266 RECOLLECTIONS OF FOPTF YEARS. 



Abyssinia, the Patriarch Juan Bermudez, who had 

 been sent several years previously to negotiate an 

 alliance with Portugal, returned from Lisbon, and he 

 drew so graphic a picture of the disasters of Abyssinia 

 that the king sent orders to the Viceroy of the Indies 

 to send four hundred soldiers to Massowah. Don 

 Stephano de Gama, brother of Yasco, who was Yiceroy 

 of the Indies, determined to land Juan Bermudez with 

 the promised troops on the coast of Abyssinia, and his 

 fleet passed through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to 

 Massowah. These troops, commanded by Martin 

 Correa, seized the town of Ashiko and put all the 

 inhabitants to the sword, Martin Correa cutting off 

 the head of the Moorish commander and sending it as 

 a present to Queen Sabel-Venghel, who was at that 

 time residing in a fortress of the kingdom of Tigre. 



Don Stephano de Gama, returning to India, left his 

 younger brother, Christopher, behind him with some 

 of the best of the Portuguese troops, and the latter, 

 after combating the Turks with varying success, was 

 eventually made prisoner by the treachery of a 

 Mahometan woman with whom he had fallen in 

 love, and delivered up to Mehemet the Left-handed, 

 who had his head cut off and sent it to Constanti- 

 nople, his body being divided among the tribes of 

 Arabia. 



Mehemet also seized the Portuguese camp and 

 allowed his men to despatch all the wounded, but 

 when the Turks pursued the women to the lines of 



