Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/461

 risk being confounded with another, we may hardly conclude the 9th year of Yasous the First to be the year 1689 of Christ, such as our chronology, drawn from the Abyssinian annals, states it to be; or, at least, if there is any error, it must be so small as to be of no sort of consequence to any sort of readers, or influence upon the narrative of any transactions.

10th year began with a sudden and violent alarm, which spread itself in an instant all over the kingdom without any certain authority. The Galla with an innumerable army were said to have entered Gojam, at several places, and laid waste the whole province, and this was the more extraordinary, as the Nile was now in the height of its inundation. On his march, the king learned that this story arose merely from a panic; and this formidable army turned out no more than a small band of robbers of that nation, who had passed the river in their usual way, part on horseback, while the foot were dragged over, hanging at the horses tails, or riding on goats skins blown up with wind. This small party had surprised some weak villages, killed the inhabitants, and immediately returned across the river. But the alarm continued, and there were people at Gondar who were ready to swear they saw the villages and churches on fire, and a large army of Galla in their march to Ibaba, at the same time that there was not one Galla on the Gojam side of the river.

king, however, either considering this small body of Galla coming at this unseasonable time, and the panic that was so artificially spread, as a feint to throw him off his guard when a real invasion might be intended, or with a