Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/22

6 by this his inauguration name; his Christian name was Guebra Mascal. His reign began with a scene as disgraceful to the name of Christian as it was new in the annals of Ethiopia, and which promised a character very different from what this prince preserved ever afterwards. He had for a time, it seems, privately loved a concubine of his father, but had now taken her to live with him publicly; and, not content with committing this sort of incest, he, in a very little time after, had seduced his two sisters.

(the capital of Shoa) was then the royal residence; and near it the monastery of Debra Libanos, founded by Tecla Haimanout restorer of the line of Solomon. To this monastery many men, eminent for learning and religion, had retired from the scenes of war that desolated Palestine and Egypt. Among the number of these was one Honorius, a Monk of the first character for piety, who, since, has been canonized as a saint. Honorius thought it his duty first to admonish, and then publicly excommunicate the king for these crimes.

should seem that patience was as little among this prince's virtues as chastity, as he immediately ordered Honorius to be apprehended, stripped naked, and severely whipped through every street of his capital. That same night the town took fire, and was entirely consumed, and the clergy lost no time to persuade the people, that it was the blood of Honorius that turned to fire whenever it had dropt upon the ground, and so had burnt the city. The