THE SOURCE OF THE NILE 99 
would have been incomplete without it, I afked my friend 
Tecla Mariam to mention it to him as from the king. His 
anfwer was, “I have already promifed to get it for Yagoube, 
the meflenger by this time is in Amhara; depend upon it, 
my father will not fail tolet me have it; for fear of miitake, 
I have difpatched a very intelligent man, who knows and — 
has feen the book at Debra Libanos.” The promife was 
punctually kept, the book came, and from it I have drawn 
the hiftory of the Adelan war, and the reign of thofe kings 
who had not yet returned to Axum, but reigned in Shoa. 
Onze evening I inquired of him concerning the fiory 
which the Portuguefe heard, at the difcovery of Benin, 
that the blacks of that country had intercourfe with a 
Chriftian inland ftate they acknowledged as fovereign, from 
which they procured the inveftiture of their lands, as. has 
been already mentioned in the beginning of this work? 
whether any fuch commerce did exift with Shoa at prefent, 
or if traces remained of it in older times? if there was any 
other Chriftian or Jewifh ftate in his neighbourhood to 
which this defeription could apply*? He faid they knew | 
nothing of Benin at Shoa, nor had he ever heard of the 
name, nor any cuftom of the kind that I had mentioned, 
which either then did, or ever had prevailed in Shoa: he 
knew of no Chriftian ftate farther to the fouthward, except- 
ing Narea, a great part of which was conquered by the 
Galla, who were Pagans. The blacks that were next to 
Shoa, he faid, were exceedingly fierce, warlike, and cruel ; 
worfe than the Galla, and of the fame kind with. the Shan- 
gallain Abyflinia. The other nations were partly Mahometan, 
Vou. IV. Dre hry but 
_* Conquetes des Portugais, liv. 1. p. 46: Lafitam 
