Sela Christos had with him about 7000 men, most of them Catholics and veteran soldiers; and among these 40 Portuguese, partly on foot, armed with musquets, the others on horseback, clad in coats of mail. Very different was the army of Damots. They were superior in number for they exceeded 12000 men, and among these were 400 monks, well armed with swords, lances, and shields, earnestly bent upon the obtaining a crown of martyrdom in defence of their religion, from the innovation proposed by Socinios. At the head of these was a fanatical monk (one Batacu) who promised them armies of angels, with flaming swords, who should slay their enemies, but render them invulnerable, as he declared himself to be, either by sword or lance. The battle was fought at the foot of the mountains of Amid Amid, on the 6th of October 1620. Sela Christos, sure of victory, and unwilling to slaughter a people he had been used to protect, began first to shew his superiority in slight skirmishes. After which, desiring a parley, he sent messengers to them, begging them to consider their own danger, and offering them a general amnesty upon their submission. These messengers were not allowed to approach, for showers of arrows that were poured upon them; so the battle began with great animosity on both sides. The Damots were soon broken and put to flight by the superiority of Sela Christos’s soldiers. But the 400 monks, already mentioned, fought most desperately in defiance of numbers, nor did they seek their safety by a flight. One hundred and eighty of them were killed on the place they occupied, valiantly fighting to the very last. A rare example, and seldom found in history, that fanatics like these, always ready to rebel, should persist and sacrifice their lives to the follies of their own preaching. As for their celestial auxiliaries, whose assistance they were promised as far as could be discovered, they neither did harm nor good. We may suppose they stood neuter. But Batacu the hermit, ringleader of this sedition, whose body was so miraculously armed, that neither sword nor spear could make any impression upon it, was unfortunately thrust through with a lance in the very beginning of the engagement, which greatly served to discredit these supernatural aids. It was in this year 1620, that Socinios marched into Begemder against Jonael. At which time Peter Paez was employed at Gorgora in building the church there. The king returned immediately to Dancaz after the defeat of Jonael, and passed his winter at that place.