340 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



chofe firft to endeavour, by fair means, to induce the igrno-. 

 rant favages to return to reafon and obedience. With this 

 view, he fent to expoftulate with them ; and to beg that, in 

 articles of faith, they would fufFer themfelves to be exami- 

 ned and infbru6ted by men of learning and good life ; not 

 by thofe monks, ignorant like themfelves, from whom 

 they only could learn vice, blafphemy, and rebellion. To 

 this the Damots anfwered, as one man , That, if his friend- 

 ship for them and good intentions were real, he fhould give 

 them, for proof, the immediate burning of all the Latin 

 books which had been tranllated into the Ethiopian lan- 

 guage, and that, then, he fhould hang thofe Jefuits who 

 were with him upon a high tree., 



We are not, however, to confidcr this was really from a 

 convi(5lion or perfuaiion of the Damots, wdio inhabit a pro- 

 vince bordering upon the Agows and Gongas, and their 

 chriilianity much upon a par v/ith that of either of thefe 

 nations. But the fact was, that the fanatics and zealots for 

 the Alexandrian faith had retired in great numbers to Da- 

 mot, as to a province the word affedled to the king, from 

 the recent violence of Julius, who, in an expedition againfl: 

 the Shangalla, by order of the king had driven off the cat- 

 tle of the peaceable Damots, who had been then guilty of 

 no offence. And as thefe were ready to rebel for a quarrel 

 merely their own, it was very eafy for the fchifmatical 

 monks to add this religious grievance to the funi of the 

 preceding. 



Sela Christos had with him about 7000 men, mod of 

 them Catholics and veteran foidiers ; and among theic 40 

 PortuguefCj partly on foot, armed with mufqucts, the others 



1 on 



