The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller Part 8

A rival king now stood up to oppose Socinios, and the whole country was filled with rebellion and bloodshed. Socinios resolving publicly to renounce the Alexandrian faith and to profess the Catholic, Paez most willingly came forward, and with great pomp received his confession.

Delighted that his great object was at last attained, Paez, during the heat of the day, returned to his house with his head uncovered, triumphantly saying the "Nunc dimittis!" "Lord! now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation!" and from being thus exposed to the burning sun, aided perhaps by the highly excited state of his feelings, he was taken violently ill, and died of a raging fever on the 3d of May, 1624.

After the death of Paez, Alphonso Mendez, a Jesuit doctor of divinity, and a man of great learning, having been ordained at Lisbon on the 25th of May, 1625, reached Abyssinia the following year. Accompanied by several missionaries, they experienced very great difficulties and dangers in crossing the country to join King Socinios. When they at length presented themselves before the king, he ordered Mendez to be placed on his right hand; and at that very audience (on the 11th of February, 1626) it was settled that Socinios should take an oath of religious submission to the See of Rome. This ceremony was celebrated with all the pageantry of a heathen festival. The palace was adorned with great pomp, and Mendez there preached a sermon to the king and his people, in Portuguese and Latin, not a word of either of which languages could they understand. In return, a sermon was preached to Mendez, and the missionaries who attended him, in the Amharic, which was equally unintelligible to them. When this prelude was over, Mendez advanced, holding in his hand the New Testament, and upon that sacred volume Socinios, the degraded king of Abyssinia, was made to take the following oath, the Jesuit Mendez standing by his side:

"We, Sultan Sequed, emperor of Ethiopia, do believe and confess that St.

Peter, prince of the apostles, was const.i.tuted by Christ our Lord head of the whole Christian Church; and that he gave him the princ.i.p.ality and dominion over the whole world, by saying to him, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church; and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven;' and again, when he said, 'Feed my sheep.'

Also we believe and confess, that the pope at Rome, lawfully elected, is the true successor of St. Peter the apostle in government; that he holdeth the same power, dignity, and primacy in the whole Christian Church; and to the holy father, Urban VIII. of that name, by the mercy of G.o.d, pope, and our lord, and to his successor in the government of the church, we do promise, offer, and swear true obedience, and subject with humility at his feet our person and empire: so help us G.o.d, and these holy gospels."

What an abject picture is here presented to us! and how melancholy the change in the aspect of the Christian faith, since we saw it first established among the simple inhabitants of Abyssinia!

As soon as the oath was concluded, one of the king's governors drew his sword, and swore that he would punish with that weapon any one who should fall from his religious vows; and that he would even be the greatest enemy of his prince if he should desert the Catholic faith.

These declarations were repeated by many of the officers of state. A solemn excommunication was then p.r.o.nounced against all who did not keep the oath, and a proclamation was immediately issued, requiring all persons intending to become priests to embrace the Catholic religion under pain of death; and that all persons should follow the forms of the Church of Rome in the celebration of Easter and Lent, under the same dreadful penalty. Mendez vigorously followed up his success. The Abyssinian clergy were reordained; the churches were reconsecrated; grown men as well as children were again baptized; the feasts and festivals of the Church of Rome were established; and the forms and tenets of the Alexandrian faith were formally abrogated.

Mendez, however, had overacted his part: unlike Paez, he had neglected to make himself competent first to lead the people whom he so hastily desired to drive; and, in a short time, a violent reaction naturally took place. The Abyssinians, still simple in their habits, and long accustomed to the placid enjoyment of unaffected devotion, soon felt that there was no real satisfaction to be derived from repeating prayers in words which they could not comprehend. The king, meanwhile, finding that his own power was gradually diminishing, and that he was losing the affections as well as the obedience of his subjects, patiently listened to their complaints: impressed by the native eloquence with which they insisted on their right of addressing the Almighty in their own language, he at length yielded to their request; and, though he himself continued to follow the tenets of the Church of Rome, declared that, by his people, prayers need no longer be uttered in a foreign tongue.

This concession, apparently simple and un.o.bjectionable, was fatal to the views of Mendez. As long, therefore, as he was able, he obstinately resisted; but the voice of the people so resounded in his ears, that he was very shortly obliged to pretend to submit, although in secret he still did everything in his power to uphold his system. Thus Abyssinia again became, as might naturally be expected, a scene of war; and Tellez, the Portuguese historian, has published a long list of the names of those who died in that country, martyrs to the Catholic faith. Many battles were fought; and, for a considerable period, Socinios, who still strenuously supported the religion of Rome, met with continued defeats; until adversity, that stern but useful monitor, at last made him sensible of the error he had committed. "These men whom you see slaughtered," said one of his n.o.bles rudely to him on a field of battle, "were neither Pagans nor Mohammedans: they were Christians, once your subjects and your friends. In killing these you drive the sword into your own vitals." Still, however, the Jesuit Mendez hovered around him, and for some time succeeded in keeping him in arms; but the spell was at last broken, and Socinios, seeing that his subjects were all deserting him, issued, on the 14th of June, 1632, the following singular proclamation:

"Hear us! hear us! hear us! First of all, we gave you the Roman Catholic faith, as thinking it a good one; but many people have died fighting against it, and lastly these rude peasants of Lasta. Now, therefore, we restore to you the faith of your ancestors; let your own priests say their ma.s.s in their own churches; let the people have their own altars for the sacrament, and their own liturgy, and be happy! As for myself, I am now old, and worn out with war and infirmities, and no longer capable of governing: I name my son, Facilidas, to reign in my stead."

Thus in one day fell the whole fabric of the Roman Catholic faith and hierarchy in Abyssinia. Socinios lingered for two or three months after this, and died firmly professing himself a Catholic to the last.

As soon as the new king had buried his father, he began to compose those disorders which had so long distracted the country from difference of religion. Accordingly, he at once wrote to Mendez to inform him that the Alexandrian faith being now restored, his leaving the country had become indispensable. He therefore commanded him and the Catholic priests to retire to Fremona, there to await his farther pleasure.

Mendez, by subtle arguments, persuasions, and, lastly, by entreaties, endeavoured to evade, or, at least, to defer the execution of this mandate; but his words were now powerless, and he was peremptorily told that if he did not depart, the time might arrive when it would be too late for him to do so.

He and his companions were accordingly conducted by a party of soldiers. On the road they were robbed and ill-treated, their guards conniving at the attack; and at the end of April, 1633, they reached Fremona. Among the Jesuits who accompanied Mendez was Jerome Lobo, one of the most bigoted of the Portuguese, yet a man of enterprise and talent, who had travelled over the greatest part of Abyssinia. For a short time it was determined by these banished monks to send Lobo to India or Spain, to solicit troops for the country. The king, however, perfectly aware of all that pa.s.sed, ordered the Jesuits at once to set out for Masuah. On receiving this command, they managed, at the suggestion of Lobo, to escape to the protection of a man of considerable power who favoured them. The king wrote to this person, and desired him to give them up, which he declined to do; but, by an odd sort of compromise, agreed, instead of it, to sell them to the Turks.

The whole were accordingly, for a certain sum, delivered to the Basha of Masuah. As soon as the intelligence reached Europe of the loss of Abyssinia to the See of Rome, it became a subject of most violent discussion. Many of the Catholic clergy insisted that the failure had proceeded from the pride, obstinacy, and violence of the Jesuits; and it was therefore determined at Rome to send to that country six French capuchins of the reformed order of St. Francis.

Two of these attempted to enter Abyssinia by the Indian Ocean; but, shortly after their landing, they were ma.s.sacred. Two succeeded in making their way into the country, and they suffered martyrdom by being most barbarously stoned to death. The remaining two gave up the attempt, and returned to Europe to report the sad fate of their companions. Three other capuchins, deaf to the stern admonition which their church had thus received from Abyssinia, volunteered their services to make a new endeavour for the conversion, as it was termed, of that country. They accordingly set out on their journey; and, after encountering very considerable difficulties and hardships, at last succeeded in reaching Suakem. The bashaw of this place had been previously written to by the King of Abyssinia, who, after acquainting him with the expected arrival of these three priests, concluded by earnestly requesting him to "treat them," as he said, "according to their merits." As soon, therefore, as they landed, their heads were cut off, and the skins of their sculls and faces were stripped, stuffed, and sent off to the King of Abyssinia at Gondar, "to satisfy him," as it was declared, "that these people had met with the attention which they deserved."

There was no mistaking the meaning of this most unjust and barbarous act; and when intelligence of it reached the Vatican, all hopes of converting Abyssinia vanished.

In the year 1698, the reigning King of Abyssinia, being exceedingly indisposed, sent to Cairo for a physician. Charles Poncet, a Frenchman at Cairo, who had been bred up as a chymist and apothecary, set out accordingly for Abyssinia, privately supported by Louis XIV., and taking with him, disguised as a servant, Father Brevedent, a French Jesuit.

They travelled up the Nile, remained for some time at Sennaar, and at length arrived in Abyssinia, where Brevedent, worn out by the climate and the fatigue of his journey, died. In the year 1700 Poncet left Gondar, having repaired the const.i.tution of the King of Abyssinia at the expense of his own, which was completely exhausted by the hardships to which it had been subjected. He proceeded to Masuah, embarked on the Red Sea, and reached Cairo, whence he proceeded to Paris, and published an account of his travels.

Four years afterward, the King of Abyssinia having favourably received several French letters which had been addressed to him, M. du Roule, vice-consul at Damietta, was selected by Louis XIV. to proceed as his amba.s.sador to Abyssinia; and in July, 1704, he left Cairo for that purpose; but a quarrel had now broken out among two parties of Capuchins and Franciscans, between whom a most violent jealousy existed respecting the conversion of Abyssinia. It has been supposed that this jealousy was the secret cause of M. du Roule's death. As this traveller was quitting Sennaar on his journey towards Abyssinia, he was surrounded in the large square which is before the king's house. Four blacks murdered him with their sabres; Gentil, his French servant, fell next, and his three other companions were then inhumanly butchered.

When the King of Abyssinia heard of Du Roule's murder, he was much disappointed and displeased, for he had really been desirous of receiving this French amba.s.sador, as well as the valuable presents which he supposed he would bring with him. Unable to detect the sinister conspiracy which had caused his death, he conceived that it had taken place at the instigation of the Pasha of Cairo; and he accordingly addressed to him and to his divan the following very singular communication:

_Translation of an Arabic Letter from the King of Abyssinia to the Pasha and Divan of Cairo._

"To the Pasha and Lords of the Militia of Cairo:

"On the part of the King of Abyssinia, the King Tecla Haimanout, son of the King of the Church of Abyssinia.

"On the part of the august king, the powerful arbiter of nations, shadow of G.o.d upon earth, the guide of kings who profess the religion of the Messiah, the most powerful of all Christian kings, maintainer of order between Mohammedans and Christians, protector of the confines of Alexandria, observer of the commandments of the Gospel, heir from father to son of a most powerful kingdom, descended of the family of David and Solomon--may the blessing of Israel be upon our prophet, and upon them; may his happiness be durable, and his greatness lasting; and may his powerful army be always feared! To the most powerful lord, elevated by his dignity, venerable by his merits, distinguished by his strength and riches among all Mohammedans, the refuge of all those that reverence him, who by his prudence governs and directs the armies of the n.o.ble empire, and commands his confines; victorious viceroy of Egypt, the four corners of which shall always be respected and defended--So be it! And to all the distinguished princes, judges, men of learning, and other officers, whose business it is to maintain order and good government, and to all commanders in general--may G.o.d preserve them all in their dignities, in the n.o.bleness of their health! You are to know, that our ancestors never bore any envy to other kings, nor did they ever occasion them any trouble, or show them any mark of hatred. On the contrary, they have, upon all occasions, given them proofs of their friendship, a.s.sisting them generously, relieving them in their necessities, as well in what concerns the caravan and pilgrims of Mecca in Arabia Felix, as in the Indies, in Persia, and other distant and out-of-the-way places; also, by protecting distinguished persons in every urgent necessity.

"Nevertheless, when the King of France, our brother, who professes our religion and our law, having been induced thereto by some advances of friendship on our part such as are proper, sent an amba.s.sador to us; I understand that you caused to arrest him at Sennaar; and also another, by name Murat, the Syrian, whom likewise you did put in prison, though he was sent to that amba.s.sador on our part; and, by thus doing, you have violated the law of nations; as amba.s.sadors of kings ought to be at liberty to go wherever they will; and it is a general obligation to treat them with honour, and not to molest or detain them; nor should they be subject to pay customs, or any sort of presents. We could very soon repay you in kind, if we were inclined to revenge the insult you have offered to the man Murat, sent on our part. _The Nile would be sufficient to punish you, since G.o.d hath put into our power his fountain, his outlet, and his increase, and that we can dispose of the same to do you harm_: for the present, we demand of and exhort you to desist from any future vexations towards our envoys, and not disturb us by detaining those who shall be sent towards you; but you shall let them pa.s.s, and continue their route without delay, coming and going wherever they will, freely for their own advantage, whether they are our subjects or Frenchmen; and whatever you shall do to or for them, we shall regard as done to or for ourselves!"

The address is, "To the basha, princes, and lords governing the town of great Cairo, may G.o.d favour them with his goodness."

The king, who had invited M. du Roule into his country, was shortly afterward a.s.sa.s.sinated while he was hunting; and the reign of his successor was a series of petty wars and commotions.

Several years afterward the Abyssinians resolved to invade Sennaar; but their army, which is said to have amounted to eighteen thousand men, either perished by the sword or by thirst, or were made prisoners. All the sacred reliques, which the Abyssinian troops carry with them to ensure victory, were conveyed in triumph to Sennaar, and with great difficulty the king escaped to his palace at Gondar.

About the year 1735, some misfortune having happened to the Christians at Smyrna, they flocked to Cairo: finding themselves very badly received there, several sailed up the Red Sea on their way to India, and, missing the monsoon, and being dest.i.tute of money and necessaries, a few of them ventured to land at Masuah. They were silversmiths; and as the King of Abyssinia happened at the moment of their landing to be much in want of European workmen to a.s.sist him in adorning his palace, these men were ordered to come to Gondar, where they remained for some time in the king's service, and afterward gained a moderate livelihood by ornamenting saddles, &c.

Great jealousies now began to be entertained in Abyssinia on account of the favour shown to some of the Galla chieftains, who were brought to court and received with distinction. Violent dissensions took place: two kings successively met with a violent death; one being a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the other poisoned by Ras Michael, the governor of the province of Tigre, a most singular personage, with whom the reader will very shortly be made acquainted.

King Tecla Haimanout succeeded to the throne; and the same year, 1769, James Bruce, the enterprising hero of these pages, landed at Masuah.

Since the death of M. du Roule, which took place seventy years before Bruce's arrival, Abyssinia had been so much forgotten in Europe that it seemed almost to have been blotted from the map of the world. The immense distance, the climate in which it was situated, the deserts which nearly surrounded it, and the barbarous character of the nations on its borders, were of themselves quite sufficient to deter any ordinary traveller; and the dangers of the route, great as they really were, had been much exaggerated by the disappointed and expelled Romanists. The great link which had so long connected Abyssinia with Europe, namely, the attempt to convert it to the See of Rome, had been violently broken, and the chasm which now separated them no one seemed desirous to pa.s.s.

Having thus given a short sketch of so much of the history of Abyssinia as seemed absolutely necessary to interest the reader in the following narrative, it remains only to be observed, that Bruce has furnished a minute account (which occupies about a thousand pages of his volumes) of the reigns of the several kings of Abyssinia, with descriptions of their persons, their petty feuds and dissensions, their wars with the Moors, the Galla, and the Falasha (or Jews), the burning of their churches, their savage treatment of the Shangalla tribes, &c. The general reader will, however, feel probably but little curiosity to spend his time over the records of so remote a country; and more particularly as, after all, they are not implicitly to be relied on.

FOOTNOTE:

[25] With very great difficulty, Bruce succeeded in getting the whole book of Canticles translated into each of these languages.

CHAPTER IX.

Bruce's Arrival and dangerous Detention in Masuah.

Masuah is a small island on the Abyssinian sh.o.r.e, standing in front of the town of Arkeeko, and forming an excellent harbour: it is three quarters of a mile in length, by about half that distance in breadth.

One third of it is occupied by houses, one third by cisterns to receive rain-water, and the remainder is reserved as a place of burial.

Masuah was once a place of great commerce, possessing a share of the Indian trade; but its importance declined from the time when, with several other towns of the western coast of the Red Sea, it fell under the dominion of Selim, emperor of Constantinople.

When the Turks first came in possession of this island, a governor was sent to it from Constantinople; but its commerce having been ruined, it was soon found not to be worth the expense attending the establishment of a pashalic. The pasha was accordingly withdrawn; and the Turks, having been a.s.sisted in their conquest of the place by a chieftain of the mountains of Habab, he was created Naybe or Governor of Masuah, holding his t.i.tle by a firman from the Ottoman Porte, to which he agreed to pay an annual tribute. The janisaries who had formed the Turkish garrison were left in the island, and, intermarrying with its inhabitants, they soon introduced into the country the lawless, predatory, despotic notions of their race.

The naybe, who thus became, in fact, the sovereign of the island, observing the great distance which separated him from the Turks in Arabia, whose garrisons were daily decaying; finding also that he was completely dependant upon Abyssinia for provisions, and even for water, soon perceived that he had better make advances to a country from which he could obtain both sustenance and protection. It was accordingly agreed between the King of Abyssinia and the naybe, that the former should receive one half of the customs of the port of Masuah, for which the latter should be permitted to enjoy his government unmolested, and purchase from Abyssinia whatever provisions, &c., he might require. The friendship of Abyssinia being thus secured, and the power of the Turks constantly declining in Arabia, the naybe began gradually to withdraw himself from paying tribute to the Pasha of Jidda, to whose government he had been annexed by the Porte. He, in short, annually received his firman as a matter of form, offering in return trifling presents, but giving nothing in the way of tribute.

It has already been stated, that, a short time before Bruce arrived at Masuah, Abyssinia, under the influence of its minister, Ras Michael, had been plunged into a war, and the great province of Tigre (bordering on the little dominion of Masuah) being thus drained of its troops, the naybe fraudulently availed himself of the opportunity to decline paying any longer his share of the customs to the crown of Abyssinia. This daring step he was induced to take from the peculiar situation in which Abyssinia seemed to be placed. Michael, the ras or governor of Tigre, having lately caused King Joas to be a.s.sa.s.sinated, sent to the Mountain of Wechne, upon which the royal princes were confined, for Hatze Hamnes, an imbecile, superst.i.tious old man. On its being observed to him that Hamnes had only one hand, and that, by a most ancient custom, he was on this account ineligible for the throne, Michael angrily exclaimed, "What have kings to do with hands?" and no one daring to answer him, Hamnes was declared King of Abyssinia. Hatze Hamnes, whom Ras Michael had thus placed upon the throne, was more than seventy years of age, and Michael himself was not only nearly eighty, but lame, and scarcely able to stand. The naybe of Masuah, who was in the vigour of life, fancied, therefore, that he might safely despise a government which appeared to him to be in its dotage; but in this he was greatly mistaken. No sooner had he declared his intention of retaining the whole of the customs of Masuah, than the old ras informed him "that in the next campaign he would lay waste Arkeeko and Masuah, until they should be as desert as the wilds of Samhar!" and as the ras, during the whole of his eventful life, had always very faithfully performed all promises of this nature, many of the foreign merchants at Masuah fled from the approaching storm to Arabia. Still, however, the naybe showed no signs of fear, nor would he give the smallest portion of his revenues either to the King of Abyssinia or to the Pasha of Jidda.

Masuah was in this disturbed state, when information was received there from Jidda that a prince, a very near relation of the King of England, a person who was no trader, but, strange to say, was travelling only to visit different countries and people, was about to arrive at Masuah in his way to Abyssinia. When this intelligence arrived, the naybe and his councillors a.s.sembled to determine what was to be done with the English prince. Several proposed that he should at once be put to death, and his property divided among themselves. This expeditious and customary mode of receiving a stranger at Masuah was opposed by others, who more prudently recommended that they should first see what letters the stranger might bring with him, lest, by murdering him, they should add fuel to the fire with which Ras Michael and the Pasha of Jidda had already threatened to consume them. But Achmet, the naybe's nephew, n.o.bly maintained that, whether the stranger had letters or not, his rank ought to protect him; that to murder him would be to act like banditti; that a sufficient quant.i.ty of the blood of strangers had been already shed; and that, in his opinion, it had brought the curse of poverty upon the place. He observed, also, that he had heard of a salute which had been fired at Jidda in compliment to this stranger, and he remarked that half that number of ships and guns would lay Masuah and Arkeeko as desolate as Ras Michael had already threatened to leave them. Achmet therefore proposed that the Englishman should be received and treated with marks of consideration, until, on inspecting his letters and conversing with him, they might be able to judge what sort of a person he was, and on what errand he came; and that, if it should turn out that he was one of those foreign disturbers of the country who had heretofore occasioned so much trouble, then, indeed, they might treat him with as much severity as they pleased. There was both eloquence and prudence in Achmet's speech; besides which, he was the heir-apparent of his uncle the naybe. His opinion and arguments were therefore approved of by all, and it was agreed that the fate of the English prince should be left at his disposal.

Bruce was always of opinion that the salute with which he had been honoured in the port of Jidda was the means of saving his life on his landing in Abyssinia; and, if so, it may fairly be said that his own good conduct, which had obtained for him this mark of the approbation of his countrymen, was, under Providence, the cause of his escaping alive from Masuah, that slaughter-house of strangers.

On the 19th of September, 1769, Bruce and his party, little aware of the debate which had been held respecting them, arrived at Masuah, tired of the sea, and eagerly desirous to land. The Pasha of Jidda, determined to obtain the tribute which was due to him from the naybe of Masuah, had prevailed upon the Sherriffe of Mecca to send over with Bruce Mohammed Gibberti, who was ordered peremptorily to demand payment from the naybe, and also privately to request Ras Michael to lend his aid in compelling him to fulfil his engagement.

Mohammed Gibberti, a sincere friend to Bruce's interests, landed therefore immediately; and being an Abyssinian, and having also connexions at Masuah, he managed to despatch that same night to Adowa, the capital of Tigre, letters, by which Ras Michael and the court of Abyssinia were informed that Bruce had arrived at Masuah, bearing letters from the Sherriffe of Mecca, from the Greek Patriarch of Cairo, &c., &c.; but that, being afraid of the naybe, he begged some one might be immediately sent to protect him. These letters were addressed to the care of Janni, a Greek, who was then residing at Adowa, in Tigre. He was a man of excellent character, had served two kings of Abyssinia, and had been lately appointed by Ras Michael to the custom-house of Adowa, to superintend the affairs of the revenue during the time that the ras was occupied at Gondar.

As soon as these despatches had left Masuah, Mohammed Gibberti waited upon Achmet and the naybe, and adroitly confirmed in their minds the impression they had already received of Bruce's importance. He told them of the firman which he carried with him from the Grand Seignior, of his acquaintance with the Sherriffe of Mecca, of the honours he had received from his countrymen, and of the surprising power and wealth of his nation.