Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/101

Rh prince kept strictly his promise of secrecy made to Bæda Mariam, while the king of Adel observed a very different line of conducct; for he not only discovered the king's intention, but he invited the Dobas to send their wives, children, and effects into Adel, while his troops should cut off the king's provision, and fight him wherever they saw that it could be done with advantage. The plan was speedily embraced. Twelve clans of Dobas marched with their cattle, as privately as possible, for Adel; but the king's intelligence was too good, and his motions too rapid, to allow their schemes to be carried into execution. With a large body of horse, he took possession of a strong pass, called Fendera; and when that unhappy people, fatigued with their march, and incumbered with baggage, arrived at this spot, they were cut to pieces without resistance, and without distinction of age or sex.

king, at the beginning of this campaign, declared, that his intention was not to carry on war with the Dobas as with an ordinary enemy, but totally to extirpate them as a nuisance; and, to shew himself in earnest in the declaration, he now made a vow never to depart from the country till he had plowed and sown the fields, and ate the crop on the spot with his army. He, therefore, called the peasants of two small neighbouring districts, Wadge and Ganz, and ordered them to plow and sow that part; which having seen done, the king went to Axum, but returned again to the Dobas, by the feast of the Epiphany. That cruel, restless nation, saw now the king's real intent was their utter destruction, and that there was no possibility of avoiding it but by submission. This prudent conduct they immediately adopted; and, great part of them renouncing the Pagan