59§ TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



poffibility of reigning after him. Many innocent people of 

 different parts difappeared from this unknown crime; 

 and eleven princes on the mountain of Wechne, fome fay 

 more, loll their lives for a name that is very common in 

 Abyffinia, without one overt act of treafon, or even a fufpi- 

 cion of what they were accufed A panic now ftruck all 

 ranks of people, without terminating in any fcheme of re- 

 finance ; which fufficiently mewed that the king had fuc- 

 ceeded in diffolving all confederacies among his fubjects, 

 and deflroying radically that rebellious fpirit which had o- 

 perated fo fatally in the lafl reigns* 



It is a euflom among the kings of Abyffinia, efpecially in 

 intervals of peace, to difappear for a time, without any warn- 

 ing. Sometimes, indeed, one or two confidential fervants, 

 pretending to be bufied in other affairs, attend at a diflance, 

 and keep their eye upon him, while, difguifed in different 

 manners, he goes like a flranger to thofe parts he intends to 

 vifit. In one of thefe private journeys,paffinginto Kuara, a pro- 

 vince on the N. E. of Abyffinia, near the confines of Sennaar, 

 Bacuffa happened, or counterfeited, to be feized by a fever, 

 a common difeafe of that unwholefome country. He was 

 then in a poor village belonging to fervants of a man of di- 

 flinction, whofe houfe was on the top of the hill immediately 

 above, in temperate and wholefome air. The hofpitable 

 landlord, upon the firft hearing of the diflrefs of a flranger, 

 immediately removed him up to his houfe, where every at- 

 tention that could be fuggefled by a charitable mind was 

 .bellowed upon his difeafed guefl, who prefently recovered 

 Iris former flate of health, but not till the kind affiflance 

 ;and unwearied diligence of the beautiful daughter of the 

 4 houfe 



