Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (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
Kefla Yasous sent two of his principal officers, with a distinct detail
of this whole affair, to the king. It being now dark, they swam the
river on horseback, with much more difficulty and danger than we had
done, and they found Ras Michael and the king in council, to whom they
told their message with every circumstance, adding, that Kefla Yasous,
as the only way to preserve the army, quite spent with fatigue, and
encumbered with such a quantity of baggage, had struck his tent, and
would, by that time, be on his march for the ford of Delakus, which he
should cross, and, after leaving a party to guard the baggage and sick,
he should with the freshest of his men join the army. The spy that had
passed with Michael and the king was now sought for, but he had lost no
time, and was gone off to Fasil at Boskon Abbo. Kefla Yasous, having
seen all the baggage on their way before him, did, as his last act,
perhaps not strictly consistent with justice, hang the poor unfortunate
informer, the Agow, upon one of the trees at the ford, that Welleta
Yasous, when he passed in the morning, might see how certainly his
secret was discovered, and that consequently he was on his guard.
On the 28th he crossed Amlac Ohha with some degree of difficulty, and
was obliged to abandon several baggage-mules. He advanced after this
with as great diligence as possible to Delakus, and found the ford,
though deep, much better than he expected. He had pitched his tent on
the high road to Gondar, before Welleta Yasous knew he was decamped,
and of this passage he immediately advised Michael refreshing his
troops for any emergency.
About two in the afternoon Welleta Yasous appeared with his horse on
the other side of the Nile, but it was then too late. Kefla Yasous
was so strongly posted, and the banks of the river so guarded with
fire-arms, down to the water-edge, that Fasil and all his army would
not have dared to attempt the passage, or even approach the banks of
the river.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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