thunder, lightning, and hurricanes, such as are unknown in Europe, for the other six, should choose to live in tents, after ​knowing how to build such cities as Axum. I wonder a man's understanding does not revolt against such absurdities in the moment he is stating them.
The Abyssinians, while at war, use tents and encampments, to secure the liberty of movements and changing of ground, and defend themselves, when stationary, from the inclemency of the weather. But no tent has, I believe, yet been invented that could stand in the fields in that country from June to September; and they have not yet formed an idea of Abyssinia who can suppose this.
I conceive it is ignorance of the language which has led these learned men into this mistake. The Abyssinians call a house, standing by itself, allotted to any particular purpose. Bet. So Bet Negus is a palace, or the house of a king; Bet Christian is a church, or a house for Christian worship; whilst Bet Mocha is a prison, or house under ground. But houses in towns or villages are called Taintes, from the Abyssinian word Tain, to sleep, lie down, rest, or repose. I suppose the similitude of this word to tents has drawn these learned critics to believe, that, instead of towns, these were only collections of tents. But still I think, no one acquainted with the Abyssinian language, or without being so, would be so void of understanding as to believe, a people that had built Axum of stone, should endure, for ages after, a tropical winter in bare tents.
The fifth thing that fixes falsehood upon Poncet is, that he describes delicious valleys beyond European ideas; beautiful plains, covered with odoriferous trees and shrubs, to be everywhere in his way on the entrance of Abyssinia; ​whereas, when Salidan's brother conquered this country, the Arabian books say they found it destitute of all this fruitfulness. But, with all submission to the Arabian books, to Abbe Renaudot and his immense reading, I will maintain, that neither Salidan, nor his brother, nor any of his tribe, ever conquered the country Poncet describes, nor were in it, or ever saw it at a distance.
The province where Poncet found these beautiful scenes lies between lat. 12 and 13°. The soil is rich, black mould, which six months tropical rain are needed to water sufficiently, where the sun is vertical to it twice a-year, and stationary, with respect to it, for several days, at the distance of 10°, and at a letter distance still for several months; where the sun, though so near, is never seen, but a thick screen of watery clouds is constantly interposed, and yet the heat is such, that Fahrenheit's thermometer rises to 100° in the shade. Can any one be so ignorant in natural history, as to doubt that, under these circumstances, a luxuriant, florid, odoriferous vegetation must be the consequence? Is not this the case in every continent or island within these limits all round the globe?
But Poncet contradicts the Arabian books, and all travellers, modern and ancient; for they unanimously agree that this country is a dreary miserable desert, producing nothing but Dora, which is millet, and such like things of little or no value. I wish sincerely that M. Renaudot, when he was attacking a man's reputation, had been so good as to name the author whose authority he relied on. I shall take upon me to deny there ever was an Arabian book which treated of this country. And with regard to the ​ancient and modern travellers, his quotations from them are, if possible, still more visionary and ridiculous. The only ancient travellers, who, as I believe, ever visited that country, were Cambyses's ambassadors; who, probably, passed this part of Poncet's track when they went to the Macrobii, and the most modern authors (if they can be called modern) that came nearest to it, were the men sent by Nero to discover the country, whose journey is very doubtful; and they, when they approached the parts described by Poncet, say "the country began to be green and beautiful." Now I wish M. Renaudot had named any traveller more modern than these messengers of Nero, or more ancient than those ambassadors of Cambyses, who have travelled through and described the country of the Shangalla.
I, that have lived months in that province, and am the only traveller that ever did so, must corroborate every word Poncet has said upon this occasion. To dwell on landscapes and picturesque views, is a matter more proper for a poet than a historian. Those countries which are described by Poncet, merit a pen much more able to do them justice, than either his or mine.
It will be remembered when I say this, it is of the country of the Shangalla, between lat. 12° and 13° north, that this is the people who inhabit a hot woody stripe called Kolla, about 40 or 50 miles broad, that is from north to south, bounded by the mountainous country of Abyssinia, till they join the Nile at Fazuclo, on the West.
​I have also said, that, for the sake of commerce, these Shangalla have been extirpated in two places, which are like two gaps, or chasms, in which are built towns and villages, and through which caravans pass between Sennaar and Abyssinia. All the rest of this country is impervious and inaccessible, unless by an armed force. Many armies have perished here. It is a tract totally unknown, unless from the small detail that I have entered into concerning it in my travels.
And here I must set the critic right also, as to what he says of the produce of these parts. There is no grain called Dara, at least that I know of. If he meant millet, he should have called it Dora. It is not a mark of barrenness in the ground where this grows: part of the finest land in Egypt is sown with it. The banks of the Nile which produce Dora would also produce wheat; but the inhabitants of the desert like this better; it goes farther, and does not subject them to the violent labour of the plough, to which all inhabitants of extreme hot countries are averse.
The same I say of what he remarks with regard to cotton. The finest valleys in Syria, watered by the cool refreshing springs that fall from Mount Libanus, are planted with this shrub; and, in the fame grounds alternately, the tree which produces its sister in manufactures, silk, whose value is greatly inhanced by the addition. Cotton clothes all Ethiopia; cotton is the basis of its commerce with India, and of the commerce between England, France, and the Levant; and, were it nor for some such ignorant, superficial reasoners as Abbe Renaudot, cotton, after wool, should be the favourite manufacture of Britain. It will in time take ​place of that ungrateful culture, flax; will employ more hands, and be a more ample field for distinguishing the ingenuity of our manufacturers.
We see, then, how the least consideration possible destroys these ill-founded objections, upon which these very ignorant enemies of Poncet attempted to destroy his credit, and rob him of the merit of his journey. At last they ventured to throw off the mask entirely, by producing a letter supposed to be written from Nubia by an Italian friar, who asserts roundly, that he hears Poncet was never at the capital of Ethiopia, nor ever had audience of Yasous; but took the clothes and money of father Brevedent, then married, and soon after forsook his wife and Ethiopia together.
Maillet could have easily contradicted this, had he acted honestly; for Hagi Ali had brought him the king of Abyssinia's letter, who thanked him for his having sent Poncet, and signified to him his recovery. But without appealing to M. Maillet upon the subject, I conceive nobody will doubt, that Hagi Ali had a commission to bring a physician from Cairo to cure his master, and that Poncet was proposed as that phvsician, with consent of the consul. Now, after having carried Poncet the length of Bartcho, where it is agreed he was when Brevedent died, (for he was supposed there to have robbed that father of his money) what could be Hagi Ali's reason for not permitting him to proceed half a day's journey farther to the capital, and presenting him to the king, who had been at the pains and expence of sending for him from Egypt? What excuse could Hagi Ali make for not producing him, when he must have delivered the ​consul's letters, telling him that Poncet was come with the caravan for the purpose of curing him?
Besides this, M. de Maillet saw Hagi Ali afterwards at Cairo, where he reproached him with his cruel behaviour, both to Poncet and to friar Justin, another monk that had come along with him from Ethiopia. Maillet then must have been fully instructed of Poncet's whole life and conversation in Ethiopia, and needed not the Italian's supposed communication to know whether or not he had been in Ethiopia. Besides, Maillet makes use of him as the forerunner of the other embassy he was then preparing to Gondar, and to that fame king Yasous, which would have been a very strange step had he doubted of his having been there before.
Supposing all this not enough, still we know he returned by Jidda, and the consul corresponded with him there. Now, how did he get from Bartcho to the Red Sea without passing the capital, and without the king's orders or knowledge? Who franked him at those number of dangerous barriers at Woggora, Lamalmon, the Tacazzé, Kella, and Adowa, where, though I had the authority of the king, I could not sometimes pass without calling force to my assistance? Who freed him from the avarice of the Bahamagash, and the much more formidable rapacity of that murderer the Naybe, who, we have seen in the history of this reign, attempted to plunder the king's own factor Musa, though his mailer was within three days journey at the head of an army that in a few hours could have effaced every vestige of where Masuah had stood ? All this, then, is a ridiculous fabrication of lies; the work, as I have before ​said, of those who were concerned in the affair of the unhappy Du Roule.
Poncet, having lost all credit, retired from Paris in disgrace, without any further gratification than that which he at first received. He carried to Cairo with him, however, a gold watch and a mirror, which he was to deliver to the consul as a present to his companion Murat, whose subsistence was immediately stopped, and liberty given him to return to Ethiopia.
Nor did Maillet's folly stop here. After giving poor Murat all the ill-usage a man could possibly suffer, he entrusted him with a Jesuit whom he was to introduce into Ethiopia, where he would certainly have lost his life had not the bad-treatment he received by the way made him return before he arrived at Masuah.
This first miscarriage seemed only to have confirmed the Jesuits more in their resolution of producing an embassy. But it now took another form. Politicians and statesmen became the aiflors in it, without a thought having been bestowed to diminish the enemies of the scheme, or render their endeavours useless, by a superior knowledge of the manners and customs of the country through which this; embassy was to pass.
No adventurer, or vagrant physician, (like Poncet) was to be employed in this fecond embassy. A minister versed ​in languages, negociations, and treaties, accompanied with proper drugomans and officers, was to be sent to Abyssinia to cement a perpetual friendship and commerce between two nations that had not a national article to exchange with each other, nor way to communicate by sea or land. The minister, who must have known this, very wisely, at giving his fiat, pitched upon the consul M. de Maillet to be the amabassador, as a man who was acquainted with the causes of Poncet's failure, and, by following an opposite course, could bring this embassy to a happy conclusion for both nations.
Maillet confidercd himself as a general whose business was to direct and not to execute. A tedious and troublesome journey through dangerous deserts was out of the sphere of his closet, beyond the limits of which he did not choose to go. Beyond the limits of this, all was desert to him. He excused himself from the embassy, but gave in a memorial to serve as a rule for the conduct of his successor in the nomination in a country he had never seen; but this, being afterwards adopted as a well-considered regulation, proved one of the principal causes of the miscarriage and tragedy that followed.
M. Noir du Roule, vice-consul at Damiata, was pitched upon as the ambassador to go to Abyssinia. He was a young man of some merit, had a considerable degree of ambition, and a moderate skill in the common languages spoken in the east, but was absolutely ignorant of that of the country to which he was going, and, what was worse, of the customs and prejudices of the nations through which he was to pass. Like most of his countrymen, he had a violent predilection ​for the dress, carriage, and manners of France, and a hearty contempt for those of all other nations; this he had not address enough to disguise, and this endangered his life. The whole French nation at Cairo were very ill-disposed towards him, in consequence of some personal flight, or imprudences, he had been guilty of; as also towards any repetition of projects which brought them, their commerce, and even their lives into danger, as the last had done.
The merchants, therefore, were averse to this embassy; but the Jesuits and Maillet were the avowed supporters of it, and they had with them the authority of the king. But each aimed to be principal, and had very little confidence or communication with his associate.
As for the capuchins and Franciscans, they were mortally offended with M, de Maillet for having, by the introduction of the Jesuits, and the power of the king of France, forcibly wrested the Ethiopic mission from them which the pope had granted, and which the sacred congregation of cardinals had confirmed. These, by their continual communication with the Cophts, the Christians of Egypt, had so far brought them to adopt their designs as, one and all, to regard the miscarriage of du Roule and his embassy, as what they were bound to procure from honour and mutual interest.
Things being in these circumstances, M. du Roule arrived at Cairo, and took upon him the charge of this embassy, and from that moment the intrigues began.
​The consul had persuaded du Roule, that the proper presents he should take with him to Sennaar were prints of the king and queen of France, with crowns upon their heads; mirrors, magnifying and multiplying objects, and deforming them; when brocade, sattin, and trinkets of gold or silver, iron or steel, would have been infinitely more acceptable.
Elias, an Armenian, a confidential servant of the French nation, was first sent by way of the Red Sea into Abyssinia by Masuah, to proceed to Gondar, and prepare Yasous for the reception of that ambassador, to whom he, Elias, was to be the interpreter. So far it was well concerted; but, in preparing for the end, the middle was neglected. A number of friars were already at Sennaar, and had poisoned the minds of that people, naturally barbarous, brutal, and jealous. Money, in presents, had gained the great; while lies, calculated to terrify and enrage the lower class of people, had been told so openly and avowedly, and gained such root, that the ambassador, when he arrived at Sennaar, found it, in the first place, necessary to make a procez verbal, or what we call a precognition, in which the names of the authors, and substance of these reports, were mentioned, and of this he gave advice to M. de Maillet, but the names and these papers perished with him.
If was on the 9th of July 1704 that M. du Roule set out from Cairo; attended by a number of people who, with tears in their eyes, foresaw the pit into which he was tailing. He embarked on the Nile; and, in his passage to Siout, he found at every halting place some new and ​dangerous lie propagated, which could have no other end but his destruction.
Belac, a Moor, and factor for the king of Sennaar, was chief of the caravan which he then joined. Du Roule had employed, while at Cairo, all the usual means to gain this man to his interest, and had every reason to suppose he had succeeded. But, on his meeting him at Siout, he had the mortification to find that he was so far changed that it cost him 250 dollars to prevent his declaring himself an abettor of his enemies. And this, perhaps, would not have sufficed, had it not been for the arrival of Fornetti, drugoman to the French nation at Cairo, at Siout, and with him a capigi and chiaoux from Ismael Bey, the port of janizaries, and from the basha of Cairo, expressly commanding the governor of Siout, and Belac chief of the caravan, to look to the safety of du Roule, and protect him at the hazard of their lives, and as they should answer to them.
All the parties concerned were then called together; and the fedtah, or prayer of peace, used in long and dangerous journies, was solemnly recited and assented to by them all; in consequence of which, every individual became bound to stand by his companion even to death, and not separate himself from him, nor see him wronged, though it was for his own gain or safety. This test brought all the secret to light; for Ali Chelebi, governor of Siout, informed the ambassador, that the Christian merchants and Franciscan friars were in a conspiracy, and had sworn to defeat and disappoint his embassy even by the loss of his life, and that, by presents, they had gained him to be a partner in that conspiracy.
​Belac, moreover, told him, that the patriarch of the Cophts had assured the principal people of which that caravan consisted, that the Franks then travelling with him were not merchants, but sorcerers, who were going to Ethiopia, to obstruct, or cut off the course of the Nile, that it might no longer flow into Egypt, and that the general resolution was to drive the Franks from the caravan at some place in the desert which suited their designs, which were to reduce them to perish by hunger or thirst, or else to be otherwise slain, and no more heard of.
The caravan left Siout the 12th of September. In twelve days they passed the lesser desert, and came to Khargue, where they were detained six days by a young man, governor of that place, who obliged M. du Roule to pay him 120 dollars, before he would suffer him to pass further; and at the same time forced him to sign a certificate, that he had been permitted to pass without paying any thing. This was the first sample of the usage he was to expect in the further prosecution of his journey.
On the 3d of October they entered the great desert of Selima, and on the 18th of same month they arrived at Machou, or Moscho, on the Nile, where their caravan staid a considerable time, till the merchants had transacted their business. It was at this place the ambassador learned, that several Franciscan friars had passed the caravan while it remained at Siout, and advanced to Sennaar, where they had staid some time, but had lately left that capital upon news of the caravan's approaching, and had rested, nobody knew whether.
​A report was soon after spread abroad at Cairo, but no one could ever learn whence it came, that the ambassador, arriving at Dongola, had been assassinated there. This, indeed, proved false, but was, in the mean time, a mournful presage of the melancholy catastrophe that happened soon afterwards.
M. Du Roule arrived at Sennaar towards the end of May, and wrote at that time; but a packet of letters was after brought to the consul at Cairo, bearing date the 18th of June. The ambassador there mentions, that he had been well received by the king of Sennaar, who was a young man, fond of strangers; that particular attention had been shewn him by Sid Achmet-el-coom; or, as he should have called him, Achmet Sid-el-coom, i.e. Achmet master of the household. This officer, sent by the king to visit the baggage of the ambassador, could not help testifying his surprise to find it so inconsiderable, both in bulk and value.
He said the king had received letters from Cairo, informing him that he had twenty chests of silver along with him. Achmet likewise told him, that he himself had received information, by a letter under the hand and seal of the most respectable people of Cairo, warning him not to let M, du Roule pass; for the intention of his journey into Abyssinia was to prevail on Yasous to attack Masuah and Suakem, and take them from the Turks. Achmet would not suffer the bales intended for the king of Abyssinia to be opened or visited, but left them in the hands of the ambassador.
M. Du Roule, however, in writing this account to the consul, intimated to him that he thought himself in ​danger, and declares that he did not believe there was on earth so barbarous, brutal, and treacherous a people, as were the Nubians.
It happened that the king's troops had gained some advantage over the rebellious Arabs, on which account there was a festival at court, and M. du Roule thought himself obliged to exert himself in every thing which could add to the magnificence of the occasion. With this intention he shaved his beard, and drest himself like a European, and in this manner he received the visit of the minister Achmet. M. Mace, in a letter to the consul of the above date, complains of this novelty. He says it shocked every body; and that the mirrors which multiplied and deformed the objects, made the lower forts of the people look upon the ambassador and his company as sorcerers.
Upon great festivals, in most Mahometan kingdoms, the king's wives have a privilege to go out of their apartments, and visit any thing new that is to be seen. These of the king of Sennaar are very ignorant, brutish, fantastic, and easily offended. Had M. du Roule known the manners of the country, he would have treated these black majesties with strong spirits, sweetmeats, or scented waters; and he might then have shewed them with impunity any thing that he pleased.
But being terrified with the glasses, and disgusted by his inattention, they joined in the common cry, that the ambassador was a magician, and contributed all in their power to ​ruin him with the king; which, after all, they did not accomplish, without the utmost repugnance and difficulty. The farthest length at first they could get this prince to go was, to demand 3000 dollars of the ambassador. This was expressly refused, and private disgust followed.
M. Du Roule being now alarmed for his own safety, insisted upon liberty to set out forthwith for Abyssinia. Leave was accordingly granted him, and after his baggage was loaded, and every thing prepared, he was countermanded by the king, and ordered to return to his own house. A few days after this he again procured leave to depart; which a short time after was again countermanded. At last, on the 10th of November, a messenger from the king brought him final leave to depart, which, having every thing ready for that purpose, he immediately did.
The ambassador walked on foot, with two country Christians on one hand, and Gentil his French servant on the other. He refused to mount on horseback, but gave his horse to a Nubian servant to lead. M. Lipi, and M. Mace, the two drugomans, were both on horseback. The whole company being now arrived in the middle of the large square before the king's house, the common place of execution for criminals, four blacks attacked the ambassador, and murdered him with four strokes of sabres. Gentil fell next by the fame hands, at his master's side. After him M. Lipi and the two Christians; the two latter protesting that they did not belong to the ambassador's family.
M. Du Roule died with the greatest magnanimity, fortitude, and resignation. Knowing his person was sacred by ​the law of nations, he disdained to defend it by any other means, remitting his revenge to the guardians of that law, and he exhorted all his attendants to do the fame. But M. Macè the Drugoman, young and brave, and a good horseman, was not of the sheep kind, to go quietly to the slaughter. With his pistols he shot two of the assassins that attacked him, one after the other, dead upon the spot; and was continuing to defend himself with his sword, when a horseman, coming behind him, thrust him through the back with a lance, and threw him dead upon the ground.
Thus ended the second attempt of converting Abyssinia by an embassy. A scheme, if we believe M. de Maillet, which had cost government a considerable expence, for in a memorial, of the 1st of October 1706, concerning the death of M. du Roule, he makes the money and effects which he had along with him, when murdered, to amount to 200 purses, or L. 25,000 Sterling. This, however, is not probable; because, in another place he speaks of M. du Roule's having, demanded of him a small supply of money while at Sennaar, which friar Joseph, a capuchin, refused to carry for him. Such a supply would not have been necessary if the ambassador had with him such a sum as that already mentioned; therefore I imagine it was exaggerated, with a view to make the Turkish basha of Suakem quarrel with the king of Sennaar about the recovering it.
The friars, who were in numbers at Sennaar, left it immediately before the coming of M. du Roule. This they might have done without any bad intention towards him; they returned, however, immediately after his murder. This, I think, very clearly constitutes them the authors of ​it. For had they not been privy and promoters of the assassination, they would have fled with fear and abhorrence from a place where six of their brethren had been lately fo treacherously slain, and were not yet buried, but their carcases abandoned to the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field, and where they themselves, therefore, could have no assurance of safety.
They however pretended, first to lay the blame upon the king of Abyssinia, then upon the king of Sennaar, and then they divided it between them both. But Elias, arrived at Gondar, vindicated that prince, as we shall presently see, and the lift of names taken at Sennaar; and a long series of correspondence, which afterwards came out, and a chain of evidence which was made public, incontestibly prove that the king of Sennaar was but an agent, and indeed an unwilling one, who two several times repented of his bloody design, and made M. du Roule return to his own house, to evade the execution of it.
The blood then of this gallant and unfortunate gentleman undoubtedly lies upon the heads of the reformed Franciscan friars, and their brethren, the friars of the Holy Land. The interest of these two bodies, and a bigotted prince, such as Louis XIV then was, was more than sufficient to stop all inquiry, and hinder any vengeance to be taken on those holy assassins. But he who, unperceived, follows deliberate murther through all its concealments and darkness of its ways, in a few years required satisfaction for the blood of du Roule, at a time and place unforeseen, and unexpected.
​We shall now return to Gondar to king Yasous, who being recovered of his disease, and having dismissed his physician, was preparing to let out on a campaign against the Galla.
Yasous, for his first wife, had married Ozoro Malacotawit, a lady of great family and connections in the province of Gojam. By her he had a son, Tecla Haimanout, who was grown to manhood, and had hitherto lived in the most dutiful affection and submission to his father, who, on his part, seemed to place unlimited confidence in his son. He now gave a proof of this, not very common in the annals of Abyssinia, by leaving Tecla Haimanout behind him, at an age when he was fit to reign, appointing him Betwudet, with absolute power to govern in his absence. Yasous had a mistress whom he tenderly loved, a woman of great quality likewise, whose name was Ozoro Kedustè. She was sister to his Fit-Auraris, Agné, a very distinguished and capable officer, and by her he had three children, David, Hannes, and Jonathan.
It happened, while he was watching the motions of the Galla, news were brought that Ozoro Kedustè had been taken ill of a fever; and though, upon this intelligence, he disposed his affairs so as to return with all possible expedition, yet when he came to Bercanté, the lady's house, he found that she was not only dead, but had been for some time buried. All his presence of mind now left him; he fell into the most violent transport of wild despair, and, ordering her tomb to be opened, he went down into it, taking his three sons along with him, and became so frantic at the sight of the corpse, that it was with the utmost ​difficulty he could be forced again to leave the sepulchre. He returned first to Gondar, then he retired to an island in the lake Tzana, there to mourn his lost mistress.
But before this, Elias, ignorant of what had passed at Sennaar, presented M. de Maillet's letter to him, beseeching his leave for M. du Roule to enter Abyssinia, and come into his presence. This he easily procured: Yasous was fond of strangers; and not only granted the request, but sent a man of his own to Sennaar with letters to the king to protect and defray the expences of the ambassador to Gondar. This man, who had affairs of his own, loitered away a great deal of time in the journey, so that Elias, upon first hearing of the arrival of the ambassador, set out himself to meet him at Sennaar. The king, in the mean time, having finished his mourning, dispatched Badjerund Oustas to his son the Betwudet, at Gondar, ordering him forthwith to send him a body of his household troops to rendezvous on the banks of the lake, opposite to the island Tchekla Wunze, where he then had his residence.
It has been said, contrary to all truth, by those who have wrote travels into this country, that sons born in marriage had the same preference in succession as they have in other countries. But this, as I have said, is entirely without foundation: For, in the first place, there is no such thing as a regular marriage in Abyssinia; all consists in mere consent of parties. But, allowing this to be regular, not only natural children, that is, those born in concubinage where no marriage was in contemplation; and adulterous bastards, that is, the sons of unmarried women by married men; and all manner of sons whatever, succeed equally as well to the ​crown as to private inheritance; and there cannot be a more clear example of this than in the present king, who, although he had a son, Tecla Haimanout, born of the queen Malacotawit in wedlock, was yet succeeded by three bastard brothers, all sons of Yasous, born in adultery, that is, in the life of the queen. David and Hannes were sons of the king by his favourite Ozoro Keduste; Bacuffa, by another lady of quality.
Although the queen, Malacotawit, had passed over with seeming indifference the preference the king had given his mistress, Ozoro Keduste, during her lifetime, yet, from a very unaccountable kind of jealousy, she could not forgive those violent tokens of affection the king had shewn after her death, by going down with his sons and remaining with the body in the grave. Full of resentment for this, she had persuaded her son, Tecla Haimanout, that Yasous had determined to deprive him of his succession, to send him and her, his mother, both to Wechne, and place his bastard brother, David, son of Ozoro Keduste, upon the throne.
The queen had been very diligent in attaching to her the principal people about the court. By her own friends, and the assistance of the discontented and banished monks, she had raised a great army in Gojam under her brothers, Dermin and Paulus. Tecla Haimanout had shewn great signs of wisdom and talents for governing, and very much attached to himself some of his father's oldest and ablest servants.
​It was, therefore, agreed, in return to Yasous's message by Oustas, to answer. That, after so long a reign, and so much bloodshed, the king would do well to retire to some convent for the rest of his life, and atone for the many great sins he had committed; and that he should leave the kingdom in the hands of his son Tecla Haimanout, as the ancient king Caleb had resigned his crown into the hands of St Pantaleon in favour of his son Guebra Mascal. As it was not very safe to deliver such a message to a king such as Yasous, it was therefore sent to him by a common foot-soldier, who could not be an object of resentment.
The king received it at Tchekla Wunze, the island in the lake Tzana, where he was then residing. He answered with great sharpness, by the same messenger, "That he had been long informed who these were that had seduced his son, Tecla Haimanout, at once from his duty to him as his father, and his allegiance as his sovereign; that though he did not hold them to be equal in sanctity to St Pantaleon, yet, such as they were, he proposed immediately to meet them at Gondar, and settle there his son's coronation."
This ironical message was perfectly understood. Those of the court that were with Tecla Haimanout, and the inhabitants of the capital, met together, and bound themselves by a solemn oath to live and die with their king Tecla Haimanout. The severity of Yasous was well known; his provocation now was a just one; and the measure of vengeance that awaited them, every one concerned knew to be such that there was no alternative but death or victory.
​Neither party were slack in preparations. Kasmati Honorius, governor of Damot, a veteran officer and old servant of Yasous, collected a large body of troops and marched them down the west side of the lake. Yasous having there joined them, and putting himself at the head of his army, began his march, rounding the lake on its south side towards Dingleber.
Neither did Tecla Haimanout delay a moment after hearing his father was in motion, but marched with his army from Gondar, attended with all the ensigns of royalty. He encamped at Bartcho, in that very field where Za Denghel was defeated and slain by his rebellious subjects. Thinking this a post ominous to kings, he resolved to wait for his father there, and give him battle.
The king, in his march through the low country of Dembea, was attacked by a putrid fever, very common in those parts, which so increased upon him that he was obliged to be carried back to Tchekla Wunze. This accident discouraged his whole party. His army, with Honorius, took the road to Gojam, but did not disperse, awaiting the recovery of the king. 'But the queen, Malacotawit, no sooner heard that Yasous her husband was sick at Tchekla Wunze, than she sent to her son Tecla Haimanout to leave his unwholesome station, and march back immediately to Gondar; and, as soon as he was returned, she dispatched her two brothers, Dermin and Paulus, with a body of soldiers and two Mahometan musqueteers, who, entering the island Tchekla Wunze by surprise, shot and disabled the king while fitting on a couch; ​immediately after which, Dermin thrust him through with a sword. They attempted afterwards to burn the body, in order to avoid the ill-will the fight of it must occasion: In this, however, they were prevented by the priests of the island and the neighbouring nobility, who took possession of the body, washed it, and performed all the rites of sepulture, then carried it in a kind of triumph, with every mark of magnificence due to the burial of a king, interring it in the small island of Mitraha, where lay the body of all his ancestors, and where I have seen, the body of this king stilt entire.
Nor did the prince his son, Tecla Haimanout, now king, discourage the people in the respect they voluntarily paid to his father. On the contrary, that parricide himself shewed every outward mark of duty, to the which inwardly his heart had been long a stranger.
Poncet, who saw this king, gives this character of him: He says he was a man very fond of war, but averse to the shedding of blood. However this may appear a contradiction, or said for the sake of the antithesis, it really was the true character of this prince, who, fond of war, and in the perpetual career of victory, did, by pushing his conquests as far as they could go, inevitably occasion the spilling of much blood. Yet, when his army was not in the field, though he detected a multitude of conspiracies among priests and other people at home, whose lives in consequence were forfeited to the law, he very rarely, either from his own motives, or the persuasion of others, could be induced to inflict capital punishments though often strongly provoked to it.
​Upon his death the people unanimously gave to him the name of Tallac, which signifies the Great, a name he has ever since enjoyed unimpeached in the Abyssinian annals, or history of his country, from the which this his reign is taken.
* ↑ A name of the black Pagans bordering on Sennaar to the south-west.
* ↑ Astronom. de M. de La Lande, liv. 19, p. 366.
* ↑ See the article kantuffa in the Appendix.
* ↑ The white mountain.
* ↑ The mountain of salt.
* ↑ By Chancellor of the Nation is meant the officer immediately next the consul, who keeps the records, and has a department absolutely independent of the Consul.
* ↑ Vid. Poncet.
* ↑ It is plain Poncet had no instruments for observation with him, nor was he probably acquainted with the use of them.
* ↑ To be described hereafter.
* ↑ See an elevation of this in my account of Axum.
* ↑ And there he wrote his Teliamede which supposes men were first created fishes, for which he was excommunicated. It was an opinion perfectly worthy of alarming the Sorbonne.
* ↑ Plin. vol. I. lib. 6. cap. 30. p. 376.
* ↑ Faiber Dernat, a Frenchman.
* ↑ We have seen these were recommended by M. Maillet, the consul.