They Made Great Rejoicings All The
Night, On Account Of Having It In Their Power To Revenge Their
Relation; And The Unhappy Criminals Had The Mortification Of
Standing By To Behold This Jollity, And The Preparations Made For
Their Execution.
The Abyssins have three different ways of putting a criminal to
death:
One way is to bury him to the neck, to lay a heap of
brambles upon his head, and to cover the whole with a great stone;
another is to beat him to death with cudgels; a third, and the most
usual, is to stab him with their lances. The nearest relation gives
the first thrust, and is followed by all the rest according to their
degrees of kindred; and they to whom it does not happen to strike
while the offender is alive, dip the points of their lances in his
blood to show that they partake in the revenge. It frequently
happens that the relations of the criminal are for taking the like
vengeance for his death, and sometimes pursue this resolution so far
that all those who had any share in the prosecution lose their
lives.
I being informed that these two men were to die, wrote to the
viceroy for his permission to exhort them, before they entered into
eternity, to unite themselves to the Church. My request being
granted, I applied myself to the men, and found one of them so
obstinate that he would not even afford me a hearing, and died in
his error.
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