GUNDUFTCH. 
^11 
spoke of him extremely slightly, and evaded any question concern- 
ing him as much as possible. All that I could get out of him was, 
that he came into the country immediately after the battle of Fa- 
gitta, when he himself was appointed to the provinces of Begemder 
and Amhara; that Bruce went to the head of the Nile, and was 
not present in any engagement, nor held any public situation while 
in Abyssinia; and they never could learn why he came into the 
country. 
These testimonies, together with the accounts (already inserted 
in the journal) given by Aytolschias, by the priest whom I met on 
my return from Axum, and by the servant of Yunus at Adowa, com- 
pose a mass of evidence sufficient, in my opinion, to throw great 
doubt on the authenticity of the account given by Bruce of many 
of the transactions in which he represents himself concerned, dur- 
ing his residence in Abyssinia, 
" Gusmatie Ischias was the only person, excepting the priests, 
whom we saw dressed in an under garment, or as they call it, 
" comise;" but all persons about the King, we were told, dress in 
this way. He informed me that he had left Gondar twenty years, 
before which, he entirely resided there, and at Ras-el-Feel. His 
sister Akalasa held great power in Tigre, and greatly influenced 
the Ras in the early part of his administration. 
October 55. — We took leave of the Gusmatie at an early hour, 
and proceeded on our road, passing to the westward of the moun- 
tain of Gunduftch, and across the plain of Yeehah, which is un- 
cultivated, except a few spots near a village on our right. We then 
left the mountains of Yeehah on our left ; these, like the mountains 
iDf Adowa, terminate in vast masses of bare rock, the strata of which 
VOL. 111. EE 
