"Nevertheless, when the King of France, our brother, who professes our religion and our law, having been induced thereto by some advances of friendship on our part such as are proper, sent an ambassador to us; I understand that you caused to arrest him at Sennaar; and also another, by name Murat, the Syrian, whom likewise you did put in prison, though he was sent to that ambassador on our part; and, by thus doing, you have violated the law of nations; as ambassadors of kings ought to be at liberty to go wherever they will; and it is a general obligation to treat them with honour, and not to molest or detain them; nor should they be subject to pay customs, or any sort of presents. We could very soon repay you in kind, if we were inclined to revenge the insult you have offered to the man Murat, sent on our part. The Nile would be sufficient to punish you, since God hath put into our power his fountain, his outlet, and his increase, and that we can dispose of the same to do you harm: for the present, we demand of and exhort you to desist from any future vexations towards our envoys, and not disturb us by detaining those who shall be sent towards you; but you shall let them pass, and continue their route without delay, coming and going wherever they will, freely for their own advantage, whether they are our subjects or Frenchmen; and whatever you shall do to or for them, we shall regard as done to or for ourselves!"
The address is, "To the basha, princes, and lords governing the town of great Cairo, may God favour them with his goodness."
The king, who had invited M. du Roulé into his country, was shortly afterward assassinated while he was hunting; and the reign of his successor was a series of petty wars and commotions.
Several years afterward the Abyssinians resolved to invade Sennaar; but their army, which is said to have amounted to eighteen thousand men, either perished by the sword or by thirst, or were made prisoners. All the sacred reliques, which the Abyssinian troops carry with them to ensure victory, were conveyed in triumph to Sennaar, and with great difficulty the king escaped to his palace at Gondar.
About the year 1735, some misfortune having happened to the Christians at Smyrna, they flocked to Cairo: finding themselves very badly received there, several sailed up the Red Sea on their way to India, and, missing the monsoon, and being destitute of money and necessaries, a few of them ventured to land at Masuah. They were silversmiths; and as the King of Abyssinia happened at the moment of their landing to be much in want of European workmen to assist him in adorning his palace, these men were ordered to come to Gondar, where they remained for some time in the king's service, and afterward gained a moderate livelihood by ornamenting saddles, &c.
Great jealousies now began to be entertained in Abyssinia on account of the favour shown to some of the Galla chieftains, who were brought to court and received with distinction. Violent dissensions took place: two kings successively met with a violent death; one being assassinated, and the other poisoned by Ras Michael, the governor of the province of Tigré, a most singular personage, with whom the reader will very shortly be made acquainted.
King Tecla Haimanout succeeded to the throne; and the same year, 1769, James Bruce, the enterprising hero of these pages, landed at Masuah.
Since the death of M. du Roulé, which took place seventy years before Bruce's arrival, Abyssinia had been so much forgotten in Europe that it seemed almost to have been blotted from the map of the world. The immense distance, the climate in which it was situated, the deserts which nearly surrounded it, and the barbarous character of the nations on its borders, were of themselves quite sufficient to deter any ordinary traveller; and the dangers of the route, great as they really were, had been much exaggerated by the disappointed and expelled Romanists. The great link which had so long connected Abyssinia with Europe, namely, the attempt to convert it to the See of Rome, had been violently broken, and the chasm which now separated them no one seemed desirous to pass.
Having thus given a short sketch of so much of the history of Abyssinia as seemed absolutely necessary to interest the reader in the following narrative, it remains only to be observed, that Bruce has furnished a minute account (which occupies about a thousand pages of his volumes) of the reigns of the several kings of Abyssinia, with descriptions of their persons, their petty feuds and dissensions, their wars with the Moors, the Galla, and the Falasha (or Jews), the burning of their churches, their savage treatment of the Shangalla tribes, &c. The general reader will, however, feel probably but little curiosity to spend his time over the records of so remote a country; and more particularly as, after all, they are not implicitly to be relied on.