Cap. liv.—Of the fashion of the church of San Salvador, and of other churches which are in the said town, and of the birth of King Lalibela, and the dues of this country.
The church of St. Saviour stands alone, cut out of a rock; it is very large. Its interior is two hundred spans in length, and a hundred and twenty in width. It has five naves, in each one seven square columns; the large one has four, and the walls of the church have as much. The columns are very well worked, with arches which hang down a span below the vaulted roof. The vaulted roofs are very well worked, and of great height, principally the centre one, which is very high. It is of a handsome height; most of the ends are lower, all in proportion. In the principal height of these naves there is much tracery, such as ...,[95] or keystones, or roses, which they put on the vaults, on which they make roses and other graceful works. On the sides it has very pretty windows, with much tracery, long and narrow in the middle. Within and without, these are long, like the loopholes[96] of a wall, narrow without and wide within; these are wide both within and without, and narrow in the middle, with arches and tracery. The principal chapel is very high, and the canopy over the altar is very high, with a support at each corner. All this is made from the rock itself. In the other naves they do not deck the chapels and altars with canopies like the high altar in its grandeur. The principal door has at each side many and large buttresses, and the door commences with very large arches, and goes on narrowing with other arches until they reach a small door, which is not more than nine spans high and four and a half wide. The side doors are in this manner, only that they do not commence with so much width, and they end with the width of the principal door. On the outside part of this church are seven buttresses with arches,[97] which are twelve palms distant from the wall of the church, and from buttress to buttress an arch, and above the church, on these arches, a vault constructed in such manner that if it were built of pieces and soft stone it could not be straighter nor better constructed, nor with more work about it. These arches outside may be about the height of two lances. There is not any variation in the whole of this rock in which this church stands; it all looks like one block of marble. The court or cloister which the church has round it is all worked with the same stone. It is sixty palms wide at each end, and in front of the principal church door quite a hundred palms. Above this church, where it should be roofed, there are on each side nine large arches, like cloisters, which descend from the top to the bottom, to the tombs along the sides,[98] as in the other church. The entrance to this church is by a descent through the rock itself, eighty steps cut artificially in the stone, of a width that ten men can go side by side, and of the height of a lance or more. This entrance has four holes above, which give light to the passage above the edges. From this rock to the enclosure of the church is like a field; there are many houses, and they sow barley in it.
The house or church of Our Lady is not so large as that of St. Saviour, but it is very well constructed. It has three naves, and the centre one is very high, with large loops and roses very ingeniously carved in the rock itself. Each nave has five columns, and upon them their arches and vaults, very high pitched,[99] and well made. It has, besides, a high column in the cross of the transept, on which is placed a canopy which from its fretted work looks as if it were stamped in wax. At the head of each nave there is a chapel, with its altar like those of St. Saviour; only it has, besides, altars at each of the doors, which are of the size and fashion of those of St. Saviour. It has six buttresses on the exterior; two on each side are adhering to the wall, and four are distant from it, and well made arches spring from one to the other of them, and upon them are very well constructed canopies, which are very high and like a portico, over the doors. These canopies are all of one size, as broad as they are long. It has a very high and graceful circuit, and behind, as well as at the sides and in front, all round of the height of the church. This church is eighty spans in length and sixty-four in width. This church, also, has in front of its principal door, made out of the rock itself, a large house, in which they give food to the poor; and the way out of the church is through this house to the outside, or they enter the church through it underneath the rock a good distance. On each side of this church, in front of the side doors, are two churches each at its end. This church of Our Lady is the head of all the other churches of this place. It has an infinite quantity of canons, and the church which is on the side of the epistle is as long and as wide as that of Our Lady. It has three naves, and in each nave three columns well wrought of level work. It has not got more than one chapel, and one altar, made like those of other churches. Its principal door is very well worked; it does not face outwards, but to a corridor below the rock, which comes like a path to the house of Our Lady. This corridor comes from a distance; where it begins they ascend to it by fifteen steps of the rock itself. This is a very dark entrance. On the side towards the church of Our Lady, this church has a very pretty side door and two very elegant windows, and behind and on the other side all hewn rock and very rough, without having any work whatever. This church is called the Martyrs, and the church which is on the gospel side of the church of Our Lady, is called Holy Cross. It is small, it is sixty-eight spans in length, it has not got naves, it has three columns in the middle, which appear to have their tops above (the roof), very well made and vaulted; inside all is smooth work. On the side of Our Lady’s church it has a very handsome side door and two well made windows; it has a single altar, like others; the principal door is well wrought. It has not got a court nor faces outwards, only to a corridor like a path, which goes outside, underneath the rock, very long and very dark.
The church of Emanuel is well wrought, both inside and out, it is small. It is forty-two spans in length inside, and twenty in width. It has three naves, the middle one very high and with domed[100] vaults: the side naves are not vaulted, and are flat underneath, that is, the ceiling is like the floor of the church. These naves are upon five supports: the breadth and thickness of these supports are of four spans from corner to corner, and the wall of the church has four others. It has very well worked doors, both the side and principal doors, and all of the same size, that is to say, nine spans high, and four wide. It is all enclosed; on the outside there is a space[101] of three steps, which go all round it, except at the doors, which each have a wide court, each with five steps above those which surround the church. It is all of the rock itself, without a piece or fault. This church also has what none of the others have, that is, a choir, to which they ascend by a spiral staircase: it is not large, for a tall man with a span more would knock his head against the ceiling, which is flat, like the floor of the church, and so also over the naves and sides, large as they are; they go to small cells by doors from one to another, and from the choir itself doors open to these little rooms or cells. They do not make use of this choir except for keeping there chests of vestments and church ornaments. These chests must have been made inside this choir, because they could not enter by any way, I do not know how they could come in even in pieces. The outside walls of this church, also, have what others have not, that is to say, like tiers of walls, one bends outwards and another turns inwards two inches, another, again, turns outwards and another goes inwards, and so it is from the commencement of the steps to the top of the church; and the tier of stone which goes outwards is two spans wide, and that going inwards one span, and in this fashion and width they cover the whole wall, and reckoning up the spans, this wall is 52 spans high. The church has its circuit cut like a wall outside, and inside of the rock itself, and this wall is entered by three good doors like small gates of a city or walled town.
The church of St. George is a good bit lower down than the others, almost separated from the place; it is in the rock, like the others. The entrance to it is under the rock or cliff: there are eight steps to ascend, and when they are ascended one enters into a large house, with a bench which goes all round it on the inside, for outside it is rough rock. In this house alms are given to the poor, who seat themselves on these benches. Entering from this house one comes at once to the church circuit, which is made in the form of a cross. The church also is in the form of a cross, and the distance from the principal door to the chancel is the same as that from one side door to the other, all of one compass. The doors are very well worked outside. I did not go inside, as it was locked. In the circuit of the church, entering from outside, to the right hand, for it is all rough rock, without more than one entrance, there is, at the height of a man or a little more, placed in the wall, a kind of ark full of water. They go up to it by steps; and they say that this water springs there, but it does not flow out: they carry it away for intermittent fevers, and say that it is good for them. All this enclosure is full of tombs, like the other churches. On the top of this church is a large double cross, that is, one within the other, like the crosses of the order of Christ. Outside the circuit the rock is higher than the church, and on this rock are cypresses and wild olive trees. It wearied me to write more of these works, because it seems to me that they will not believe me if I write more, and because as to what I have already written they may accuse me of untruth, therefore I swear by God, in whose power I am, that all that is written is the truth, and there is much more than what I have written, and I have left it that they may not tax me with its being falsehood. And because no other Portuguese went to these works except myself, and I went twice to see them from what I had heard of them. This place is on a slope of the mountain, and from the peak of the mountain to this is a day and a half’s journey of descent. This slope or mountain seems to be quite separate from the other mountain, yet it is subject to it, and from this town to the bottom there is still a great descent, and at the end of it a view over four or five leagues, and many great plains which they say are two days’ journey distant. (It seemed to me that one could go in one.) They say that there are in these plains other such edifices as those of Aquaxumo, such as stone chairs and other buildings, and that the residences of the Kings were there, like the other buildings of the Queens, and this is in the direction of the Nile. I did not go there, and I relate on hearsay a thing at which I was more amazed. They told me that the works of these churches were done in twenty-four years, and that this is written, and that they were done by Gibetas, that is, white men, for they well know that they do not know how to do any well executed work. They say that King Lalibela ordered this to be done; this name of Lalibela means miracle. They say that he took, or that they gave him, this name, because when he was born he was covered with bees, and that the bees cleaned him without doing him any hurt. They also say that he was not the son of the King, but son of a sister of the King, and that the King died without having a son, and the nephew, the sister’s son, inherited the kingdom. They say that he was a saint, and that he did many miracles, and so there is much pilgrimage to this place.
This lordship of Abrigima was given by the Prester John, before our departure, to the ambassador whom he sends to Portugal; and as I say that I came twice to see these churches and edifices, the second time that I came to see them I came with the ambassador, who came to take possession of his lordship. And whilst we were thus going about the country there came to us two calaces, which means messengers or word from the King: these calaces said to the ambassador who was taking the lordship of Abrigima, that the Prester John sent to tell him to send him the gibir, that is to say, the dues which were owing by his predecessor, for he did not owe anything yet, as he was then taking possession. And what they said was owing was this, namely, a hundred and fifty plough oxen, thirty dogs, thirty assagays, and thirty shields. The new captain gave for answer that he would at once send to know what property was belonging to his predecessor, and that he would pay out of it. In this manner they paid in these kingdoms, as in other places. I have said that those towards Egypt and Arabia pay horses and silks, and so the other lands and lordships pay each their own produce, according to their quality and breed.
Cap. lv.—How we departed from Ancona, and went to Ingabelu, and how we returned to seek the baggage.
We departed from the church and fair of Ancona, and having gone a distance of three leagues we reached some villages with all the goods; in these they would not receive us nor carry our baggage, saying that these villages belonged to the mother of Prester John, and that they did not obey any one except her. And they desired to beat the friar who conducted us, and they did give a beating to one of his men. We left the baggage here, and went to sleep at a large town of good houses named Ingabelu. Its situation is on a hill in the midst of extensive cultivated lands between very high mountains, the skirts of which are studded with an infinite number of towns, the largest number and the greatest that we had yet seen: it seems to me that these towns exceed a hundred. This town has pretty rivers on each side of it. They were building here a pretty church of masonry, of good workmanship; and that it may not appear to be a lie that so many towns could be seen from this Ingabelu, I say that all were not in sight from there, but we saw them from the mountains by which we passed. Those which might be furthest off from this town would be a league and a half. We found in this town an infinite quantity of fowls, which, if not in a hurry,[102] could be bought a hundred, if one wanted so many, in exchange for a little pepper. In this place there are many lemons and citrons: we remained here Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday night the tigers sprung into the town, and fell in with a boy and carried him off. From that place they attacked a large farm where we were lodging, and there broke loose from us a mule and an ass, which already once before had escaped at the river of Sabalete: they got away from the farm house, the mule jumped into a cow yard and so escaped, and the ass was devoured. On the morning of Monday the 11th day of September, we set out from the said town, turning back to where the baggage had remained, and on the road we met many people, half peacably inclined, the other half hostile (these were they who would not receive the baggage), and their arms were cudgels; they received us with welcome, and we did likewise to them, and that night we slept in their town, and they made amends for the past, for they gave us very good food. On the following day we set out on our road, a distance of two leagues or three, and again slept without our goods. On the Thursday we turned back again in search of it, and when we found it we still travelled straight on a good three leagues, all of it crossing mountains and passing valleys as before, and the whole of it seemed to be mountains. This Kingdom of Angote is almost all of it valleys and mountains, and the tilled land has little wheat and little barley, yet it gives much millet, taffo, and dagusha, pulse, peas, lentils, beans, many figs, garlic, and onions, and great abundance of all vegetables. Iron is current as money in this country, as has been said.