The fanatic and ignorant monks, heated with the last dispute, were fired with rage at the indignity which they supposed was offered to our Saviour. But the king, struck with the beauty of the picture, and thinking blood enough had been already shed upon religious scruples, was resolved to humour the spirit of persecution no farther. Some of the ringleaders of these disturbances privately disappearing, the rest saw the necessity of returning to their duty; and the picture was placed on the altar of Atronsa Mariam, and there preserved, notwithstanding the devastation of the country by the Moors under the reigns of David III. and Claudius, till many years afterwards, together with the church, it was destroyed by an inroad of the Galla. In the mean time, the army from Dawaro had entered the kingdom of Adel under Betwudet[19] Adber Yasous, and, expecting to find the Moors quite unprepared, they had begun to waste every thing with fire and sword. But it was not long before they found the inhabitants of Adel ready to receive them, and perfectly instructed of the king’s intentions, from the moment he left Dawaro, to go to meet his son in Gojam. Indeed, it could not be otherwise, from the multitude of Moors constantly in his army, who, though they put on the appearance of loyalty, never ceased to have a warm heart towards their own religion and countrymen. Advanced parties appeared as soon as the Abyssinian army entered the frontiers; and these were followed by the main body in good order, determined to fight their enemy before they had time to ravage the country. A battle immediately followed, very bloody, as might be expected from the mutual hatred of the soldiers, from the equality in numbers, and the long experience each had in the other’s manner of fighting. The battle, often on the point of being lost, was as often retrieved by the personal exertion of the Moorish officers, upon whom the loss principally fell. Sidi Hamet, the king’s son, the chiefs of Arar, Nagal, Telga, Adega, Hargai, Gadai, and Kumo, were slain, with several other principal men, who had either revolted from the king of Abyssinia, or whom friendship to the king of Adel had brought from the opposite coast of Arabia.