On This, The
Ambassador Of Whom They Spoke Of Was Brought Before Them, To Their Great
Mutual Joy, As He Had Been Ten Years Absent From His Country.
Next day
ten monks came from a neighbouring convent of the Vision to visit
Mathew, and were received in great ceremony by the priests of the fleet
dressed in their surplices.
Great rejoicings were made on occasion of
this meeting between two such distant nations agreeing in the same
faith; and the consequence of this meeting was, that those who from the
beginning had not acknowledged the supremacy of the Roman pontiff, now
submitted to his authoritye[150].
[Footnote 150: The submission of the Abyssinian church to the Roman
pontiff was a mere pretence, which afterwards produced long and bloody
civil wars, and ended in the expulsion of the Portuguese from the
country. - E.]
The kingdom of Prester John, now first visited by Sylveira, is mostly
known by this appellation but improperly, as its right name is the
empire of Abyssinia, Abassia, Habesh, or the higher Ethiopia. It
received the former appellation from the great king Jovarus, who came
to it from the Christians of Tartary, having a cross carried before him
like our bishops, and carrying a cross in his hand, with the title of
Defender of the Faith, as being a Jacobite Christian[151]. The
dominions of this prince are situated between the rivers Nile,
Astabora, and Astapus. To the east they border on the Red Sea for 120
leagues, this being the smallest side, as their whole extent is 670
leagues.
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