Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/308

284 ded with one or more villages to furnish him with what articles he may need, without being obliged to have recourse to the king or his ministers for every necessary. Amha Yasous, prince of Shoa, had a large and a royal village, Emfras, given him to supply him with food for his table; he had another village in Karoota for wine; a village in Dembea, the king's own province, for his wheat; and another in Begemder for cotton cloths for his servants; and so of the rest. After I was in the king's service I had the villages that belonged to the posts I occupied; and one called Geesh, in which arises the sources of the Nile, a village of about 18 houses, given me by the king at my own request; for I might have had a better to furnish me with honey, and confirmed to me by the rebel Waragna Fasil, who never suffered me to grow rich by my rents, having never allowed me to receive but two large jars, so bitter with lupines that they were of no sort of use to me. I was a gentle master, nor ever likely to be opulent from the revenues of that country; and more especially so, as I had under me, as my lieutenant, an officer commanding the horse, whose thoughts were much more upon Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre than any gains he could get in Abyssinia by his employments.

informs us, that Themistocles had received great gifts from Artaxerxes king of Persia, when settled at Magnesia; the king had given him that city for bread, Lamp-