THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. s^5 



weapon with which they had wounded the Ir.tc hir f; Ya- 

 fous. But the two Mahometans were fhot with miukets, it 

 having been in that manner they had ended the late king's 

 Hfe, after Dermin had wounded him with a fwcrd. As they 

 had committed high treafon, none of the bodies of thefc 

 traitors were allowed to be buried ; they were hewn in fmall 

 pieces with knives, and Hrewed about the llreets, to be eat 

 by the hyenas and dogs ; a moft barbarous and offenfive 

 cuftom, to which they llridtly adhere to this very day. 



After having thus taken ample vengeance for the miir- 

 der of his brother Yafous, Theophilus did not flop here. 

 Tecla Haimanout was, it is true, a parricide, but he was 

 likewife a king, and his nephew ; nor did it feem jull to 

 Theophilus that it fhould be left in the will of private fub- 

 jecTrs, after having acknowledged Tecla Haimanout as their 

 fovereign, to choofe a time afterwards, in which they were 

 to cut him off for a crime which, however great, had not 

 hindered them from fwearing allegiance to him at his ac- 

 ceffion, and entering into his fervice at the time when it 

 was recently committed. He, therefore, ordered all the re- 

 gicides in cuitody to be put lo death ; and fent circular let- 

 ters to the feveral governors, that they fliould obferve the 

 fame rule as to all thofe dire(ftiy concerned in the murder 

 of his nephew Tecla Haimanout, who Ihould be found in 

 pjaces under their command. 



TiGi, formerly Betwudet, had been imprifoned in Hama- 

 zen, a f.nall didritfl near the Red Sea, under the government 

 of Abba Salucc. This man, by birth a Galla, had efcapcd 

 •from Kamazen, and colledted a confiderable ariny of the dif- 

 ferent tribes of his nation, Liban, Kalkend, and BalTo ; and, 



having 



