THL ooURCE OF THE NILE. 493; 



his ordering the lad Jefuit Bernard Nogueyra, to be public- 

 ly hanged. Now Gondar was not built till the end of the 

 reign of Hannes I. who was grandfon to Socinios, that is 

 about the year 1680. Unlefs, then, thefe holy Jefuits, who, 

 if we believe the mifiionaries, had all of them a fight into 

 futurity before their martyrdom, had, from thefe their laji 

 vifwns^ defcribed Gondar as capital of Abymnia, it does not 

 occur to me how they mould be hiftorians of a fact that 

 had not exiftence till 50 years after they were dead. 



Thirdly, Poncet fpeaks of towns and villages in Ethio* 

 pia ; whereas it is known there are no towns, villages, or ci- 

 ties, but Axum. — I believe that if the Abymnians, who built 

 the large and magnificent city of Axum, never had other 

 cities, towns, and villages,, they were in this the moll lin- 

 gular people upon earth ; or, if places where 6000 inhabi- 

 tants live together in contiguous houfes, feparated with 

 broad ftreets where there are churches and markets, be not 

 towns and villages, I do not know the meaning of the term ;. 

 but if thefe are towns, Poncet hath faid truth ; and many 

 more fuch towns, which, he never did fee nor defcribe, are 

 in Abyffinia at this day. 



Fourthly, The- Abymnians live, and always have lived 9 

 in tents, not in houfes. — It would have been a very extraor- 

 dinary idea in people living in tents to have built fuch a ci^ 

 ty as Axum, whofe ruins are as large as thofe of Alexandria ;• 

 and it would be ftill more extraordinary, that people, in fuch 

 a climate as Abyfiinia^n the whole of which there is fcorching 

 weather for fix months, deluges of rain, ftorms of wind, thun- 

 der, lightning, and hurricanes, fuch as are unknown in 

 Europe, for the other fix, mould choofe to live in tents, after 

 3 knowing 



