478 
MOCHA. 
of the conversion of Abyssinia, a circumstance which was eagerl}^ 
laid hold of by the different ecclesiastical societies at that time so 
formidable in Europe, as a means of extending their respective 
infloence.* 
Meantime the country itself became in danger of being over-run 
by a ferocious Mahomedan chieftain, named Gragne, who ruled 
the kingdom of Arar or Hurrur, which lies eastward of Shoa, 
the success of whose incursions, induced the Emperor to send 
one of the Portuguese, named Bermudez, who had been left in 
Abyssinia, to solicit immediate assistance from the King of Por- 
tugal, at the same time promising unqualified submission to 
the Pope. In 1540, Bermudez, after having been appointed by 
Paul III, to the high rank of Patriarch of Ethiopia, returned 
back to Abyssinia, and was accompanied by Don Christopher 
De Gama, with a force of four hundred soldiers, and a considera- 
ble supply of arms. This timely assistance changed the face of 
affairs, and Abyssinia, through the efforts of these brave men, 
who in the struggle suffered severely and had to lament the fall 
* The convent of St. Stephano was about this time founded for the Abyssinians at 
Rome. Abraham Peritsol, in his Itinera Mundi, seems to allude to the Abyssinian monks, 
when he says, " Et quoque in Roma est istorum Sacerdotum nigriiarum societas una 
numero fere SO, habitantes in Excelso uno novo quod de novo fundatum est nomini 
ipsorum." Dr. Hyde, the learned translator of this work, has fallen Into a singular error 
respecting these black priests, for he supposes, that the epithet " nigritarum" was given 
them on account of their black garments (propter habitum nigrum, in contrarium Sacer- 
dotum Judseorum qui albis indui solebant), and in enquiring into what society this could 
be, be conjectures, as the society of Jesuits (Jesuit arum) was not established in 1525, 
when the book was written, to whom alone he could attribute an interference in Eastern 
affairs, that it must have been Societas Jesuatorum, of whom he finds a notice in an ob- 
scure author, a specimen of criticism worthy of some of the later commentators on 
Shakspeare. 
