The Christianity Professed By The Abyssins Is So Corrupted
With Superstitions, Errors, And Heresies, And So Mingled With
Ceremonies Borrowed From The Jews, That Little Besides The Name Of
Christianity Is To Be Found Here; And The Thorns May Be Said To Have
Choked The Grain.
This proceeds in a great measure from the
diversity of religions which are tolerated there, either by
negligence or from motives of policy; and the same cause hath
produced such various revolutions, revolts, and civil wars within
these later ages.
For those different sects do not easily admit of
an union with each other, or a quiet subjection to the same monarch.
The Abyssins cannot properly be said to have either cities or
houses; they live either in tents, or in cottages made of straw and
clay; for they very rarely build with stone. Their villages or
towns consist of these huts; yet even of such villages they have but
few, because the grandees, the viceroys, and the Emperor himself are
always in the camp, that they may be prepared, upon the most sudden
summons, to go where the exigence of affairs demands their presence.
And this precaution is no more than necessary for a prince every
year engaged either in foreign wars or intestine commotions. These
towns have each a governor, whom they call gadare, over whom is the
educ, or lieutenant, and both accountable to an officer called the
afamacon, or mouth of the King; because he receives the revenues,
which he pays into the hands of the relatinafala, or grand master of
the household:
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