Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/224

 appearance of a capital. Small churches surrounded by thickets stand here and there, and on the top of a hill a cathedral, a huge building with a conic roof like most of the civil residences, has been recently built by an Italian architect. In the gardens flourish numerous exotic plants imported from Egypt and Syria. Not far from Adua are the ruins of Fremona, the seminary of the Jesuits driven out of Abyssinia in the seventeenth century. These ruins are avoided by the peasantry, who believe them to be the abode of evil spirits. Near the town Prince Kassai gained the decisive battle which made him the present Emperor of Abyssinia.

Adua is heir to a city which was the seat of an Abyssinian empire at one time stretching from the banks of the Nile to Cape Guardafui. Aksum, although

fallen from its former state, is still regarded as holy; it is the city where the coronation of the emperor takes place, and fugitives here find a sanctuary more respected than most of the convents. Its monasteries are inhabited by eight hundred priests, and by hundreds of youths who are being educated for the same profession. Aksum, the Aksemeh of the Abyssinians, lies some 12 miles from Adua on a romantic site 1,000 feet more elevated above the sea. Here its groups of houses and churches, each surrounded by groves and gardens which clothe the slope of the hill with verdure, are enframed on one side by dark basalt walls, forming a striking background to this charming picture. According to tradition, Aksum was founded by Abraham; a dignitary of the church, hardly inferior in rank to the echaghé or to the abuna, here claims to be the guardian of the "tables of