Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/47

Rh and, planting himself on a rising ground, he began to harangue his soldiers with so much eloquence and force of reasoning, that they who before had only learned to admire their king as a soldier, were obliged to confess that, as an orator, he as much excelled every man in his state, as he did the lowest man of his kingdom in dignity. He put his soldiers in mind, "that this was not a common expedition, like those of his predecessors, marching through the country for the purpose of levying their revenue; that the intention of the present war was to avenge the blood of so many innocent Christians slain in security and full peace, from no provocation but hatred of their religion: that they were instruments in the hand of God to revenge the death of so many priests and monks who had been wantonly offered as sacrifices upon their own altars: that they were not a common army, but one confederated upon oath, having sworn upon the sacrament, at the passage of the river Hawash, that they would not return into Abyssinia till they had beat down and ruined the strength of the Mahometans in those kingdoms; so that now, when every thing had succeeded to their wishes, when every Mahometan army had been defeated as soon as it presented itself, and the whole country lay open to the chastisements they pleased to inflict, to talk of a retreat or forbearance was to make a mockery at once of their oath, and the motive of their expedition. He shewed, by invincible reasonings, the great hardships and danger that would attend his retreat through a country already wasted and unable to maintain his army; what an alarm it would occasion in Shoa, to find him returning with an enemy at his heels, following him to his very capital; that such, however, must be the