[16] Bruce, followed by most of our modern authors, relates a circumstantial and romantic story of the betrayal of Don Christopher by his mistress, a Turkish lady of uncommon beauty, who had been made prisoner.
The more truth-like pages of Father Lobo record no such silly scandal against the memory of the "brave and holy Portuguese." Those who are well read in the works of the earlier eastern travellers will remember their horror of "handling heathens after that fashion." And amongst those who fought for the faith an affaire de coeur with a pretty pagan was held to be a sin as deadly as heresy or magic.
[17] Romantic writers relate that Mohammed decapitated the Christian with his left hand.
[18] Others assert, in direct contradiction to Father Lobo, that the body was sent to different parts of Arabia, and the head to Constantinople.
[19] Bruce, followed by later authorities, writes this name Del Wumbarea.
[20] Talwambara, according to the Christians, after her husband's death, and her army's defeat, threw herself into the wilds of Atbara, and recovered her son Ali Gerad by releasing Prince Menas, the brother of the Abyssinian emperor, who in David's reign had been carried prisoner to Adel.
The historian will admire these two widely different accounts of the left- handed hero's death. Upon the whole he will prefer the Moslem's tradition from the air of truth pervading it, and the various improbabilities which appear in the more detailed story of the Christians.
[21] Formerly the Waraba, creeping through the holes in the wall, rendered the streets dangerous at night. They are now destroyed by opening the gates in the evening, enticing in the animals by slaughtering cattle, and closing the doors upon them, when they are safely speared.
[22] The following are the names of the gates in Harari and Somali:
Eastward. Argob Bari (Bar in Amharic is a gate, e.g. Ankobar, the gate of Anko, a Galla Queen, and Argob is the name of a Galla clan living in this quarter), by the Somal called Erar.