Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/337

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XII.

State of Religion—Circumcision, Excision, &c.

HERE is no country in the world where there are so many churches as in Abyssinia. Though the country is very mountainous, and consequently the view much obstructed, it is very seldom you see less than five or six churches, and, if you are on a commanding ground, five times that number. Every great man that dies thinks he has atoned for all his wickedness if he leaves a fund to build a church, or has built one in his lifetime. The king builds many. Wherever a victory is gained, there a church is erected in the very field stinking with the putrid bodies of the slain. Formerly this was only the case when the enemy was Pagan or Infidel; now the same is observed when the victories are over Christians.

situation of a church is always chosen near running water, for the convenience of their purifications and ablutions, in which they observe strictly the Levitical law. They are always placed upon the top of some beautiful, round