The Manner Of Letting Farms In Abyssinia Differs Much From That Of
Other Countries:
The farmer, when the harvest is almost ripe,
invites the chumo or steward, who is appointed to make an
Estimate
of the value of each year's product, to his house, entertains him in
the most agreeable manner he can; makes him a present, and then
takes him to see his corn. If the chumo is pleased with the treat
and present, he will give him a declaration or writing to witness
that his ground, which afforded five or six sacks of corn, did you
yield so many bushels, and even of this it is the custom to abate
something; so that our revenue did not increase in proportion to our
lands; and we found ourselves often obliged to buy corn, which,
indeed, is not dear, for in fruitful years forty or fifty measures,
weighing each about twenty-two pounds, may be purchased for a crown.
Besides the particular charge I had of the house of Fremona, I was
appointed the patriarch's grand-vicar through the whole kingdom of
Tigre. I thought that to discharge this office as I ought, it was
incumbent on me to provide necessaries as well for the bodies as the
souls of the converted Catholics. This labour was much increased by
the famine which the grasshoppers had brought that year upon the
country. Our house was perpetually surrounded by some of those
unhappy people, whom want had compelled to abandon their
habitations, and whose pale cheeks and meagre bodies were undeniable
proofs of their misery and distress. All the relief I could
possibly afford them could not prevent the death of such numbers
that their bodies filled the highways; and to increase our
affliction, the wolves having devoured the carcases, and finding no
other food, fell upon the living; their natural fierceness being so
increased by hunger, that they dragged the children out of the very
houses. I saw myself a troop of wolves tear a child of six years
old in pieces before I or any one else could come to its assistance.
While I was entirely taken up with the duties of my ministry, the
viceroy of Tigre received the commands of the Emperor to search for
the bones of Don Christopher de Gama. On this occasion it may not
be thought impertinent to give some account of the life and death of
this brave and holy Portuguese, who, after having been successful in
many battles, fell at last into the hands of the Moors, and
completed that illustrious life by a glorious martyrdom.
Chapter V
The adventures of the Portuguese, and the actions of Don Christopher
de Gama in Aethiopia.
About the beginning of the sixteenth century arose a Moor near the
Cape of Gardafui, who, by the assistance of the forces sent him from
Moca by the Arabs and Turks, conquered almost all Abyssinia, and
founded the kingdom of Adel. He was called Mahomet Gragne, or the
Lame.
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