3 i6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



wall. St George is generally there with his dragon, and St 

 Demetrius fighting a lion. There is no choice in their 

 faints, they are. both of the Old and New Teftament, and 

 thofe that might be difpenfed with from both. There is 

 St Pontius Pilate and his wife ; there is St Balaam and his 

 afs ; Samfon and his jaw-bone ; and fo of the reft. But the 

 thing that furprifed me moft was a kind of fquare-minia- 

 ture upon the front of the head-piece, or mitre, of the prieft, 

 adminiftring the facrament at Adowa, reprefenting Pharaoh 

 on a white horfe plunging in the Red Sea, with many guns 

 and piftols fwimming upon the furface of it around him. . 



Nothing emboffed, nor in relief, ever appears in any of 

 their churches ; all this would be reckoned idolatry, fo much 

 fo that they do not wear a crofs, as has been reprefented, on 

 the top of the ball of the fendick, or ftandard, becaufe it calls 

 a made ; but there is no doubt that pictures have been 

 ufed in their churches from the very earlieft age of Chri- 

 ftianity. 



The Abuna is looked upon as the patriarch of the Abyf- 

 fmian church, for they have little knowledge of the Coptic 

 patriarch of Alexandria. We are perfectly ignorant of the 

 hiflory of thefe prelates for many years after their appoint- 

 ment. The firfl of thefe mentioned is Abuna Tecla Haima- 

 nout, who diflinguifhed himfelf by the refloration of the 

 royal family, and the regulations he made both in church 

 and ilate, as we have feen in the hiflory of thofe times : a 

 very remarkable, but wife regulation was then made, that 

 the Abvfiinians mould not have it in their power to choofe 

 one of their own countrymen as Abuna. 



Wisi. 



