The Viceroy, In Obedience To The King's Commands, Equipped A Powerful Fleet, Went On Board Himself, And Cruised About The Coast Without Being Able To Discover The Turkish Vessels.

Enraged to find that with this great preparation he should be able to effect nothing, he landed at Mazna four hundred Portuguese, under the command of Don Christopher de Gama, his brother.

He was soon joined by some Abyssins, who had not yet forgot their allegiance to their sovereign; and in his march up the country was met by the Empress Helena, who received him as her deliverer. At first nothing was able to stand before the valour of the Portuguese, the Moors were driven from one mountain to another, and were dislodged even from those places, which it seemed almost impossible to approach, even unmolested by the opposition of an enemy.

These successes seemed to promise a more happy event than that which followed them. It was now winter, a season in which, as the reader hath been already informed, it is almost impossible to travel in Aethiopia. The Portuguese unadvisedly engaged themselves in an enterprise, to march through the whole country, in order to join the Emperor, who was then in the most remote part of his dominions. Mahomet, who was in possession of the mountains, being informed by his spies that the Portuguese were but four hundred, encamped in the plain of Ballut, and sent a message to the general that he knew the Abyssins had imposed on the King of Portugal, which, being acquainted with their treachery, he was not surprised at, and that in compassion of the commander's youth, he would give him and his men, if they would return, free passage, and furnish them with necessaries; that he might consult upon the matter, and depend upon his word, reminding him, however, that it was not safe to refuse his offer.

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