Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/686

670 conducted him into the presence of the king, where, in a manner unbecoming a sovereign, and which Joas's successor would not have permitted, he kissed the ground, and declared himself a vassal of Abyssinia. The king assigned him a large revenue, and put him in possession of the government of Ras el Feel upon the frontier of Sennaar, where Ras Welled de l'Oul advised him to wait patiently till the dissensions that then prevailed at court were quieted, when Michael should have orders to reinstate him in his kingdom. This was a wise counsel, but he to whom it was given was not wise, and therefore did not follow it. After some short stay at Ras el Feel he was decoyed from this place of refuge by the intrigues of Adelan, and brought to trust himself in Atbara, where he was betrayed and taken prisoner by Welled Hassen, Shekh of Teawa, and murdered by him in Teawa privately, as we shall hereafter see, two years after his flight from Gondar.

this time, Ras Welled de l'Oul's death was a signal for all parties to engage. Nothing had withheld them but his prudence and authority; and from that time began a scene of civil blood, which has continued ever since, was in its full vigour at the time when I was in Abyssinia, and without any prospect that it would ever have an end.

great degree of power to which the brothers and their Galla arrived; the great affection the king shewed to them, owing to their having early infected him with their bloody and faithless principles, gave great alarm to the queen and her relations, whose influence they were every day diminishing. The last stroke, the death of Welled de l'Oul, seemed to be a fatal one, and to threaten the entire