Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/341

 myself was led to adopt in my former journal, owing to my having relied too hastily upon the assertions of others. The statement in the chronicles must be considered, however, as the more correct, from my having lately met with a strong confirmation of the fact in a passage from a Greek author, who actually gives the name of the sovereign reigning in Ethiopia when those clergymen  went over; a circumstance which I shall notice more at large in a short treatise which I propose to give respecting the ancient history of the country. Notwithstanding the long interval of time which this statement gives, as having elapsed since the arrival of Abba Asfé, (constituting a period of nearly one thousand three hundred years,) yet I am still led to believe, from the general appearance of the ruin, that it formed a portion of the original building, as the consequence of Abyssinia began shortly afterwards to decline.

Father Alvarez, who visited this place in 1520, speaks of the building with great rapture, though even in his time it was beginning to fall into decay. He calls it Abba-facem, and after speaking of a church in its neighbourhood, says, "close to it is a very large and beautiful tower, as well for its finely proportioned height, as for its size and exquisite masonry; but it has, at length, begun to fall into decay, in spite of its being very strongly built, and of live-stone, covered and enriched with so much excellent work, that it displays no less than a royal grandeur, of which I have never seen its equal."

The mention of this external ornament is valuable, from its referring in all probability, to a cincture or frieze which surrounded the upper part of the building, a few fragments of which I subsequently discovered among some adjoining heaps of stone. Of these I have given sketch, with the characters upon them: and I have remarked, in my notes made on the spot, that "they probably formed a part of the larger building."