Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/617

Rh she was seized that same night, and was conveyed to Walkayt, to be confined there, with private instructions, however, to put her to death speedily, which were executed accordingly.

queen had a son within the year, whom the council named Yasous, after his grandfather, whose memory will ever be dear in Abyssinia; and this again revived the old apprehensions that Welleta Georgis was to govern the country (as the prophet said) for thirty years. Tormented with this idea, rather than the havoc it had occasioned, he devised with himself a scheme which he thought would certainly detect this future usurper of his crown and dethroner of his child. But first he directed that the queen should be crowned, a ceremony that carries great consequences along with it when solemnized properly, as at that time she is made regent, or Iteghè, in all minorities that may happen afterwards.

he had created his wife Iteghè, Bacuffa pretended to be sick: several days passed without hopes of recovery; but at last the news of the king's death were published in Gondar. The joy was so great, and so universal, that nobody attempted to conceal it. Every one found himself eased of a load of fear which had become insupportable. Several princes escaped from the mountain of Wechne to put themselves in the way of being chosen; some were sent to by those great men who thought themselves capable of effecting the nomination, and a speedy day was appointed for the burial of the king's corpse, when Bacuffa appeared, in the ordinary feat of justice, early in the morning of that