As For Us, Who Were To Go By Zeila, We Had Still Greater
Difficulties To Struggle With:
We were entirely strangers to the
ways we were to take, to the manners, and even to the names of the
nations through which we were to pass.
Our chief desire was to
discover some new road by which we might avoid having anything to do
with the Turks. Among great numbers whom we consulted on this
occasion, we were informed by some that we might go through Melinda.
These men painted that hideous wilderness in charming colours, told
us that we should find a country watered with navigable rivers, and
inhabited by a people that would either inform us of the way, or
accompany us in it. These reports charmed us, because they
flattered our desires; but our superiors finding nothing in all this
talk that could be depended on, were in suspense what directions to
give us, till my companion and I upon this reflection, that since
all the ways were equally new to us, we had nothing to do but to
resign ourselves to the Providence of God, asked and obtained the
permission of our superiors to attempt the road through Melinda. So
of we who went by land, two took the way of Zeila, and my companion
and I that of Melinda.
Those who were appointed for Zeila embarked in a vessel that was
going to Caxume, where they were well received by the king, and
accommodated with a ship to carry them to Zeila; they were there
treated by the check with the same civility which they had met with
at Caxume. But the king being informed of their arrival, ordered
them to be conveyed to his court at Auxa, to which place they were
scarce come before they were thrown by the king's command into a
dark and dismal dungeon, where there is hardly any sort of cruelty
that was not exercised upon them. The Emperor of Abyssinia
endeavoured by large offers to obtain their liberty, but his kind
offices had no other effect than to heighten the rage of the king of
Zeila. This prince, besides his ill will to Sultan Segued, which
was kept up by some malcontents among the Abyssin nobility, who,
provoked at the conversion of their master, were plotting a revolt,
entertained an inveterate hatred against the Portuguese for the
death of his grandfather, who had been killed many years before,
which he swore the blood of the Jesuits should repay. So after they
had languished for some time in prison their heads were struck off.
A fate which had been likewise our own, had not God reserved us for
longer labours!
Having provided everything necessary for our journey, such as
Arabian habits, and red caps, calicoes, and other trifles to make
presents of to the inhabitants, and taking leave of our friends, as
men going to a speedy death, for we were not insensible of the
dangers we were likely to encounter, amongst horrid deserts,
impassable mountains, and barbarous nations, we left Goa on the 26th
day of January in the year 1624, in a Portuguese galliot that was
ordered to set us ashore at Pate, where we landed without any
disaster in eleven days, together with a young Abyssin, whom we made
use of as our interpreter.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 7 of 79
Words from 3127 to 3683
of 41322
