j34 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



*' only fix years, was ftoned with him. It was t\it fourth fon 

 -*« he had. I made Yafous believe that the religion of the 

 *V French was the fame with that of Ethiopia," &c. &c. 



From this letter, we fee a boy of fix years old, fon of one 

 of thefe pricfts or friars, was ftoned to death with them; and 

 his heap of ftones appears with thofe of the others. It was» 

 indeed, a common teft of the people fufpe(fted to be priefts, 

 who ftole into Abylfinia, to offer them women, their vows 

 being known, and that they could not marry. I apprehend, 

 to avoid detedlion, one atjeaft of them had broken his vow 

 of celibacy and chaftity, and that this child was the con- 

 fequence, but not the only one, as Enoch fays, in his letter, 

 he had three others ; and this probably was the reafon why 

 the Catholics of thofe times had configned their merit te 

 oblivion, rather than record it with their failings. 



For although we know that there were friars who had 

 been in Ethiopia fince the time of Ouftas, we fhould not have 

 been informed who they were, had it not been for a fmall 

 ■fheet, publillied.at Rome in the year 1774, by a capuchin 

 prieft called Theodofms Volpi, fent to me by my learned 

 and worthy friend the honourable Daines Barrington. From 

 this we find, that thefe three were, Liberate de Wies, apo- 

 ftohcal prefect in Auftria; Michael Pius of Zerbe, in the 

 .province of Padua ; and Samuel dc Beumo, of the Milanefe. 

 The account of their death is the fame as already given, 

 though the pubhflier fuppreffcs the ftoning of the child, 

 and the exigence of the three other, fruits of the feraphic 

 milfion, through the endeavours of father Michael Pius of 

 Zerbe, of the province of Milan. The child, too, ftoned to 

 .death with his father, was fix years old, and was, as Elias 



z fays^ 



