3 8o TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



which I imbibed from the appearance and difcourfe of the 

 queen, and of which I now began to be afhamed. 



Gondar, the metropolis of Abyflinia, is fituated upon a 

 hill of considerable height, the top of it nearly plain, on 

 which the town is placed. It confifts of about ten thoufand 

 families in times of peace ; the houfes are chiefly of clay, 

 the roofs thatched in the form of cones, which is always 

 the conilruction within the tropical rains. On the weft end 

 of the town is the king's houfe, formerly a ftructure of con- 

 siderable confequence ; it was a fquare building, flanked 

 with fquare towers ; it was formerly four ftoreys high, and, 

 from the top of it, had a magnificent view of all the coun* 

 try fouthward to the lake Tzana. Great part of this houfe 

 is now in ruins, having been burnt at different times ; but 

 there is Hill ample lodging in the two loweft floors of it^ 

 the audience- chamber being above one hundred and twenty 

 feet long. 



A succession of kings have built apartments by the fide 

 of it of clay only, in the manner and fafhion of their own 

 country ; for the palace itfelf was built by mafons from In- 

 dia, in the time of Facilidas, and by fuch AbyfTinians as 

 had been inftructed in architecture by the Jefuits without 

 embracing their religion, and after remained in the coun- 

 try, unconnected with the expulfion of the Portuguefe, du- 

 i-ing this prince's reign. 



The palace, and all its contiguous buildings, are furround- 

 ed by a fubllantial ftone wall thirty feet high, with battle- 

 ments upon the outer wall, and a parapet roof between the 

 outer and inner, by which you can go along the whole and 



look 



