Father Lobo, the Portuguese Miffionary, embarked in 1622, in the fame fleet with the Count Vidigueira, who was appointed, by the king of Portugal, Viceroy of the Indies. They arrived at Goa; and in January 1624, Father Lobo fet out on the miffion to Abyffinia. Two of the Jefuits, fent on the fame commiffion, were murdered in their attempt to penetrate into that empire. Lobo had better success: he furmounted all difficulties, and made his way into the heart of the country. Then follows a description of Abyffinia, formerly the largest empire of which we have an account in hiftory. It extended from the Red Sea to the kingdom of Congo, and from Egypt to the Indian Sea, containing no less than forty provinces. At the time of Lobo's miffion, it was not much larger than Spain, confifting then but of five kingdoms, of which part was entirely fubject to the Emperor, and part paid him a tribute, as an acknowledgement. The provinces were inhabited by Moors, Pagans, Jews, and Chriftians. The laft was in Lobo's time the established and reigning religion. The diversity of people and religion is the reason

why

why the kingdom was under different forms of government, with laws and cuftoms extremely various. Some of the people neither fowed their lands, nor improved them by any kind of culture, living upon milk and flesh, and, like, the Arabs, encamping without any fettled habitation. In some places they practifed no rites of worship, though they believed that, in the regions above, there dwells a Being that governs the world. This Deity they call in their language Oul. The Chriftianity, profeffed by the people in fome parts, is fo corrupted with fuperftitions, errors, and herefies, and fo mingled with ceremonies borrowed from the Jews, that little, befides the name of Christianity, is to be found among them. The Abyffins cannot properly be faid to have either cities or houses; they live in tents or cottages made of ftraw or clay, very rarely building with stone. Their villages or towns confift of these huts; yet even of fuch villages they have but few, because the grandees, the viceroys, and the emperor himself, are always in camp, that they may be prepared, upon the moft fudden alarm, to meet every emergence in

a country which is engaged every year either b

VOL. I.

in

in foreign wars or inteftine commotions. Ethiopia produces very near the fame kinds of provifion as Portugal, though, by the extreme lazinefs of the inhabitants, in a much lefs quantity. What the ancients imagined of the torrid zone being a part of the world uninhabitable, is fo far from being true, that the climate is very temperate. The blacks have better features than in other countries, and are not without wit and ingenuity. Their apprehenfion is quick, and their judgement found. There are in this climate two harvests in the year; one in winter, which lafts through the months of July, Auguft, and September; the other in the fpring. They have, in the greatest plenty, raifins, peaches, pomegranates, fugarcanes, and fome figs. Most of these are ripe about Lent, which the Abyffins keep with great ftrictnefs. The animals of the country are the lion, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the unicorn, horfes, mules, oxen, and cows without number. They have a very particular cuftom, which obliges every man, that has a thoufand cows, to fave every year one day's milk of all his herd, and make a bath with it for his relations. This they do fo many days.

in each year, as they have thousands of cattle; fo that, to exprefs how rich a man is, they tell you, he bathes fo many times.

"Of the river Nile, which has furnished fo much controverfy, we have a full and clear description. It is called by the natives, ABAVI, the Father of Water. It rifes in SACALA, a province of the kingdom of GOIAMA, the most fertile and agreeable part of the Abyffinian dominions. On the Eaftern fide of the country, on the declivity of a mountain, whofe defcent is fo eafy, that it feems a beautiful plain, is that fource of the Nile, which has been fought after at fo much expence and labour. This fpring, or rather thefe two fprings, are two holes, each about two feet diameter, a stone's caft diftant from each other. One of them is about five feet and a half in depth. Lobo was not able to fink his plummet lower, perhaps, because it was stopped by roots, the whole place being full of trees. Α line of ten feet did not reach the bottom

of the other. Thefe fprings are fuppofed by the Abyffins to be the vents of a great At a small diftauce

fubterraneous

lake.

to the South, is a village called Guix, through which you afcend to the top of the mountain, where there is a little hill, which the idolatrous Agaci hold in great veneration. Their prieft calls them together to this place once a year; and every one facrifices a cow, or more, according to the different degrees of wealth and devotion. Hence we have fufficient proof, that these nations always paid adoration to the Deity of this famous river.

2

"As to the courfe of the Nile, its waters, after their first rise, run towards the Eaft, about the length of a musket-shot; then, turning Northward, continue hidden in the grass and weeds for about a quarter of a league, when they re-appear amongst a quantity of rocks. The Nile from its fource proceeds with fo inconfiderable a current, that it is in danger of being dried up by the hot feafon; but foon receiving an increafe from the GEMMA, the KELTU, the BRANSA, and the other fmaller rivers, it expands to fuch a breadth in the plains of BOAD, which is not above three days journey from its fource, that a musket-ball will fcarcely fly from one bank to the other.

Here