Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/169

 the Pythagorean prejudices against that plant were forgotten.

was on the 16th of April 1520 that Don Roderigo de Lima landed in Abyssinia; and it was the 16th of October of the fame year when he arrived within light of the king's camp, distant about three miles. The king had advanced, as hath been said, into Fatigar, about twenty-five miles from the first fair in the kingdom of Adel, and something less than two hundred from the port of Zeyla. The ambassador, after so painful a journey, expected an immediate admission into the king's presence. Instead of which, a great officer, called the Hadug Ras which is chief or commander of the asses, was sent to carry him three miles farther distant, where they ordered him to pitch his tent, and five years passed in the embassy afterwards before he procured his dismission.

accounts very lamely for this prodigious interval of time; and, excepting the celebration of the Epiphany, he does not mention one remarkable occurrence in the whole of this period. One would imagine their stay had not been above a month, and that one conversation only passed upon business, which I shall here set down as a specimen of the humour the parties were in the one with the other.

king carried the ambassador to see the church Mecana Selasse, the church of the Trinity, which was then repairing, where many of the kings had been buried while