THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. S 35' 



weapon with which they had wounded the late king Ya- 

 fous. But the two Mahometans were mot with mufkets, it 

 having been in that manner they had ended the late king's 

 life, after Dermin had wounded him with a fword. As they 

 had committed high treafon, none of the bodies of thefe 

 traitors were allowed to be buried; they were hewn in fmall 

 pieces with knives, and Itrewed about the ftreets, to be eat 

 by the hyaenas and dogs ; a mofl barbarous and ofTenfive 

 cuftom, to which they flrictly adhere to this very day. 



After having thus taken ample vengeance for the mur- 

 der of his brother Yafous, Theophilus did not Hop here* 

 Tecla Haimanout was, it is true, a parricide, but he was 

 likewife a king, and his nephew ; nor did it feem juit to 

 Theophilus that it mould be left in the will of private fub- 

 jecls, after having acknowledged Tecla Haimanout as their 

 fovereign, to choofe a time afterwards, in which they were 

 to cut him off for a crime which, however great, had not 

 hindered them from fwearing allegiance to him at his ac- 

 ceffion, and entering into his fervice at the time when it 

 was recently committed. He, therefore, ordered all the re- 

 gicides in cuftody to be put to death ; and fent circular let- 

 ters to the feveral governors, that they fhould obferve the 

 fame rule as to allthofe directly concerned in the murder 

 of his nephew Tecla Haimanout, who mould be found in 

 places under their command. 



Tigi, formerly Betwudet, had been imprifoned in Hama- 

 zen, a fmall diftricl near the Red Sea, under the government 

 of Abba Saluce. This man, by birth a Galla, had efcaped 

 from Hamazen, and collected a confiderable army of the dif- 

 ferent tribes of his nation, Liban, Kalkend, and BafTo ; and } 



having 



