Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/51

Rh No sooner was this intelligence from Gimmel-eddin published, than a kind of frenzy seized the people of Adel; they ran tumultuously to arms, and, with shrieks and adjurations, demanded to be led immediately against the Abyssinians, for they no longer desired to live upon such terms.

was among the leading men of the Moors one Saleh, chief of a small district called Cassi, by birth a Sherriffe, i. e. one of the race of Mahomet, and who, to the nobility of his birth, joined the holiness of his character. He was Imam, as it is called, or high priest of the Moors, and, for both these reasons, held in the greatest estimation among them. This man undertook, by his personal influence, to unite all the Moorish states in a common league. For it is to be observed, that, though religion was very powerful in uniting these Moors against the Christians, yet the love of gain, and jealousies of commerce, perpetually kept a party alive that favoured the king for their own interest, in the very heart of the Moorish confederacies and councils. To overcome this was the object of Saleh, and he succeeded beyond expectation, as sixteen kings brought 40,000 men into the field under their several leaders; but the chief command was given to the king of Adel.

I put the reader in mind that I am translating an Abyssinian historian. These, then, whom this chronicle stiles Kings, must be considered as being only hereditary and independent chiefs, not tributary to Abyssinia. Their names are Adel, Mara, Bakla, Haggara, Fadise, Gadai, Nagal, Zuba, Harlar, Hobal, Hangila, Tarshish, Ain, Ilbiro, Zeyla, and Estè. Now, when we confider that thefe sjxteen kings brought