Ethiopia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Lobo, Jerónimo, 1596?-1678 -- Travel -- Ethiopia
We took with us an old Moor, so enfeebled with age that they were forced
to carry him: he had seen, as I have said, the sufferings and death of
Don Christopher de Gama; and a Christian, who had often heard all those
passages related to his father, and knew the place where the uncle and
nephew of Mahomet were buried, and where they interred one quarter of the
Portuguese martyr. We often examined these two men, and always apart;
they agreed in every circumstance of their relations, and confirmed us in
our belief of them by leading us to the place where we took up the uncle
and nephew of Mahomet, as they had described. With no small labour we
removed the heap of stones which the Moors, according to their custom,
had thrown upon the body, and discovered the treasure we came in search
of. Not many paces off was the fountain where they had thrown his head,
with a dead dog, to raise a greater aversion in the Moors. I gathered
the teeth and the lower jaw. No words can express the ecstasies I was
transported with at seeing the relics of so great a man, and reflecting
that it had pleased God to make me the instrument of their preservation,
so that one day, if our holy father the Pope shall be so pleased, they
may receive the veneration of the faithful. All burst into tears at the
sight. We indulged a melancholy pleasure in reflecting what that great
man had achieved for the deliverance of Abyssinia, from the yoke and
tyranny of the Moors; the voyages he had undertaken; the battles he had
fought; the victories he had won; and the cruel and tragical death he had
suffered. Our first moments were so entirely taken up with these
reflections that we were incapable of considering the danger we were in
of being immediately surrounded by the Galles; but as soon as we awoke to
that thought, we contrived to retreat as fast as we could. Our
expedition, however, was not so great but we saw them on the top of a
mountain ready to pour down upon us. The viceroy attended us closely
with his little army, but had been probably not much more secure than we,
his force consisting only of foot, and the Galles entirely of horse, a
service at which they are very expert. Our apprehensions at last proved
to be needless, for the troops we saw were of a nation at that time in
alliance with the Abyssins.
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