spy out the land. This was a very risky journey in those days when the jealousy of Venice was added to the fanaticism of the Moslems. But Pero de Covilhaõ fulfilled his mission. He visited Egypt, the Red Sea, and India. He then, on his return journey, touched at many of the Arab ports on the East African coast. Finally he disembarked at Masawa, and travelled to Abyssinia, the first intelligent European to enter that country for a very long period of time,--the first, in fact, since the Greek merchants and missionaries who traded and travelled under the Byzantine Empire. The King of Abyssinia was so delighted with the advent of this white man, yet so suspicious of his country’s motives, that he was detained as an unwilling guest in Abyssinia for several years, and died when on his way home. But the Portuguese fleet came to Masawa in 1520 with an embassy which remained in the country of Abyssinia for six years. In this embassy were the priests Bermudez and Francisco Alvarez. Alvarez afterwards (about 1550) wrote an interesting account of Abyssinia, describing more especially the province of Tigre, and alluding to the Atbara (there known as the Takaze) as the main Nile. Bermudez became for a time the primate or patriarch of Abyssinia. The Jesuit missionaries, for the most part Portuguese, strove hard to replace the corrupt Greek Christianity of the country by the Latin rite. This action not unnaturally set up against them a strong body of opponents in the native Abyssinian priesthood. For a time, however, the civilisation they introduced, and their trading connection with India, made a great impression on the king and chieftains of Ethiopia, until, as will be seen later on, the country became suspicious of Portuguese intentions, observing the facility with which parts of East Africa, India, and the shores of the Persian Gulf had been conquered and occupied by the Portuguese. But before this jealousy was to culminate in the expulsion of the Portuguese from Abyssinia one hundred years later, the Christian rulers of that country were forced to appeal to Portugal for help and armed intervention. As already mentioned in Chapter V., an attack on Abyssinia had been made by a Muhammadan chieftain of the Danakil country,--Muhammad Granye, or Muhammad the Lame. This man was probably of Somali race, and ruled the country round about Tajurra Bay,--the French Somaliland of to-day. In alliance with the Arabs and Turks, he not only created the Somali kingdom of Adel, but ravaged the greater part of Abyssinia. His policy was distinctly anti-Christian, and it is conceivable that he might have extinguished for ever the Christian Semite rule over Abyssinia but for the intervention of the Portuguese. The Emperor David, about 1530, managed to send emissaries (probably Jesuit priests) to Lisbon to implore the assistance of the King of Portugal. The result was that Dom Estevaõ da Gama (son of the celebrated Vasco[17]) as Portuguese