Book: A Voyage to Abyssinia

F >> Father Jerome Lobo >> A Voyage to Abyssinia




To bring back this people into the enclosure of the Catholic Church,
from which they have been separated so many ages, was the sole view
and intention with which we undertook so long and toilsome a
journey, crossed so many seas, and passed so many deserts, with the
utmost hazard of our lives; I am certain that we travelled more than
seven thousand leagues before we arrived at our residence at
Fremona.

We came to this place, anciently called Maigoga, on the 21st of
June, as I have said before, and were obliged to continue there till
November, because the winter begins here in May, and its greatest
rigour is from the middle of June to the middle of September. The
rains that are almost continually falling in this season make it
impossible to go far from home, for the rivers overflow their banks,
and therefore, in a place like this, where there are neither bridges
nor boats, are, if they are not fordable, utterly impassable. Some,
indeed, have crossed them by means of a cord fastened on both sides
of the water, others tie two beams together, and placing themselves
upon them, guide them as well as they can, but this experiment is so
dangerous that it hath cost many of these bold adventurers their
lives. This is not all the danger, for there is yet more to be
apprehended from the unwholesomeness of the air, and the vapours
which arise from the scorched earth at the fall of the first
showers, than from the torrents and rivers. Even they who shelter
themselves in houses find great difficulty to avoid the diseases
that proceed from the noxious qualities of these vapours. From the
beginning of June to that of September it rains more or less every
day. The morning is generally fair and bright, but about two hours
after noon the sky is clouded, and immediately succeeds a violent
storm, with thunder and lightning flashing in the most dreadful
manner. While this lasts, which is commonly three or four hours,
none go out of doors. The ploughman upon the first appearance of it
unyokes his oxen, and betakes himself with them into covert.
Travellers provide for their security in the neighbouring villages,
or set up their tents, everybody flies to some shelter, as well to
avoid the unwholesomeness as the violence of the rain. The thunder
is astonishing, and the lightning often destroys great numbers, a
thing I can speak of from my own experience, for it once flashed so
near me, that I felt an uneasiness on that side for a long time
after; at the same time it killed three young children, and having
run round my room went out, and killed a man and woman three hundred
paces off. When the storm is over the sun shines out as before, and
one would not imagine it had rained, but that the ground appears
deluged. Thus passes the Abyssinian winter, a dreadful season, in
which the whole kingdom languishes with numberless diseases, an
affliction which, however grievous, is yet equalled by the clouds of
grasshoppers, which fly in such numbers from the desert, that the
sun is hid and the sky darkened; whenever this plague appears,
nothing is seen through the whole region but the most ghastly
consternation, or heard but the most piercing lamentations, for
wherever they fall, that unhappy place is laid waste and ruined;
they leave not one blade of grass, nor any hopes of a harvest.

God, who often makes calamities subservient to His will, permitted
this very affliction to be the cause of the conversion of many of
the natives, who might have otherwise died in their errors; for part
of the country being ruined by the grasshoppers that year in which
we arrived at Abyssinia, many, who were forced to leave their
habitations, and seek the necessaries of life in other places, came
to that part of the land where some of our missionaries were
preaching, and laid hold on that mercy which God seemed to have
appointed for others.

As we could not go to court before November, we resolved, that we
might not be idle, to preach and instruct the people in the country;
in pursuance of this resolution I was sent to a mountain, two days'
journey distant from Maigoga. The lord or governor of the place was
a Catholic, and had desired missionaries, but his wife had conceived
an implacable aversion both from us and the Roman Church, and almost
all the inhabitants of that mountain were infected with the same
prejudices as she. They had been persuaded that the hosts which we
consecrated and gave to the communicants were mixed with juices
strained from the flesh of a camel, a dog, a hare, and a swine; all
creatures which the Abyssins look upon with abhorrence, believing
them unclean, and forbidden to them, as they were to the Jews. We
had no way of undeceiving them, and they fled from us whenever we
approached. We carried with us our tent, our chalices, and
ornaments, and all that was necessary for saying mass. The lord of
the village, who, like other persons of quality throughout
Aethiopia, lived on the top of a mountain, received us with very
great civility. All that depended upon him had built their huts
round about him; so that this place compared with the other towns of
Abyssinia seems considerable; as soon as we arrived he sent us his
compliments, with a present of a cow, which, among them, is a token
of high respect. We had no way of returning this favour but by
killing the cow, and sending a quarter smoking, with the gall, which
amongst them is esteemed the most delicate part. I imagined for
some time that the gall of animals was less bitter in this country
than elsewhere, but upon tasting it, I found it more; and yet have
frequently seen our servants drink large glasses of if with the same
pleasure that we drink the most delicious wines.

We chose to begin our mission with the lady of the village, and
hoped that her prejudice and obstinacy, however great, would in time
yield to the advice and example of her husband, and that her
conversion would have a great influence on the whole village, but
having lost several days without being able to prevail upon her to
hear us on any one point, we left the place, and went to another
mountain, higher and better peopled. When we came to the village on
the top of it, where the lord lived, we were surprised with the
cries and lamentations of men that seemed to suffer or apprehend
some dreadful calamity; and were told, upon inquiring the cause,
that the inhabitants had been persuaded that we were the devil's
missionaries, who came to seduce them from the true religion, that
foreseeing some of their neighbours would be ruined by the
temptation, they were lamenting the misfortune which was coming upon
them. When we began to apply ourselves to the work of the mission
we could not by any means persuade any but the lord and the priest
to receive us into their houses; the rest were rough and untractable
to that degree that, after having converted six, we despaired of
making any farther progress, and thought it best to remove to other
towns where we might be better received.

We found, however, a more unpleasing treatment at the next place,
and had certainly ended our lives there had we not been protected by
the governor and the priest, who, though not reconciled to the Roman
Church, yet showed us the utmost civility; the governor informed us
of a design against our lives, and advised us not to go out after
sunset, and gave us guards to protect us from the insults of the
populace.

We made no long stay in a place where they stopped their ears
against the voice of God, but returned to the foot of that mountain
which we had left some days before; we were surrounded, as soon as
we began to preach, with a multitude of auditors, who came either in
expectation of being instructed, or from a desire of gratifying
their curiosity, and God bestowed such a blessing upon our
apostolical labours that the whole village was converted in a short
time. We then removed to another at the middle of the mountain,
situated in a kind of natural parterre, or garden; the soil was
fruitful, and the trees that shaded it from the scorching heat of
the sun gave it an agreeable and refreshing coolness. We had here
the convenience of improving the ardour and piety of our new
converts, and, at the same time, of leading more into the way of the
true religion: and indeed our success exceeded the utmost of our
hopes; we had in a short time great numbers whom we thought capable
of being admitted to the sacraments of baptism and the mass.

We erected our tent, and placed our altar under some great trees,
for the benefit of the shade; and every day before sun-rising my
companion and I began to catechise and instruct these new Catholics,
and used our utmost endeavours to make them abjure their errors.
When we were weary with speaking, we placed in ranks those who were
sufficiently instructed, and passing through them with great vessels
of water, baptised them according to the form prescribed by the
Church. As their number was very great, we cried aloud, those of
this rank are named Peter, those of that rank Anthony. And did the
same amongst the women, whom we separated from the men. We then
confessed them, and admitted them to the communion. After mass we
applied ourselves again to catechise, to instruct, and receive the
renunciation of their errors, scarce allowing ourselves time to make
a scanty meal, which we never did more than once a day.

After some time had been spent here, we removed to another town not
far distant, and continued the same practice. Here I was accosted
one day by an inhabitant of that place, where he had found the
people so prejudiced against us, who desired to be admitted to
confession. I could not forbear asking him some questions about
those lamentations, which we heard upon our entering into that
place. He confessed with the utmost frankness and ingenuity that
the priests and religious have given dreadful accounts both of us
and of the religion we preached; that the unhappy people were taught
by them that the curse of God attended us wheresoever we went; that
we were always followed by the grasshoppers, that pest of Abyssinia,
which carried famine and destruction over all the country; that he,
seeing no grasshoppers following us when we passed by their village,
began to doubt of the reality of what the priests had so confidently
asserted, and was now convinced that the representation they made of
us was calumny and imposture. This discourse gave us double
pleasure, both as it proved that God had confuted the accusations of
our enemies, and defended us against their malice without any
efforts of our own, and that the people who had shunned us with the
strongest detestation were yet lovers of truth, and came to us on
their own accord. Nothing could be more grossly absurd than the
reproaches which the Abyssinian ecclesiastics aspersed us and our
religion with. They had taken advantage of the calamity that
happened the year of our arrival: and the Abyssins, with all their
wit, did not consider that they had often been distressed by the
grasshoppers before there came any Jesuits into the country, and
indeed before there were any in the world.

Whilst I was in these mountains, I went on Sundays and saints' days
sometimes to one church and sometimes to another. One day I went
out with a resolution not to go to a certain church, where I
imagined there was no occasion for me, but before I had gone far, I
found myself pressed by a secret impulse to return back to that same
church. I obeyed the influence, and discovered it to proceed from
the mercy of God to three young children who were destitute of all
succour, and at the point of death. I found two very quickly in
this miserable state; the mother had retired to some distance that
she might not see them die, and when she saw me stop, came and told
me that they had been obliged by want to leave the town they lived
in, and were at length reduced to this dismal condition, that she
had been baptised, but that the children had not. After I had
baptised and relieved them, I continued my walk, reflecting with
wonder on the mercy of God, and about evening discovered another
infant, whose mother, evidently a Catholic, cried out to me to save
her child, or at least that if I could not preserve this uncertain
and perishable life, I should give it another certain and permanent.
I sent my servant to fetch water with the utmost expedition, for
there was none near, and happily baptised the child before it
expired.

Soon after this I returned to Fremona, and had great hopes of
accompanying the patriarch to the court; but, when we were almost
setting out, received the command of the superior of the mission to
stay at Fremona, with a charge of the house there, and of all the
Catholics that were dispersed over the kingdom of Tigre, an
employment very ill-proportioned to my abilities. The house at
Fremona has always been much regarded even by those emperors who
persecuted us; Sultan Segued annexed nine large manors to it for
ever, which did not make us much more wealthy, because of the
expensive hospitality which the great conflux of strangers obliged
us to. The lands in Abyssinia yield but small revenues, unless the
owners themselves set the value upon them, which we could not do.

The manner of letting farms in Abyssinia differs much from that of
other countries: the farmer, when the harvest is almost ripe,
invites the chumo or steward, who is appointed to make an estimate
of the value of each year's product, to his house, entertains him in
the most agreeable manner he can; makes him a present, and then
takes him to see his corn. If the chumo is pleased with the treat
and present, he will give him a declaration or writing to witness
that his ground, which afforded five or six sacks of corn, did you
yield so many bushels, and even of this it is the custom to abate
something; so that our revenue did not increase in proportion to our
lands; and we found ourselves often obliged to buy corn, which,
indeed, is not dear, for in fruitful years forty or fifty measures,
weighing each about twenty-two pounds, may be purchased for a crown.

Besides the particular charge I had of the house of Fremona, I was
appointed the patriarch's grand-vicar through the whole kingdom of
Tigre. I thought that to discharge this office as I ought, it was
incumbent on me to provide necessaries as well for the bodies as the
souls of the converted Catholics. This labour was much increased by
the famine which the grasshoppers had brought that year upon the
country. Our house was perpetually surrounded by some of those
unhappy people, whom want had compelled to abandon their
habitations, and whose pale cheeks and meagre bodies were undeniable
proofs of their misery and distress. All the relief I could
possibly afford them could not prevent the death of such numbers
that their bodies filled the highways; and to increase our
affliction, the wolves having devoured the carcases, and finding no
other food, fell upon the living; their natural fierceness being so
increased by hunger, that they dragged the children out of the very
houses. I saw myself a troop of wolves tear a child of six years
old in pieces before I or any one else could come to its assistance.

While I was entirely taken up with the duties of my ministry, the
viceroy of Tigre received the commands of the Emperor to search for
the bones of Don Christopher de Gama. On this occasion it may not
be thought impertinent to give some account of the life and death of
this brave and holy Portuguese, who, after having been successful in
many battles, fell at last into the hands of the Moors, and
completed that illustrious life by a glorious martyrdom.



Chapter V



The adventures of the Portuguese, and the actions of Don Christopher
de Gama in Aethiopia.


About the beginning of the sixteenth century arose a Moor near the
Cape of Gardafui, who, by the assistance of the forces sent him from
Moca by the Arabs and Turks, conquered almost all Abyssinia, and
founded the kingdom of Adel. He was called Mahomet Gragne, or the
Lame. When he had ravaged Aethiopia fourteen years, and was master
of the greatest part of it, the Emperor David sent to implore
succour of the King of Portugal, with a promise that when those
dominions were recovered which had been taken from him, he would
entirely submit himself to the Pope, and resign the third part of
his territories to the Portuguese. After many delays, occasioned by
the great distance between Portugal and Abyssinia, and some
unsuccessful attempts, King John the Third, having made Don Stephen
de Gama, son of the celebrated Don Vasco de Gama, viceroy of the
Indies, gave him orders to enter the Red Sea in pursuit of the
Turkish galleys, and to fall upon them wherever he found them, even
in the Port of Suez. The viceroy, in obedience to the king's
commands, equipped a powerful fleet, went on board himself, and
cruised about the coast without being able to discover the Turkish
vessels. Enraged to find that with this great preparation he should
be able to effect nothing, he landed at Mazna four hundred
Portuguese, under the command of Don Christopher de Gama, his
brother. He was soon joined by some Abyssins, who had not yet
forgot their allegiance to their sovereign; and in his march up the
country was met by the Empress Helena, who received him as her
deliverer. At first nothing was able to stand before the valour of
the Portuguese, the Moors were driven from one mountain to another,
and were dislodged even from those places, which it seemed almost
impossible to approach, even unmolested by the opposition of an
enemy.

These successes seemed to promise a more happy event than that which
followed them. It was now winter, a season in which, as the reader
hath been already informed, it is almost impossible to travel in
Aethiopia. The Portuguese unadvisedly engaged themselves in an
enterprise, to march through the whole country, in order to join the
Emperor, who was then in the most remote part of his dominions.
Mahomet, who was in possession of the mountains, being informed by
his spies that the Portuguese were but four hundred, encamped in the
plain of Ballut, and sent a message to the general that he knew the
Abyssins had imposed on the King of Portugal, which, being
acquainted with their treachery, he was not surprised at, and that
in compassion of the commander's youth, he would give him and his
men, if they would return, free passage, and furnish them with
necessaries; that he might consult upon the matter, and depend upon
his word, reminding him, however, that it was not safe to refuse his
offer.

The general presented the ambassador with a rich robe, and returned
this gallant answer: "That he and his fellow-soldiers were come
with an intention to drive Mahomet out of these countries, which he
had wrongfully usurped; that his present design was, instead of
returning back the way he came, as Mahomet advised, to open himself
a passage through the country of his enemies; that Mahomet should
rather think of determining whether he would fight or yield up his
ill-gotten territories, than of prescribing measures to him; that he
put his whole confidence in the omnipotence of God and the justice
of his cause, and that to show how just a sense he had of Mahomet's
kindness, he took the liberty of presenting him with a looking-glass
and a pair of pincers."

This answer, and the present, so provoked Mahomet, who was at dinner
when he received it, that he rose from table immediately to march
against the Portuguese, imagining he should meet with no resistance;
and indeed, any man, however brave, would have been of the same
opinion; for his forces consisted of fifteen thousand foot, beside a
numerous body of cavalry, and the Portuguese commander had but three
hundred and fifty men, having lost eight in attacking some passes,
and left forty at Mazma, to maintain an open intercourse with the
viceroy of the Indies. This little troop of our countrymen were
upon the declivity of a hill near a wood; above them stood the
Abyssins, who resolved to remain quiet spectators of the battle, and
to declare themselves on that side which should be favoured with
victory.

Mahomet began the attack with only ten horsemen, against whom as
many Portuguese were detached, who fired with so much exactness,
that nine of the Moors fell, and the tenth with great difficulty
made his escape. This omen of good fortune gave the soldiers great
encouragement; the action grew hot, and they came at length to a
general battle; but the Moors, dismayed by the advantages our men
had obtained at first, were half defeated before the fight. The
great fire of our muskets and artillery broke them immediately.
Mahomet preserved his own life not without difficulty, but did not
lose his capacity with the battle: he had still a great number of
troops remaining, which he rallied, and entrenched himself at
Membret, a place naturally strong, with an intention to pass the
winter there, and wait for succours.

The Portuguese, who were more desirous of glory than wealth, did not
encumber themselves with plunder, but with the utmost expedition
pursued their enemies, in hopes of cutting them entirely off. This
expectation was too sanguine: they found them encamped in a place
naturally almost inaccessible, and so well fortified, that it would
be no less than extreme rashness to attack them. They therefore
entrenched themselves on a hill over against the enemy's camp, and
though victorious, were under great disadvantages. They saw new
troops arrive every day at the enemy's camp, and their small number
grew less continually; their friends at Mazna could not join them;
they knew not how to procure provisions, and could put no confidence
in the Abyssins; yet recollecting the great things achieved by their
countrymen, and depending on the Divine protection, they made no
doubt of surmounting all difficulties.

Mahomet on his part was not idle; he solicited the assistance of the
Mahometan princes, pressed them with all the motives of religion,
and obtained a reinforcement of two thousand musketeers from the
Arabs, and a train of artillery from the Turks. Animated with these
succours, he marched out of his trenches to enter those of the
Portuguese, who received him with the utmost bravery, destroyed
prodigious numbers of his men, and made many sallies with great
vigour, but losing every day some of their small troops, and most of
their officers being killed, it was easy to surround and force them.

Their general had already one arm broken, and his knee shattered
with a musket-shot, which made him unable to repair to all those
places where his presence was necessary to animate his soldiers.
Valour was at length forced to submit to superiority of numbers; the
enemy entered the camp and put all to the sword. The general with
ten more escaped the slaughter, and by means of their horses
retreated to a wood, where they were soon discovered by a detachment
sent in search of them, and brought to Mahomet, who was overjoyed to
see his most formidable enemy in his power, and ordered him to take
care of his uncle and nephew, who were wounded, telling him he
should answer for their lives; and, upon their death, taxed him with
hastening it. The brave Portuguese made no excuses, but told him he
came thither to destroy Mahometans, and not to save them. Mahomet,
enraged at this language, ordered a stone to be put on his head, and
exposed this great man to the insults and reproaches of the whole
army. After this they inflicted various kinds of tortures on him,
which he endured with incredible resolution, and without uttering
the least complaint, praising the mercy of God who had ordained him
to suffer in such a cause.

Mahomet, at last satisfied with cruelty, made an offer of sending
him to the viceroy of the Indies, if he would turn Mussulman. The
hero took fire at this proposal, and answered with the highest
indignation that nothing should make him forsake his heavenly Master
to follow an impostor, and continued in the severest terms to vilify
their false prophet, till Mahomet struck off his head.

Nor did the resentment of Mahomet end here; he divided his body into
quarters, and sent them to different places. The Catholics gathered
the remains of this glorious martyr, and interred them. Every Moor
that passed by threw a stone upon his grave, and raised in time such
a heap, as I found it difficult to remove when I went in search of
those precious relics.

What I have here related of the death of Don Christopher de Gama I
was told by an old man, who was an eye-witness of it: and there is
a tradition in the country that in the place where his head fell, a
fountain sprung up of wonderful virtue, which cured many diseases
otherwise past remedy.



Chapter VI



Mahomet continues the war, and is killed. The stratagem of Peter
Leon.


Mahomet, that he might make the best use of his victory, ranged over
a great part of Abyssinia in search of the Emperor Claudius, who was
then in the kingdom of Dambia. All places submitted to the
Mahometan, whose insolence increased every day with his power; and
nothing after the defeat of the Portuguese was supposed able to put
a stop to the progress of his arms.

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