6 7 a TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



Michael conducted him into the prefence of the king, 

 where, in a manner unbecoming a fovereign, and which 

 Joas's fucceiTor would not have -permitted, he kuTed the 

 ground, and declared himfelf a vafTal of Abyffinia. The 

 king affigned him a large revenue, and put him in pof- 

 feffion of the government of Ras el Feel upon the frontier 

 of Sennaar, where Ras Welled de FOul advifed him to wait 

 patiently till the diffenfions that then prevailed at court 

 were quieted, when Michael mould have orders to rein- 

 itiate him in his kingdom. This was a wife counfel, but 

 he to whom it was given was not wife, and therefore did 

 not follow it. After fome fhort Hay at Ras el Feel he was 

 decoyed from this place of refuge by the intrigues of Ade- 

 lan, and brought to trull himfelf in Atbara, where he was 

 betrayed and taken prifoner by Welled Haflen, Shekh of 

 Teawa, and murdered by him in Teawa privately, as we 

 ihall hereafter fee, two years after his flight from Gondar. 



At this time, Ras Welled de l'Oul's death was a fignal for 

 all parties to engage. Nothing had withheld them but his 

 prudence and authority; and from that time began a 

 fcene of civil blood, which has continued ever fince, was in 

 its full vigour at the time when I was in Abyffinia, and 

 without any profpect that it would ever have an end. 



The great degree of power to which the brothers and 

 their Galla arrived ; the great affection the king mewed 

 to them, owing to their having early infected him with 

 their bloody and faithlefs principles, gave great alarm to 

 the queen and her relations, whofe influence they were 

 every day diminishing. The laft ftroke, the death of Wel- 

 led cie i'Oul, feemed to be a fatal one, and to threaten the 

 i entire 



