Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile,: In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, & 1773, Volume 3

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James Ballantyne, 1805
 

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Page 424 - And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than for that city.
Page 352 - IN 1621," says the Abyssinian historian, " there was brought into Abyssinia a bird called Para, which was about the bigness of a hen, and spoke all languages ; Indian, Portuguese, and Arabic. It named the King's name ; although its voice was that of a man, it could likewise neigh like a horse and mew lile a cat, but did not sing like a bird.
Page 491 - Christian country ; and that it had not lost the faith, but only for want of some person who had zeal enough to consecrate himself to the instruction of this abandoned nation." He adds, that upon their way they found a great number of hermitages and churches half ruined ; a fiction derived from the same source.
Page 394 - ... prince the following remarks, addressed by him to his father. " These men whom you see slaughtered on the ground were neither pagans nor Mohammedans, at whose death we should rejoice : they were Christians, lately your subjects and your countrymen, some of them your relations. This is not victory which is gained over ourselves. In killing these you drive the sword into your own entrails. How many have you put to an untimely death, and how many have you yet to destroy ! We are become a proverb...
Page 33 - ... of David ; after which the coffin is placed in the sepulchre of the kings in presence of the imperial family and nobles. It is well known that the royal standard of Abyssinia displays the lion of the tribe of Judah, to indicate the descent of its kings from Solomon ; a fiction, it may be presumed, by which the clergy flattered the vanity of the monarch and preserved the relic of a custom older than Christianity. In the fair season of the year his majesty was always in the field. The form of the...
Page 134 - Covilham described the several ports in India which he had seen ; the temper and disposition of the princes ; the situation and riches of the mines of Sofala. He reported that the country was very populous, full of cities both powerful and rich ; and he exhorted the king to pursue, with unremitting vigour, the passage round Africa, which he declared to be attended with very little danger, and that the Cape itself was well known in India. He accompanied this description with a chart...
Page 60 - ... in possession of certain genii, averse to intercourse with men, and very vindictive, if even by accident they are ruffled, or put out of their way by their interference. This, indeed, is carried to...
Page 293 - Here he was met by a number of young girls, daughters of the umbares, or supreme judges, together with many noble virgins standing on the right and left of the court. Two of the noblest of these held in their hands a crimson cord of silk, somewhat thicker than a common whip-cord, but of a looser texture, stretched across from one company to another, as if to shut up the road by which the king was approaching the church.
Page 242 - ... has only two children by him, and as her family is so small, she comes to solicit their daughter for her husband's wife, that their families may be joined together and be strong ; and that her children, from their being few in number, may not fall a prey to their enemies in the day of battle ; for the Galla always fight in families, whether against one another, or against other enemies.
Page 12 - What may be called, in familiar language, the etiquette and costume of the Abyssinian court, is evidently of Persic origin. It was borrowed in early times from Hamyar, then subject to the Persians, by the kings of Axum, who strove to emulate the magnificence and retired majesty of the Great King...

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