^4 
TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA. 
self set out for Goa, to second this application by 
all the powers of his eloquence. The viceroy, 
Don Stephen de Gama, shewed little disposition 
to embark in the enterprise ; and expressed a 
doubt, if the hundred thousand crowns which 
would be necessary to expend on it would ever 
be recovered. Bermudez hereupon assured him, 
that this was a mere trifle compared to the wealth 
of Prester John, in whose inexhaustible treasury 
the expenditure of a million would effect no per- 
ceptible diminution. This hyperbolical estimate 
produced an entire revolution in the mind of the 
governor, who without delay fitted out an expe- 
dition, and even resolved to command it in per- 
son. On arriving at Massuah, however, he plac- 
ed the military force under the command of his 
brother Christopher, and returned himself to In- 
dia. Christopher rendered signal services to the 
king in his wars with Adel ; and though he him- 
self, in an unsuccessful battle, w^as taken and be- 
headed, his troops continued to fight in the same 
cause. With their aid the king defeated the 
Moors in successive battles, killed their king, and 
drove them out of all the provinces which they 
had conquered from him. When he had thus 
attained all his own objects, his respect for the 
Portuguese, and his deference to the see of Rome, 
began sensibly to abate. As soon as Bermudez 
perceived this defection, and that the king was 
