Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/633

Rh up his head-quarters at Samseen, where, on the very night after his arrival, he was set upon by Tensa Mammo at the head of the Agows. However unexpected this was, Waragna, a good soldier, was not to be taken by surprise. He knew the country, and had not a great opinion either of the force or courage of the enemy, or capacity of their general. Presenting, therefore, only one half of his troops, which could not be easily discovered in the dark, he sent Fit-Auraris Tamba to make a small compass, and fall upon their rear with the other half. Mammo's troops, thinking this to be a fresh and separate army, immediately took to flight, and were many of them slain, after leaving behind them their tents, baggage, and the greatest part of their fire-arms, which had been of very little service to them in the dark.

, who knew the consequence of his province was the riches of it, and the dependence the capital had upon it for constant supplies of provisions, was loath to pursue his victory farther, if any means could be fallen upon to bring about a pacification. To effect this, he dispatched messengers to his friends, the Galla, on the other side of the Nile, ordering them to be ready to pass the river on the day he should appoint, and to lay waste the country of the Agow with fire and sword. He then decamped with his army from Samseen, and marched to Sacala, and took up his head-quarters in St Michael's church, where he found the Agows in the utmost terror from apprehension of being over-run with barbarians. But he soon eased them of their fears by a proclamation, in which he told them plainly, that it was owing to the goodness of the country, and not any merit in the people, that the king's palace and capital was so plentifully supplied with provisions from thence;