Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/453

 the king's side, no person of consideration was slain but Kasmati Mazire, and very few on the part of the enemy.

year 1685, the 5th of Yasous's reign, there was no military expedition. He had pardoned Abba Tebedin, and Kasmati Wali, and the monks again desired an assembly of the clergy, which was granted. But the king seeing, at its first meeting, that it was to produce nothing but wrangling and invectives; with great calmness and resolution told the assembly, "That their disputes were of a nature so confused and unedifying, that he questioned much their being really founded in scripture; and the rather so, because the patriarch of Alexandria seemed neither to know, nor concern himself about them, nor was the Abuna, at his first coming, ever instructed on any one of those points. If they were, however, founded in scripture, one of them was confessedly in the wrong; and, if so, he doubted it might be the case with both; that he had, therefore, come to a resolution to name several of the best-qualified persons of both parties, who, in the presence of the Itchegue and Abuna, might inspect the books, and from them settle some premises that might be hereafter accepted and admitted as data by both."

This being assented to, the very next year he ordered two of the priests of Debra Libanos then at Gondar, together with Abba Tebedin, Colmas of Aruana, the Abuna Sanuda, and the Itchegue, forthwith to repair to Debra Mariam, an island in the lake Tzana, where, sequestered from the world, they might discus their several opinions, and settle some points admissible by both sides. After which, without giving any opportunity for reply, he dissolved the assembly, and took the field with his army.