Before They Set Forward, They Advertise The Governors Of Provinces
Through Which They Are To Pass, That They May Take Care To Furnish
What Is Necessary For The Subsistence Of The Troops.
These
governors give notice to the adjacent places that the army is to
march that way on such a day, and that they are assessed such a
quantity of bread, beer, and cows.
The peasants are very exact in
supplying their quota, being obliged to pay double the value in case
of failure; and very often when they have produced their full share,
they are told that they have been deficient, and condemned to buy
their peace with a large fine.
When the providore has received these contributions, he divides them
according to the number of persons, and the want they are in: the
proportion they observe in this distribution is twenty pots of beer,
ten of mead, and one cow to a hundred loaves. The chief officers
and persons of note carry their own provisions with them, which I
did too, though I afterwards found the precaution unnecessary, for I
had often two or three cows more than I wanted, which I bestowed on
those whose allowance fell short.
The Abyssins are not only obliged to maintain the troops in their
march, but to repair the roads, to clear them, especially in the
forests, of brambles and thorns, and by all means possible to
facilitate the passage of the army. They are, by long custom,
extremely ready at encamping. As soon as they come to a place they
think convenient to halt at, the officer that commands the vanguard
marks out with his pike the place for the King's or viceroy's tent:
every one knows his rank, and how much ground he shall take up; so
the camp is formed in an instant.
Chapter VII
They discover the relics. Their apprehension of the Galles. The
author converts a criminal, and procures his pardon.
We took with us an old Moor, so enfeebled with age that they were
forced to carry him: he had seen, as I have said, the sufferings
and death of Don Christopher de Gama; and a Christian, who had often
heard all those passages related to his father, and knew the place
where the uncle and nephew of Mahomet were buried, and where they
interred one quarter of the Portuguese martyr. We often examined
these two men, and always apart; they agreed in every circumstance
of their relations, and confirmed us in our belief of them by
leading us to the place where we took up the uncle and nephew of
Mahomet, as they had described. With no small labour we removed the
heap of stones which the Moors, according to their custom, had
thrown upon the body, and discovered the treasure we came in search
of. Not many paces off was the fountain where they had thrown his
head, with a dead dog, to raise a greater aversion in the Moors. I
gathered the teeth and the lower jaw.
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