Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/70

54 of the king of Abyssinia; who, sheathing his sword, took a bow in his hand, and, as my historian says, choosing the broadest arrow he could find, struck this young hero through the middle of his neck, so that, half being cut through, his head inclined to one shoulder, and soon after he fell dead among his horse's feet.

sight was one just calculated to strike such an army as this with terror. They immediately turned their backs, and, unluckily falling in with the two detachments marching to the king's relief, they were all cut to pieces to the number of 5000; a great proportion of which were women and aged persons, unskilled in war, further than as they were prompted by a long sufferance of injuries, accumulated now to a mass, that made them weary of life. My historian further says, that three only of the Moorish army escaped. On the king's side many principal officers were killed; and there was scarce one horseman that was not wounded. Amda Sion, therefore, when speaking of this campaign, after his return, among his nobility at Shoa, used to say, "Deliver me from fighting with old women;" alluding to this battle, where he was in the greatest danger. The fate of the unfortunate king of Wypo was particularly hard. He had lately married the king of Adel's daughter; and it was the staying for him, and his marriage, that lost the favourable opportunity of fighting the Abyssinians, when the army was in despondency upon the king's being taken ill of the fever.

next campaign the king began, by a march first to Sassogade, where he assisted at the celebration of the feast of St John the Baptist; and he gave orders, that day, to raze all