Book: A Voyage to Abyssinia

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






Chapter XII



The author is sent into Tigre. Is in danger of being poisoned by
the breath of a serpent. Is stung by a serpent. Is almost killed
by eating anchoy. The people conspire against the missionaries, and
distress them.


My superiors intended to send me into the farthest parts of the
empire, but the Emperor over-ruled that design, and remanded me to
Tigre, where I had resided before. I passed in my journey by Ganete
Ilhos, a palace newly built, and made agreeable by beautiful
gardens, and had the honour of paying my respects to the Emperor,
who had retired thither, and receiving from him a large present for
the finishing of a hospital, which had been begun in the kingdom of
Tigre. After having returned him thanks, I continued my way, and in
crossing a desert two days' journey over, was in great danger of my
life, for, as I lay on the ground, I perceived myself seized with a
pain which forced me to rise, and saw about four yards from me one
of those serpents that dart their poison at a distance; although I
rose before he came very near me, I yet felt the effects of his
poisonous breath, and, if I had lain a little longer, had certainly
died; I had recourse to bezoar, a sovereign remedy against these
poisons, which I always carried about me. These serpents are not
long, but have a body short and thick, and their bellies speckled
with brown, black, and yellow; they have a wide mouth, with which
they draw in a great quantity of air, and, having retained it some
time, eject it with such force that they kill at four yards'
distance. I only escaped by being somewhat farther from him. This
danger, however, was not much to be regarded in comparison of
another which my negligence brought me into. As I was picking up a
skin that lay upon the ground, I was stung by a serpent that left
his sting in my finger; I at least picked an extraneous substance
about the bigness of a hair out of the wound, which I imagined was
the sting. This slight wound I took little notice of, till my arm
grew inflamed all over; in a short time the poison infected my
blood, and I felt the most terrible convulsions, which were
interpreted as certain signs that my death was near and inevitable.
I received now no benefit from bezoar, the horn of the unicorn, or
any of the usual antidotes, but found myself obliged to make use of
an extraordinary remedy, which I submitted to with extreme
reluctance. This submission and obedience brought the blessing of
Heaven upon me; nevertheless, I continued indisposed a long time,
and had many symptoms which made me fear that all the danger was not
yet over. I then took cloves of garlic, though with a great
aversion, both from the taste and smell. I was in this condition a
whole month, always in pain, and taking medicines the most nauseous
in the world. At length youth and a happy constitution surmounted
the malignity, and I recovered my former health.

I continued two years at my residence in Tigre, entirely taken up
with the duties of the mission--preaching, confessing, baptising--
and enjoyed a longer quiet and repose than I had ever done since I
left Portugal. During this time one of our fathers, being always
sick and of a constitution which the air of Abyssinia was very
hurtful to, obtained a permission from our superiors to return to
the Indies; I was willing to accompany him through part of his way,
and went with him over a desert, at no great distance from my
residence, where I found many trees loaded with a kind of fruit,
called by the natives anchoy, about the bigness of an apricot, and
very yellow, which is much eaten without any ill effect. I
therefore made no scruple of gathering and eating it, without
knowing that the inhabitants always peeled it, the rind being a
violent purgative; so that, eating the fruit and skin together, I
fell into such a disorder as almost brought me to my end. The
ordinary dose is six of these rinds, and I had devoured twenty.

I removed from thence to Debaroa, fifty-four miles nearer the sea,
and crossed in my way the desert of the province of Saraoe. The
country is fruitful, pleasant, and populous; there are greater
numbers of Moors in these parts than in any other province of
Abyssinia, and the Abyssins of this country are not much better than
the Moors.

I was at Debaroa when the prosecution was first set on foot against
the Catholics. Sultan Segued, who had been so great a favourer of
us, was grown old, and his spirit and authority decreased with his
strength. His son, who was arrived at manhood, being weary of
waiting so long for the crown he was to inherit, took occasion to
blame his father's conduct, and found some reason for censuring all
his actions; he even proceeded so far as to give orders sometimes
contrary to the Emperor's. He had embraced the Catholic religion,
rather through complaisance than conviction or inclination; and many
of the Abyssins who had done the same, waited only for an
opportunity of making public profession of the ancient erroneous
opinions, and of re-uniting themselves to the Church of Alexandria.
So artfully can this people dissemble their sentiments that we had
not been able hitherto to distinguish our real from our pretended
favourers; but as soon as this Prince began to give evident tokens
of his hatred, even in the lifetime of the Emperor, we saw all the
courtiers and governors who had treated us with such a show of
friendship declare against us, and persecute us as disturbers of the
public tranquillity, who had come into Aethiopia with no other
intention than to abolish the ancient laws and customs of the
country, to sow divisions between father and son, and preach up a
revolution.

After having borne all sorts of affronts and ill-treatments, we
retired to our house at Fremona, in the midst of our countrymen, who
had been settling round about us a long time, imagining we should be
more secure there, and that, at least during the life of the
Emperor, they would not come to extremities, or proceed to open
force. I laid some stress upon the kindness which the viceroy of
Tigre had shown to us, and in particular to me; but was soon
convinced that those hopes had no real foundation, for he was one of
the most violent of our persecutors. He seized upon all our lands,
and, advancing with his troops to Fremona, blocked up the town. The
army had not been stationed there long before they committed all
sorts of disorders; so that one day a Portuguese, provoked beyond
his temper at the insolence of some of them, went out with his four
sons, and, wounding several of them, forced the rest back to their
camp.

We thought we had good reason to apprehend an attack; their troops
were increasing, our town was surrounded, and on the point of being
forced. Our Portuguese therefore thought that, without staying till
the last extremities, they might lawfully repel one violence by
another, and sallying out to the number of fifty, wounded about
three score of the Abyssins, and had put them to the sword but that
they feared it might bring too great an odium upon our cause. The
Portuguese were some of them wounded, but happily none died on
either side.

Though the times were by no means favourable to us, every one blamed
the conduct of the viceroy; and those who did not commend our action
made the necessity we were reduced to of self-defence an excuse for
it. The viceroy's principal design was to get my person into his
possession, imagining that if I was once in his power, all the
Portuguese would pay him a blind obedience. Having been
unsuccessful in his attempt by open force, he made use of the arts
of negotiation, but with an event not more to his satisfaction.
This viceroy being recalled, a son-in-law of the Emperor's
succeeded, who treated us even worse than his predecessor had done.

When he entered upon his command, he loaded us with kindnesses,
giving us so many assurances of his protection that, while the
Emperor lived, we thought him one of our friends; but no sooner was
our protector dead than this man pulled off his mask, and, quitting
all shame, let us see that neither the fear of God nor any other
consideration was capable of restraining him when we were to be
distressed. The persecution then becoming general, there was no
longer any place of security for us in Abyssinia, where we were
looked upon by all as the authors of all the civil commotions, and
many councils were held to determine in what manner they should
dispose of us. Several were of opinion that the best way would be
to kill us all at once, and affirmed that no other means were left
of re-establishing order and tranquillity in the kingdom.

Others, more prudent, were not for putting us to death with so
little consideration, but advised that we should be banished to one
of the isles of the Lake of Dambia, an affliction more severe than
death itself. These alleged in vindication of their opinions that
it was reasonable to expect, if they put us to death, that the
viceroy of the Indies would come with fire and sword to demand
satisfaction. This argument made so great an impression upon some
of them that they thought no better measures could be taken than to
send us back again to the Indies. This proposal, however, was not
without its difficulties, for they suspected that when we should
arrive at the Portuguese territories, we would levy an army, return
back to Abyssinia, and under pretence of establishing the Catholic
religion revenge all the injuries we had suffered. While they were
thus deliberating upon our fate, we were imploring the succour of
the Almighty with fervent and humble supplications, entreating him
in the midst of our sighs and tears that he would not suffer his own
cause to miscarry, and that, however it might please him to dispose
of our lives--which, we prayed, he would assist us to lay down with
patience and resignation worthy of the faith for which we were
persecuted--he would not permit our enemies to triumph over the
truth.

Thus we passed our days and nights in prayers, in affliction, and
tears, continually crowded with widows and orphans that subsisted
upon our charity and came to us for bread when we had not any for
ourselves.

While we were in this distress we received an account that the
viceroy of the Indies had fitted out a powerful fleet against the
King of Mombaza, who, having thrown off the authority of the
Portuguese, had killed the governor of the fortress, and had since
committed many acts of cruelty. The same fleet, as we were
informed, after the King of Mombaza was reduced, was to burn and
ruin Zeila, in revenge of the death of two Portuguese Jesuits who
were killed by the King in the year 1604. As Zeila was not far from
the frontiers of Abyssinia, they imagined that they already saw the
Portuguese invading their country.

The viceroy of Tigre had inquired of me a few days before how many
men one India ship carried, and being told that the complement of
some was a thousand men, he compared that answer with the report
then spread over all the country, that there were eighteen
Portuguese vessels on the coast of Adel, and concluded that they
were manned by an army of eighteen thousand men; then considering
what had been achieved by four hundred, under the command of Don
Christopher de Gama, he thought Abyssinia already ravaged, or
subjected to the King of Portugal. Many declared themselves of his
opinion, and the court took its measures with respect to us from
these uncertain and ungrounded rumours. Some were so infatuated
with their apprehensions that they undertook to describe the camp of
the Portuguese, and affirmed that they had heard the report of their
cannons.

All this contributed to exasperate the inhabitants, and reduced us
often to the point of being massacred. At length they came to a
resolution of giving us up to the Turks, assuring them that we were
masters of a vast treasure, in hope that after they had inflicted
all kinds of tortures on us, to make us confess where we had hid our
gold, or what we had done with it, they would at length kill us in
rage for the disappointment. Nor was this their only view, for they
believed that the Turks would, by killing us, kindle such an
irreconcilable hatred between themselves and our nation as would
make it necessary for them to keep us out of the Red Sea, of which
they are entirely masters: so that their determination was as
politic as cruel. Some pretend that the Turks were engaged to put
us to death as soon as we were in their power.



Chapter XIII



The author relieves the patriarch and missionaries, and supports
them. He escapes several snares laid for him by the viceroy of
Tigre. They put themselves under the protection of the Prince of
Bar.


Having concluded this negotiation, they drove us out of our houses,
and robbed us of everything that was worth carrying away; and, not
content with that, informed some banditti that were then in those
parts of the road we were to travel through, so that the patriarch
and some missionaries were attacked in a desert by these rovers,
with their captain at their head, who pillaged his library, his
ornaments, and what little baggage the missionaries had left, and
might have gone away without resistance or interruption had they
satisfied themselves with only robbing; but when they began to fall
upon the missionaries and their companions, our countrymen, finding
that their lives could only be preserved by their courage, charged
their enemies with such vigour that they killed their chief and
forced the rest to a precipitate flight. But these rovers, being
acquainted with the country, harassed the little caravan till it was
past the borders.

Our fathers then imagined they had nothing more to fear, but too
soon were convinced of their error, for they found the whole country
turned against them, and met everywhere new enemies to contend with
and new dangers to surmount. Being not far distant from Fremona,
where I resided, they sent to me for succour. I was better informed
of the distress they were in than themselves, having been told that
a numerous body of Abyssins had posted themselves in a narrow pass
with an intent to surround and destroy them; therefore, without long
deliberation, I assembled my friends, both Portuguese and Abyssins,
to the number of fourscore, and went to their rescue, carrying with
me provisions and refreshments, of which I knew they were in great
need. These glorious confessors I met as they were just entering
the pass designed for the place of their destruction, and doubly
preserved them from famine and the sword. A grateful sense of their
deliverance made them receive me as a guardian angel. We went
together to Fremona, and being in all a patriarch, a bishop,
eighteen Jesuits, and four hundred Portuguese whom I supplied with
necessaries, though the revenues of our house were lost, and though
the country was disaffected to us, in the worst season of the year.
We were obliged for the relief of the poor and our own subsistence
to sell our ornaments and chalices, which we first broke in pieces,
that the people might not have the pleasure of ridiculing our
mysteries by profaning the vessels made use of in the celebration of
them, for they now would gladly treat with the highest indignities
what they had a year before looked upon with veneration.

Amidst all these perplexities the viceroy did not fail to visit us,
and make us great offers of service in expectation of a large
present. We were in a situation in which it was very difficult to
act properly; we knew too well the ill intentions of the viceroy,
but durst not complain, or give him any reason to imagine that we
knew them. We longed to retreat out of his power, or at least to
send one of our company to the Indies with an account of persecution
we suffered, and could without his leave neither do one nor the
other.

When it was determined that one should be sent to the Indies, I was
at first singled out for the journey, and it was intended that I
should represent at Goa, at Rome, and at Madrid the distresses and
necessities of the mission of Aethiopia; but the fathers reflecting
afterwards that I best understood the Abyssinian language, and was
most acquainted with the customs of the country, altered their
opinions, and, continuing me in Aethiopia either to perish with them
or preserve them, deputed four other Jesuits, who in a short time
set out on their way to the Indies.

About this time I was sent for to the viceroy's camp to confess a
criminal, who, though falsely, was believed a Catholic, to whom,
after a proper exhortation, I was going to pronounce the form of
absolution, when those that waited to execute him told him aloud
that if he expected to save his life by professing himself a
Catholic, he would find himself deceived, and that he had nothing to
do but prepare himself for death. The unhappy criminal had no
sooner heard this than, rising up, he declared his resolution to die
in the religion of his country, and being delivered up to his
prosecutors was immediately dispatched with their lances.

The chief reason of calling me was not that I might hear this
confession: the viceroy had another design of seizing my person,
expecting that either the Jesuits or Portuguese would buy my liberty
with a large ransom, or that he might exchange me for his father,
who was kept prisoner by a revolted prince. That prince would have
been no loser by the exchange, for so much was I hated by the
Abyssinian monks that they would have thought no expense too great
to have gotten me into their hands, that they might have glutted
their revenge by putting me to the most painful death they could
have invented. Happily I found means to retire out of this
dangerous place, and was followed by the viceroy almost to Fremona,
who, being disappointed, desired me either to visit him at his camp,
or appoint a place where we might confer. I made many excuses, but
at length agreed to meet him at a place near Fremona, bringing each
of us only three companions. I did not doubt but he would bring
more, and so he did, but found that I was upon my guard, and that my
company increased in proportion to his. My friends were resolute
Portuguese, who were determined to give him no quarter if he made
any attempt upon my liberty. Finding himself once more
countermined, he returned ashamed to his camp, where a month after,
being accused of a confederacy in the revolt of that prince who kept
his father prisoner, he was arrested, and carried in chains to the
Emperor.

The time now approaching in which we were to be delivered to the
Turks, we had none but God to apply to for relief: all the measures
we could think of were equally dangerous. Resolving, nevertheless,
to seek some retreat where we might hide ourselves either all
together or separately, we determined at last to put ourselves under
the protection of the Prince John Akay, who had defended himself a
long time in the province of Bar against the power of Abyssinia.

After I had concluded a treaty with this prince, the patriarch and
all the fathers put themselves into his hands, and being received
with all imaginable kindness and civility, were conducted with a
guard to Adicota, a rock excessively steep, about nine miles from
his place of residence. The event was not agreeable to the happy
beginning of our negotiation, for we soon began to find that our
habitation was not likely to be very pleasant. We were surrounded
with Mahometans, or Christians who were inveterate enemies to the
Catholic faith, and were obliged to act with the utmost caution.
Notwithstanding these inconveniences we were pleased with the
present tranquillity we enjoyed, and lived contentedly on lentils
and a little corn that we had; and I, after we had sold all our
goods, resolved to turn physician, and was soon able to support
myself by my practice.

I was once consulted by a man troubled with asthma, who presented me
with two alquieres--that is, about twenty-eight pounds weight--of
corn and a sheep. The advice I gave him, after having turned over
my books, was to drink goats' urine every morning; I know not
whether he found any benefit by following my prescription, for I
never saw him after.

Being under a necessity of obeying our acoba, or protector, we
changed our place of abode as often as he desired it, though not
without great inconveniences, from the excessive heat of the weather
and the faintness which our strict observation of the fasts and
austerities of Lent, as it is kept in this country, had brought upon
us. At length, wearied with removing so often, and finding that the
last place assigned for our abode was always the worst, we agreed
that I should go to our sovereign and complain.

I found him entirely taken up with the imagination of a prodigious
treasure, affirmed by the monks to be hidden under a mountain. He
was told that his predecessors had been hindered from discovering it
by the demon that guarded it, but that the demon was now at a great
distance from his charge, and was grown blind and lame; that having
lost his son, and being without any children except a daughter that
was ugly and unhealthy, he was under great affliction, and entirely
neglected the care of his treasure; that if he should come, they
could call one of their ancient brothers to their assistance, who,
being a man of a most holy life, would be able to prevent his making
any resistance. To all these stories the prince listened with
unthinking credulity. The monks, encouraged by this, fell to the
business, and brought a man above a hundred years old, whom, because
he could not support himself on horseback, they had tied on the
beast, and covered him with black wool. He was followed by a black
cow (designed for a sacrifice to the demon of the place), and by
some monks that carried mead, beer, and parched corn, to complete
the offering.

No sooner were they arrived at the foot of the mountain than every
one began to work: bags were brought from all parts to convey away
the millions which each imagined would be his share. The Xumo, who
superintended the work, would not allow any one to come near the
labourers, but stood by, attended by the old monk, who almost sang
himself to death. At length, having removed a vast quantity of
earth and stones, they discovered some holes made by rats or moles,
at sight of which a shout of joy ran through the whole troop: the
cow was brought and sacrificed immediately, and some pieces of flesh
were thrown into these holes. Animated now with assurance of
success, they lose no time: every one redoubles his endeavours, and
the heat, though intolerable, was less powerful than the hopes they
had conceived. At length some, not so patient as the rest, were
weary, and desisted. The work now grew more difficult; they found
nothing but rock, yet continued to toil on, till the prince, having
lost all temper, began to inquire with some passion when he should
have a sight of this treasure, and after having been some time
amused with many promises by the monks, was told that he had not
faith enough to be favoured with the discovery.

All this I saw myself, and could not forbear endeavouring to
convince our protector how much he was imposed upon: he was not
long before he was satisfied that he had been too credulous, for all
those that had so industriously searched after this imaginary
wealth, within five hours left the work in despair, and I continued
almost alone with the prince.

Imagining no time more proper to make the proposal I was sent with
than while his passion was still hot against the monks, I presented
him with two ounces of gold and two plates of silver, with some
other things of small value, and was so successful that he gratified
me in all my requests, and gave us leave to return to Adicora, where
we were so fortunate to find our huts yet uninjured and entire.

About this time the fathers who had stayed behind at Fremona arrived
with the new viceroy, and an officer fierce in the defence of his
own religion, who had particular orders to deliver all the Jesuits
up to the Turks, except me, whom the Emperor was resolved to have in
his own hands, alive or dead. We had received some notice of this
resolution from our friends at court, and were likewise informed
that the Emperor, their master, had been persuaded that my design
was to procure assistance from the Indies, and that I should
certainly return at the head of an army. The patriarch's advice
upon this emergency was that I should retire into the woods, and by
some other road join the nine Jesuits who were gone towards Mazna.
I could think of no better expedient, and therefore went away in the
night between the 23rd and 24th of April with my comrade, an old
man, very infirm and very timorous. We crossed woods never crossed,
I believe, by any before: the darkness of the night and the
thickness of the shade spread a kind of horror round us; our gloomy
journey was still more incommoded by the brambles and thorns, which
tore our hands; amidst all these difficulties I applied myself to
the Almighty, praying him to preserve us from those dangers which we
endeavoured to avoid, and to deliver us from those to which our
flight exposed us. Thus we travelled all night, till eight next
morning, without taking either rest or food; then, imagining
ourselves secure, we made us some cakes of barley-meal and water,
which we thought a feast.

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