THE SOURCE OF THENILE. y^^ 



the miflionary and the ambafTador, was ftill hefitating whe- 

 ther to allow them to proceed, when Manqucr, who fled 

 from Amelmal, arrived. Aliko, hearing from this in- 

 cendiary, that the father's errand was to bring Portii- 

 guefe that way from hrdia to defcroy the Mahometan faith, 

 as in former times, burft into fuch violent rage as to 

 threaten the father, and all with him, with death, which 

 nothing but the reality of the king's letters, of which he had 

 got alTurance from Baharo, and fome regard' to the law of. 

 nations, on account of the ambafl'ador Fecur Egzie, could 

 have prevented, hi the mean time, he put them all in clofe 

 prifon, where feveral of the Portuguefe died. At laft, after 

 a council held, in which Manquer gave his voice for piu- 

 ting them to death, a man of fuperior character in that 

 country advifed the fending them back to Amelmal, the 

 way that they came ; and this meafure was accordingly adop- 

 ted. 



They returned, therefore, from Cambat, and thence to 

 Gorgora, without any fort of advantage to themfelves or to 

 us, only what arifes from that opporttmity of redifying the 

 geography of the country through which they palled ; and 

 even for this they, have fumifliedbut very fcanty materials, 

 in comparifon of what we might reafonably have expedled, 

 without having occafioned any additional fatigue to them- 

 felves. 



We have already faid, that though Socinios had no6 

 openly declared his refolution of embracing the Catholic 

 faith, yet he had gone fo far as to declare, upon the dif- 

 pute held between the Catholic and fchifmatic clergy, in 

 his own prefence and that of the Abuna, that the Abyffinian 



3- difputants 



