Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/59

Rh surrounded by steep perpendicular rocks, covered thick with wood.

Abyssinian army, thinking all at an end by the flight of the Moors, began, after their usual custom, to plunder, by stripping and mangling the bodies of the killed and wounded. But the king, who, from the mistake of the Arabians, saw the destruction of this right wing certain, if immediately pursued, ordered it every where to be proclaimed through the field, that the whole army should repair to the royal standard, which he had set up on an eminence, and give over plundering, under pain of death. Finding this order, however, slackly obeyed, he himself, scouring the field at the head of a few horse, with his own hand slew two of his soldiers whom he found stripping the dead without regard to his proclamation. This example from a prince, exceedingly sparing of the blood of his soldiers, had the effect to recal them all to the royal standard displayed on a rising ground.

then separated his army into two divisions; all the foot, and those of his horse that had principally suffered in the severe engagement of the day, he led up to the mouth of the valley where the right wing of the Arabians had shut themselves up; and, having beset all access to the entrance of it, he ordered the foot to climb up through the woods, and on every side surround the valley above the heads of those unhappy people thus devoted to certain destruction.

this was doing, the king ordered those of the cavalry that had suffered least in the fatigue of the day, to refresh themselves and their horses. He knew no time was