714 Report on Shoa [No. 140. 



History of the Abyssinian Church. — Continued. 



Miserable indeed appeared the chance of conversion, and after a fierce 

 struggle of thirty years, there remained not one priest of the Romish 

 faith, to administer the Sacraments to the numerous European settlers 

 and descendants in the country. Even the Jesuits themselves lost 

 heart for the time ; but the zeal of Philip the Second stirred the dying 

 embers, and fresh candidates for strife, honor, and martyrdom, were soon 

 in the field. 



Peter Pero Pays and Antonio de Mantzerado, disguised as Armenian 

 merchants, first attempted the perilous quest, but being wrecked on the 

 Arabian coast, they were recognized as Christian ministers, and lan- 

 guished during seven years in a Moslem dungeon. 



Goa next poured forth her priests to the ineffectual contest in seeking 

 the promised land. Abraham de Georgis was discovered in Turkish garb 

 on the island of Massowah, and the governor swore by the Holy Pro- 

 phet, that since the Kafir had donned the attire of the true believer, 

 he should also adopt the tenets of the true faith, or die the death of a 

 dog. But the Jesuit clung to his creed and suffered accordingly, and 

 shortly afterwards Jean Baptiste being detected in the assumed costume 

 by the Turks of Commera, he also shared the same fate as his imme- 

 diate predecessor in the thorny path of martyrdom. 



Thus even the road itself seemed to close, and all intercourse was 

 denied with a country, wherein the presence of Europeans was neither 

 sought for nor desired ; and which would have been suffered to remain 

 unmolested, had not ideas been inflamed by the exaggerated accounts of 

 its wealth, that still pervaded the imagination of all classes throughout 

 the Western world. 



Don Alexis de Menezes, the zealous Archbishop of Goa, who had 

 already with fire and sword propagated Christianity in all Malabar, now 

 entered the lists, and his sagacious and discerning mind selected the 

 vicar of St. Anne as a fit tool for the execution of his project. Melchior 

 Sylva, a converted Brahmin, might from his colour and language pass 

 through the Turkish wicket ; his zeal was great as that of his superior, 

 and the valuable presents whereof he was made the bearer, might prove 

 a bait sufficiently tempting to lure the simple Abyssinian into a fresh 

 connexion. 



