1.36 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



unknown in Europe. Oranges, citrons, and limes are in 

 great abundance; wild peaches and fmall figs of a very in- 

 different quality ; black grapes, on loaded branches, hang 

 down from the barren timber round which they are twined, 

 and afford plentiful fupply to man. and beafl : The fields 

 are covered with myrtles and many fpecies of jeffamin ; with 

 rofes too of various colours; but fragrance is denied to them 

 all, except one fort, which is the white one, fingle-leafed *. 



The monks of thefe convents were faid once to be about 

 a thoufand in number. They have a large territory, and 

 pay a tribute in cows and horfes to the Baharnagafh, who 

 is their fuperior. Their horfes are efteemed good, as coming 

 from the neighbourhood of the Arabs. However, though 

 I had the abfolute choice of them all during the time I 

 commanded the king's guard, I never could draw from that 

 part of the country above a fcore of fuffi cient flrength and 

 fize to bear a man in complete armour. 



I shall now leave Don Roderigo to purfue his journey 

 towards the king at Shoa. The hiflory of it, and of his em- 

 baffy, publifhed at large by Alvarez his chaplain, has not 

 met, from the hiflorians of his own country, with a recep- 

 tion which favours the authenticity of its narrative. There 

 are, indeed, in the whole of it, and efpecially where religion 

 is concerned, many things very difficult of belief, which 

 feem to be the work of the Jefuits fome years poflerior to 

 the time in which Alvarez was in Abyflinia. Tellez con- 

 ^demns him, though a writer of thofe times ; and Damianus 



Goez, 



* In Earfeary called Mifota, in Abyflinia, Kagga* 



