This declaration, which I heard from the king's secretary, word for word as it was given, threw all the council into great confusion, the more so, that, being gently talked to, and food given him after his examination, at night the assassin had again repeated what he before said about Gusho, and that Fasil, too, was accessory to the attempt. And what made this labyrinth of lies still more intricate was, that it was certainly known that Hagos, his brother, had constantly lived with Coque Abou Barea, in Kuara, from the time Ras Michael had put his brother to death at Gondar. It was intended therefore to try the effect of further torture in the morning, to make him confess the truth. His guard, however, having fallen asleep, or gone out of the tent, he was found strangled by the running noose that was left round his neck; nor was any further light ever thrown upon this affair at any time after; but it was generally believed the attempt had been made at the instigation of some connection of the Iteghé, and there were some who went so far as to name Welleta Israel.
Early in the morning some priests came from Powussen, Ayabdar, and Gusho, to take the most solemn oaths before the Abuna, that they never had the smallest knowledge of what the assassin had laid to their charge; and they took upon themselves sentence of excommunication, which the Abuna then pronounced conditionally, if they had directly, or indirectly, been principal or accessory, or known, or been consulted, in any manner whatever, as to the designs of that assassin. Several principal officers of the rebels, moreover, who had left Gondar and gone over to Fasil, and who were there in Gusho's camp, came over to congratulate with Ras Michael upon his escape, so that, for a moment, one would have thought the whole country interested in saving him whom all were actually in arms at that instant to destroy. What surprised me most of all, probable as the thing might seem to be, not one man in the camp, from the Ras and King downward, seemed to think that this attempt of the Guragué had been in any shape the plot of the rebels; and yet, in old times, murder by treason must have been very frequent in his kingdom, as appears by their customs preserved to this day; no person, be their station, connection, or friendship what it will, can offer any one meat or drink without tasting it before them.
Proposals of peace followed this friendly intercourse, but the condition being always that Michael should depart to Tigrè, which he thought was but in other terms a proposal to destroy him, these friendly overtures ended in defiance and protestation, That to him alone was owing the effusion of human blood, and the ruin of his country, which was immediately to follow.
It was the 17th of May, at night, the attempt had been made on the Ras's life; and the 18th was spent in excommunication before the Abuna; and, in the evening, Michael received intelligence, that Ayto Tesfos, from the mountains of Samen, and Heraclius and Samuel Mammo, from Walkayt and Tzegadé, were both preparing to join the rebels with a considerable force. We were now arrived at the fatal field of Serbraxos, as we had endeavoured to pass it, but in vain; nothing now remained but to try to find which side the devil (the father of lies) had been forced to tell the truth, or whether he had yet told it to either. Darion, a principal man of Belessen, and Guigarr of Lasta, joined the Ras's army about noon, bringing with them 1200 men, chiefly horsemen, good troops, and they were joyfully received.
A council was held with all the great officers that evening, and the order of battle fixed upon for next day. Kefla Yasous, with the best of the foot from Tigrè, with the king's household troops, the Shoa horse, and the Moors of Ras el Feel, with their libds, (in all not amounting to 10,000 men, but the flower of the army) composed the left wing, in the center of which was the king in person, the heavy-armed black horse before him, and the officers and nobility surrounding him: Guebra Christos, and Kasmati Tesfos of Siré, commanded the center, in which was Darion and Guigarr's cavalry, for the Lasta men, though of different sides, could never be prevailed upon to fight against one another, so instead of being with the king against Begemder and Lasta, they were placed in the center against Gusho and Amhara. The right of the king's army was commanded by Welleta Michael and Billetana Gueta Tecla, opposed to the left wing of the rebels under Kasmati Ayabdar, who had lately received large reinforcements from Gojam, by means of the Iteghé, who well knew him to be an inveterate enemy to Ras Michael, and one who would never make peace with him.
I have often heard it observed by officers of skill and experience, that nothing is more difficult to describe than a battle, and that as many descriptions as are given of it, they generally disagree, and seem as many different battles. To this I shall add, that I find as great difficulty in giving an idea of the ground on which a battle was fought, which perhaps is not the case with professional men; and though I describe nothing but what I saw, and what my horse passed over, still I very much doubt if I can make myself intelligible to my readers. The hill of Serbraxos was neither very high nor steep, unless on the north and east, where it was almost a precipice. It was not a mountain joined with others, as the bed of a torrent, that ran very rapidly from Belessen south of Mariam-Ohha, divided it from these mountains. The west side of it sloped gently to a large plain, which extended to the brink of the lake Tzana, and upon this our rear was encamped. The S. W. side of this hill was like the former, and about half a mile from it came an elbow of the river Mariam, so called from a church in the plain: on this side of the hill our center was encamped with the king, Abuna, and the princesses; whilst on the south face (which looked down a valley) was Ras Michael and the van of the army: the hill here was considerably steeper, and I have already said ended with the precipice on the north. Along the bottom of this south face of the hill lay the small stream called Deg-Ohha, which stood in pools, and was the safest and readiest supply for the army, as being perfectly under command of our musquets, where our horses could water without danger: immediately south from this ran a valley full half a mile broad, which ended in a large plain about two miles off.
The valley where Michael and the van first engaged, was formed by the hills of Belessen on the east, and the river Mariam on the west, and near the middle of the valley there was a low and flat-topt hill, not above 30 yards in height, which did not join with the hill of Serbraxos. Between them there was an opening of about 100 yards, through which ran Deg-Ohha, to the ford of the river Mariam, from which you ascended in a direction nearly N. W. up into the plain which reached to the lake Tzana. On the south end of this hill, as I have said, which might have been about two miles in length, the banks of the Mariam are very high, and the river stands in large deep pools, with banks of sand between them. Where this hill ends to the right is another ford of the river Mariam, where a deep and narrow sandy road goes winding up the banks, in a direction N. W. like the former, and leads to the same plain bordering on the lake Tzana: so that the plain of the valley where the Mariam runs, which is bordered by the foot of the mountains of Belessen, and continues along the plain south to Tangouré, is near 200 feet lower than the plain that extends on the side of the lake Tzana. Nor is there a convenient access from the plain to the valley, at least that I saw, by reason of the height and steepness of the banks of the Mariam, excepting these two already mentioned; one between the extremity of the long even hill, and slope of the mountain on the north, and the other on the south, through the winding sandy road up the steep banks of the river, by the south end of that low hill, as I have already said. At these two places are the two fords of the river, which continue passable even in the rainy season, and the water at that time stands in pools below it, till several miles further it joins the Zingetch Gomara, a larger stream than itself, whose banks are low, and where the stream is fordable also; but the banks of the river Mariam continue steep, and run in a southern direction. In this valley, at the south end of this hill near the ford was the engagement between Michael with the van, and the Begemder troops, on the 16th; at the ford on the north end of this hill, in the same valley, was the fight between the light troops and Kasmati Ayabdar, and the king in person, the very same day; so that the valley was perfectly known by the enemy, and as they had few or no musquetry, was wisely considered as not fit ground for their purposes being narrow and commanded by hills everywhere.
On the 19th of May, word was brought that the whole rebel army was in motion, and before eight o'clock (reckoned in Abyssinia an early hour for such business) a great cloud of dust was seen rising on the right of the rebels towards Korreva, and this was the moment the Begemder troops got on horseback in the dusty plain; soon after we heard their kettle-drums, and about nine o'clock we saw the whole troops of Begemder appear, drawn up at such a distance in the plain, above the road up the steep bank of the Mariam, as to leave great room for us to form with the road on our left, and a little on our rear; Michael easily divined Powussen's intention, which was to beat us back by a superior force of horse, and then making a number of troops glide below unseen, along the river in the valley, take possession of the round hill, at the north ford of Mariam, and cut off our retreat to our camp at Serbraxos; the Ras immediately dispatched some single horsemen to take a view of the enemy more nearly, and report what their numbers were, and where Gusho and Ayabdar were posted, for we could distinguish the colour of the horses, and all the movements of the Begemder troops, not being much above three miles distance, yet we did not know whether they were alone, or whether one or more of the other generals were with them: we saw indeed Powussen's standards, but they were so weather-beaten and faded, that we could not distinguish their real colours, which were blue and yellow.