Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 2 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 2 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773
Bruce, James
Egypt -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- History; Natural history -- Ethiopia; Nile River
Facilidas then ordered his uncle, Sela Christos, to be brought before
him, received him kindly, and offered him again his riches and
employments. That brave man, Christian in every thing but in his hatred
and jealousy against his sovereign and nephew, refused absolutely to
barter his faith to obtain the greatest good, or avoid the greatest
punishment, it was in the power of the king to inflict. After repeated
trials, all to no purpose, the king, overcome by the instigation of
his enemies, banished him to Anabra in Shawada, a low, unwholesome
district amidst the mountains of Samen. But hearing that he still kept
correspondence with the Jesuits, and that their common resolution was
to solicit Portuguese troops from India, and remembering his former
oath, he sent orders to his place of exile to put him to death, and he
was in consequence hanged upon a cedar-tree.
Tellez, the Portuguese historian, in his collection of martyrs that
died for the faith in Abyssinia, has deservedly inserted the name
of Sela Christos; but professes that he is ignorant of the time of
his death, and under what species of torment he suffered. The only
information that I can give is what I have just now written. It was in
the beginning of the year 1634 he was carried to Shawada in chains, and
confined upon the mountain Anabra; but no mention is made of any other
hardship being put upon him than his being in irons, nor is more usual
in that kind of banishment. It was at the end of that year, however,
that he was executed in the manner above mentioned, being suspected of
having corresponded with the patriarch and Jesuits, and afterwards of
inciting his nephew Claudius to rebel, as, it appears, he had meditated
long before, and actually did very soon after.
The 9th of March 1633, the king ordered the patriarch to leave Dancaz,
and, with the rest of the fathers, to proceed immediately to Fremona,
under the conduct of four people of the first consideration, Tecla
Georgis, brother of Keba Christos, Tecla Saluce, one of the principal
persons in Tigré, and two Azages, men of great dignity at court. These
were joined by a party of soldiers belonging to Claudius, brother of
the king, supposed to have been in the conspiracy with Sela Christos
his uncle, to supplant his brother Facilidas by the help of the Jesuits
and Portuguese troops from India. But as soon as the patriarch had
fallen into disgrace, and Sela Christos lost his life, that prince
returned to the church of Alexandria, as did all the other sons of
Socinios; after which, Claudius seized to his own use all the lands and
effects that he found in Gojam, and was now by the king made governor
of Begemder. Under this escort the patriarch and his company arrived
at Fremona in the end of April 1633, after having been often robbed
and ill-treated by the way, the guards that were given to defend them
conniving with the banditti that came to rob them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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