THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 97 



V/ould have been incomplete without it, I afked my friend 

 Tecla Mariam to mention it to him as from the king. His 

 anfwer was, " 1 have ahxady promifed to get it for Yagoube, 

 the meffenger by this time is in Amhara ; depend upon it, 

 my father will not fail to let me have it ; for fear of miflake, 

 I iiave difpatched a very intelligent man, who knows and 

 has feen the book at Debra Libanos." The promife was 

 pundually kept, tb.e book came, and from it I have drawn 

 the hiftory of the Adelan war, and the reign of thofe kings 

 who had not yet returned to Axum, but reigned in Shoa. 



One evening I inquired of him concerning the ftory 

 which the Poriuguefe heard, at the difcovery of Benin, 

 that the blacks of that country had intercourfe with a 

 Chriftian inland ftate they acknowledged as fovereign, from 

 which they procured the inveaiture of their lands, as has 

 been already mentioned in the beginning of this work ? 

 whether any fuch commerce did exill with Shoa at prefent, 

 or if traces remained of it in older times ? if there was any 

 other Chriftian or Jewilh ftate in^his neighbourhood to 

 which this defcription could apply*? He faid they knew 

 nothing of Benin at Shoa, nor had he ever heard of the 

 name, nor any cuftom of the kind that I had mentioned, 

 which either then did, or ever had prevailed in Shoa : he 

 knew of no Chriftian ftate farther to the fouthward, except- 

 ing Narea, a great part of which was conquered by the 

 Galla, who were Pagans. The blacks that were next to 

 Shoa, he faid, were exceedingly fierce, warlike, and cruel ; 

 worie than the Galla, and of the fame kind with the Shan- 

 gallain Abyffinia. 1 he other nations were partly Mahometan, 

 Vol. IV. . N but 



* Conquetes des Portugais, liv. i. p. 46, Lafitan. 



