33r8 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



cxercifeofarms,patience,perfeverance,andeveTy'military vif- 

 tue that could be acquired; and had pafled the iirll of his life 

 as a private perfon, in the midft of hardfliips and dangers. 



He is celebrated to this day in Abyflinia for a talent, 

 Avhich lecms to be the gift of nature, that of choofing upon 

 the firll view the proper ground for the camp or battle, and 

 embracing, in his own mind in a moment,all the advantages 

 and difadvantages that could refult from any particular part 

 of it. This talent is particularly recorded in feveral ftiort 

 proverbs, or military adages, fuch as the following: " Blind 

 him lirft, or you fhall never beat him." This moft material 

 qualification feemed to have been in part tranfmitted to Ras 

 Michael, the great general in my time, defcended from Soci- 

 nios by his mother; and, by this fuperiority. alone over the 

 other commanders oppofed to him, he is faid to have been 

 victorious in forty-three pitched battles. 



SociNios embraced the Catholic religion from convic5lion, 

 and ftudied it with great application, as far as his narrow 

 means of inllrucftion would allow him; and there can be no 

 doubt that, under the moderate condu<5t of Peter Paez, who 

 converted him, he would have died a martyr for that reli- 

 gion ; and there feems as little reafon to doubt, confcienti- 

 ous as he was^ if he had beeii a young man he would 

 have quitted it for the good of his country, and from his 

 inability to fufFcr the tyranny of the patriarch Alphonfo 

 Mendes, and his continual encroachment upon civil go- 

 vernment. Being, in the laft years of his life, left without 

 one foldier to draw his fword for the Catholic caufc, he kept 

 his religion, anxl abandoned his crown ; and having been, it 

 fliould feem, for fome time convuiced that the govprnment 



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