380 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
which I imbibed from the appearance and difcourfe of the: 
queen, and of which I now began to be afhamed. 
Gonpar, the metropolis of Aby‘flinia, is fituated upon a 
hill of confiderable height, the top of it nearly plain, on 
which the town is placed. It confifts of about ten thoufand 
families in times of peace; the houfes are chiefly of clay, 
the roofs thatched in the form of cones, which is always 
the conftruction within the tropical rains. On the weft end 
of the town is the king’s houfe, formerly a ftructure of con- 
fiderable confequence; it was a fquare building, flanked 
with fquare towers ; it was formerly four ftoreys high, and, 
from the top of it, had a magnificent view of all the coun- 
try fouthward to the lake Tzana. Great part of this houfe 
is now in ruins, having been burnt at different times; but 
there is ftill ample lodging in the two loweft floors of it,. 
the audience-chamber being above one hundred and twenty 
feet long. 
A succession of kings have built apartments by the fide 
of it of clay only, in the manner and fafhion of their own 
country ; for the palace itfelf was built by mafons from In 
dia, in the time of Facilidas, and by fuch Abyflinians as. 
had been inftructed in architecture by the Jefuits without: 
embracing their religion, and after remained in’ the coun- 
try, unconnected with the expulfion of the Portuguefe, du- 
ring this prince’s reign. 
Tue palace,and allits contiguous buildings, are furround- 
ed by a fubftanual fone wall thirty feet high, with battle- 
ments upon the outer wall, and a parapet roof between the 
outer and inner, by which you can go along the whole and 
look. 
