These Glorious Confessors I Met As They Were Just Entering
The Pass Designed For The Place Of Their Destruction, And Doubly
Preserved Them From Famine And The Sword.
A grateful sense of their
deliverance made them receive me as a guardian angel.
We went
together to Fremona, and being in all a patriarch, a bishop,
eighteen Jesuits, and four hundred Portuguese whom I supplied with
necessaries, though the revenues of our house were lost, and though
the country was disaffected to us, in the worst season of the year.
We were obliged for the relief of the poor and our own subsistence
to sell our ornaments and chalices, which we first broke in pieces,
that the people might not have the pleasure of ridiculing our
mysteries by profaning the vessels made use of in the celebration of
them, for they now would gladly treat with the highest indignities
what they had a year before looked upon with veneration.
Amidst all these perplexities the viceroy did not fail to visit us,
and make us great offers of service in expectation of a large
present. We were in a situation in which it was very difficult to
act properly; we knew too well the ill intentions of the viceroy,
but durst not complain, or give him any reason to imagine that we
knew them. We longed to retreat out of his power, or at least to
send one of our company to the Indies with an account of persecution
we suffered, and could without his leave neither do one nor the
other.
When it was determined that one should be sent to the Indies, I was
at first singled out for the journey, and it was intended that I
should represent at Goa, at Rome, and at Madrid the distresses and
necessities of the mission of Aethiopia; but the fathers reflecting
afterwards that I best understood the Abyssinian language, and was
most acquainted with the customs of the country, altered their
opinions, and, continuing me in Aethiopia either to perish with them
or preserve them, deputed four other Jesuits, who in a short time
set out on their way to the Indies.
About this time I was sent for to the viceroy's camp to confess a
criminal, who, though falsely, was believed a Catholic, to whom,
after a proper exhortation, I was going to pronounce the form of
absolution, when those that waited to execute him told him aloud
that if he expected to save his life by professing himself a
Catholic, he would find himself deceived, and that he had nothing to
do but prepare himself for death. The unhappy criminal had no
sooner heard this than, rising up, he declared his resolution to die
in the religion of his country, and being delivered up to his
prosecutors was immediately dispatched with their lances.
The chief reason of calling me was not that I might hear this
confession: the viceroy had another design of seizing my person,
expecting that either the Jesuits or Portuguese would buy my liberty
with a large ransom, or that he might exchange me for his father,
who was kept prisoner by a revolted prince. That prince would have
been no loser by the exchange, for so much was I hated by the
Abyssinian monks that they would have thought no expense too great
to have gotten me into their hands, that they might have glutted
their revenge by putting me to the most painful death they could
have invented. Happily I found means to retire out of this
dangerous place, and was followed by the viceroy almost to Fremona,
who, being disappointed, desired me either to visit him at his camp,
or appoint a place where we might confer. I made many excuses, but
at length agreed to meet him at a place near Fremona, bringing each
of us only three companions. I did not doubt but he would bring
more, and so he did, but found that I was upon my guard, and that my
company increased in proportion to his. My friends were resolute
Portuguese, who were determined to give him no quarter if he made
any attempt upon my liberty. Finding himself once more
countermined, he returned ashamed to his camp, where a month after,
being accused of a confederacy in the revolt of that prince who kept
his father prisoner, he was arrested, and carried in chains to the
Emperor.
The time now approaching in which we were to be delivered to the
Turks, we had none but God to apply to for relief: all the measures
we could think of were equally dangerous. Resolving, nevertheless,
to seek some retreat where we might hide ourselves either all
together or separately, we determined at last to put ourselves under
the protection of the Prince John Akay, who had defended himself a
long time in the province of Bar against the power of Abyssinia.
After I had concluded a treaty with this prince, the patriarch and
all the fathers put themselves into his hands, and being received
with all imaginable kindness and civility, were conducted with a
guard to Adicota, a rock excessively steep, about nine miles from
his place of residence. The event was not agreeable to the happy
beginning of our negotiation, for we soon began to find that our
habitation was not likely to be very pleasant. We were surrounded
with Mahometans, or Christians who were inveterate enemies to the
Catholic faith, and were obliged to act with the utmost caution.
Notwithstanding these inconveniences we were pleased with the
present tranquillity we enjoyed, and lived contentedly on lentils
and a little corn that we had; and I, after we had sold all our
goods, resolved to turn physician, and was soon able to support
myself by my practice.
I was once consulted by a man troubled with asthma, who presented me
with two alquieres - that is, about twenty-eight pounds weight - of
corn and a sheep. The advice I gave him, after having turned over
my books, was to drink goats' urine every morning; I know not
whether he found any benefit by following my prescription, for I
never saw him after.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 35 of 41
Words from 35030 to 36060
of 41322
