Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/144

 submitted to him, by treachery; and in their place, in every principal town, he had substituted Turkish officers of confidence, strongly supported by troops of Janizaries, who knew no other government but martial law.

had now changed its form entirely under these new conquerors. Muskets, and large trains of artillery, were introduced against javelins, lances, and arrows, the only arms then known in Arabia, and in the opposite continent of Abyssinia. A large fleet, crowded with soldiers, and filled with military stores, the very name of which, as well as their destructive qualities, were till now unknown in these southern regions, were employed by the Turks to extend their conquest to India, where, though by the superior valour of the Portuguese they were constantly disappointed in their principal object, they nevertheless, in their passage outward and homeward, reinforced their several polls in Arabia, from which they looked for assistance and protection, had any enemy placed himself in their way, or a storm, or other unexpected misfortune, overtaken them in their return.

Janizaries lived upon the very bowels of commerce. They had, indeed, for a shew of protecting it, established customhouses in their various ports; but they soon made it appear, that the end proposed by these was only to give them a more distinct knowledge who were the subjects from whom they could levy the most enormous extortions, Jidda, Zibid, and Mocha, the places of consequence nearest to Abyssinia on the Arabian shore, Suakem, a sea-port town on the very barriers of Abyssinia, in the immediate way of their caravan to Cairo, on the African side, were each