He Added Another History Of A Famous Abyssinian Monk, Who
Killed A Devil Two Hundred Feet High, And Only Four
Feet thick, that
ravaged all the country; the peasants had a great desire to throw
the dead carcase from the
Top of a rock, but could not with all
their force remove it from the place, but the monk drew it after him
with all imaginable ease and pushed it down. This story was
followed by another, of a young devil that became a religious of the
famous monastery of Aba Gatima. The good father would have favoured
me with more relations of the same kind, if I had been in the humour
to have heard them, but, interrupting him, I told him that all these
relations confirmed what we had found by experience, that the monks
of Abyssinia were no improper company for the devil.
Chapter IX
The viceroy is defeated and hanged. The author narrowly escapes
being poisoned.
I did not stay long at Fremona, but left that town and the province
of Tigre, and soon found that I was very happy in that resolution,
for scarce had I left the place before the viceroy came in person to
put me to death, who, not finding me, as he expected, resolved to
turn all his vengeance against the father Gaspard Paes, a venerable
man, who was grown grey in the missions of Aethiopia, and five other
missionaries newly arrived from the Indies; his design was to kill
them all at one time without suffering any to escape; he therefore
sent for them all, but one happily being sick, another stayed to
attend him; to this they owed their lives, for the viceroy, finding
but four of them, sent them back, telling them he would see them all
together. The fathers, having been already told of his revolt, and
of the pretences he made use of to give it credit, made no question
of his intent to massacre them, and contrived their escape so that
they got safely out of his power.
The viceroy, disappointed in his scheme, vented all his rage upon
Father James, whom the patriarch had given him as his confessor; the
good man was carried, bound hand and foot, into the middle of the
camp; the viceroy gave the first stab in the throat, and all the
rest struck him with their lances, and dipped their weapons in his
blood, promising each other that they would never accept of any act
of oblivion or terms of peace by which the Catholic religion was not
abolished throughout the empire, and all those who professed it
either banished or put to death. They then ordered all the beads,
images, crosses, and relics which the Catholics made use of to be
thrown into the fire.
The anger of God was now ready to fall upon his head for these
daring and complicated crimes; the Emperor had already confiscated
all his goods, and given the government of the kingdom of Tigre to
Keba Christos, a good Catholic, who was sent with a numerous army to
take possession of it. As both armies were in search of each other,
it was not long before they came to a battle. The revolted viceroy
Tecla Georgis placed all his confidence in the Galles, his
auxiliaries. Keba Christos, who had marched with incredible
expedition to hinder the enemy from making any intrenchments, would
willingly have refreshed his men a few days before the battle, but
finding the foe vigilant, thought it not proper to stay till he was
attacked, and therefore resolved to make the first onset; then
presenting himself before his army without arms and with his head
uncovered, assured them that such was his confidence in God's
protection of those that engaged in so just a cause, that though he
were in that condition and alone, he would attack his enemies.
The battle began immediately, and of all the troops of Tecla Georgis
only the Galles made any resistance, the rest abandoned him without
striking a blow. The unhappy commander, seeing all his squadrons
broken, and three hundred of the Galles, with twelve ecclesiastics,
killed on the spot, hid himself in a cave, where he was found three
days afterwards, with his favourite and a monk. When they took him,
they cut off the heads of his two companions in the field, and
carried him to the Emperor; the procedure against him was not long,
and he was condemned to be burnt alive. Then imagining that, if he
embraced the Catholic faith, the intercession of the missionaries,
with the entreaties of his wife and children, might procure him a
pardon, he desired a Jesuit to hear his confession, and abjured his
errors. The Emperor was inflexible both to the entreaties of his
daughter and the tears of his grand-children, and all that could be
obtained of him was that the sentence should be mollified, and
changed into a condemnation to be hanged. Tecla Georgis renounced
his abjuration, and at his death persisted in his errors. Adero,
his sister, who had borne the greatest share in his revolt, was
hanged on the same tree fifteen days after.
I arrived not long after at the Emperor's court, and had the honour
of kissing his hands; but stayed not long in a place where no
missionary ought to linger, unless obliged by the most pressing
necessity: but being ordered by my superiors into the kingdom of
Damote, I set out on my journey, and on the road was in great danger
of losing my life by my curiosity of tasting a herb, which I found
near a brook, and which, though I had often heard of it, I did not
know. It bears a great resemblance to our radishes; the leaf and
colour were beautiful, and the taste not unpleasant. It came into
my mind when I began to chew it that perhaps it might be that
venomous herb against which no antidote had yet been found, but
persuading myself afterwards that my fears were merely chimerical, I
continued to
chew it, till a man accidentally meeting me, and seeing me with a
handful of it, cried out to me that I was poisoned; I had happily
not swallowed any of it, and throwing out what I had in my mouth, I
returned God thanks for this instance of his protection.
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