This Slight Wound I Took Little Notice Of, Till My Arm
Grew Inflamed All Over; In A Short Time The
Poison infected my
blood, and I felt the most terrible convulsions, which were
interpreted as certain signs that my death
Was near and inevitable.
I received now no benefit from bezoar, the horn of the unicorn, or
any of the usual antidotes, but found myself obliged to make use of
an extraordinary remedy, which I submitted to with extreme
reluctance. This submission and obedience brought the blessing of
Heaven upon me; nevertheless, I continued indisposed a long time,
and had many symptoms which made me fear that all the danger was not
yet over. I then took cloves of garlic, though with a great
aversion, both from the taste and smell. I was in this condition a
whole month, always in pain, and taking medicines the most nauseous
in the world. At length youth and a happy constitution surmounted
the malignity, and I recovered my former health.
I continued two years at my residence in Tigre, entirely taken up
with the duties of the mission - preaching, confessing, baptising -
and enjoyed a longer quiet and repose than I had ever done since I
left Portugal. During this time one of our fathers, being always
sick and of a constitution which the air of Abyssinia was very
hurtful to, obtained a permission from our superiors to return to
the Indies; I was willing to accompany him through part of his way,
and went with him over a desert, at no great distance from my
residence, where I found many trees loaded with a kind of fruit,
called by the natives anchoy, about the bigness of an apricot, and
very yellow, which is much eaten without any ill effect. I
therefore made no scruple of gathering and eating it, without
knowing that the inhabitants always peeled it, the rind being a
violent purgative; so that, eating the fruit and skin together, I
fell into such a disorder as almost brought me to my end. The
ordinary dose is six of these rinds, and I had devoured twenty.
I removed from thence to Debaroa, fifty-four miles nearer the sea,
and crossed in my way the desert of the province of Saraoe. The
country is fruitful, pleasant, and populous; there are greater
numbers of Moors in these parts than in any other province of
Abyssinia, and the Abyssins of this country are not much better than
the Moors.
I was at Debaroa when the prosecution was first set on foot against
the Catholics. Sultan Segued, who had been so great a favourer of
us, was grown old, and his spirit and authority decreased with his
strength. His son, who was arrived at manhood, being weary of
waiting so long for the crown he was to inherit, took occasion to
blame his father's conduct, and found some reason for censuring all
his actions; he even proceeded so far as to give orders sometimes
contrary to the Emperor's. He had embraced the Catholic religion,
rather through complaisance than conviction or inclination; and many
of the Abyssins who had done the same, waited only for an
opportunity of making public profession of the ancient erroneous
opinions, and of re-uniting themselves to the Church of Alexandria.
So artfully can this people dissemble their sentiments that we had
not been able hitherto to distinguish our real from our pretended
favourers; but as soon as this Prince began to give evident tokens
of his hatred, even in the lifetime of the Emperor, we saw all the
courtiers and governors who had treated us with such a show of
friendship declare against us, and persecute us as disturbers of the
public tranquillity, who had come into Aethiopia with no other
intention than to abolish the ancient laws and customs of the
country, to sow divisions between father and son, and preach up a
revolution.
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