THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. t^iy 



plain ; every confideration, therefore, feemed to perfuade a 

 rpeedy decilion, but the confequences of the laft engagement 

 feemed to have damped the fpirit of the rebels, without ha- 

 ving much raifed that of the king's army. In facfl, the 

 days were dark and wet, and the nights cold, circumftan- 

 ces in which no Abyffinian choofes to fight. The army 

 was thinly cloathed, or not cloathed at all, and encamped on 

 high ground, where fuel, though it had not failed them yet, 

 mull foon have done fo. 



An accident that happened this night had nearly brought 

 about a revolution which the wifell heads had laboured 

 for many years in vain. Ras Michael had retired to bed at 

 his ordinary time, fomewhat before eleven o'clock, and a 

 lamp was left burning as ufual in his tent, for he was afraid 

 oi fpirits. He was juft fallen afleep, when he felt a man's 

 arm reach into the bed over him, wdiich he immediately 

 feized hold of, crying to his attendants, at the fame time, 

 for help. Thofe that ran firfl: into the tent threw down the 

 lamp and put out the light, fo that the man would have 

 -efcaped, had not the people behind got about him*, and 

 endeavoured to hold him down, while entangled in, and 

 flruggling with the cords of the tent. The iirft perfcm that 

 feized him was a favourite fervant of the Ras, a young man 

 named Laeca Mariam, of a good family in Tigre ; he, not 

 perceiving his danger for want of light, received^a llab with 

 a broad knife, which pierced his heart, fo that he fell with- 

 out fpeaking a word. Numbers immediately fecured the 

 alTaffin, who was found to have dropt one knife within the 

 Ras's tent, wiih which he had attempted at firft to have 

 ilabbed him : but he was found to have another knife, 

 two-edged, and fliarp in the point, fixed along his arm, with 



T 2 which 



