Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/275

 resist to the utmost, none of the leaders then present thought themselves warranted to risk the death of a person so noble, and so powerfully related, especially in an obscure skirmish, such as was then likely to happen, the motives for which were not publicly known; they accordingly all returned to Gondar, leaving the Ras to pursue his way, who being now advanced as far as Degwassa, and thinking himself out of all danger, was suddenly surrounded by Aclog, governor of a little district; there, and even from him he would have escaped by his own courage and exertion, had not his horse sunk in miry ground whence he could not recover him. After receiving these news, the king sent his Fit-Auraris, Adera Tacca Georgis, and Ayto Engedan, with a number of troops, to bring Gusho to town, when he returned a miserable figure, with his head shaven: he was cloathed in black, and was confined that same day (the first of August) a close prisoner, and in irons, in a high, damp, uninhabited tower of the king's house, without being pitied by either party.

It was now the season of the year when this country used to overflow with milk and honey; because, being in all the low part of it covered with rain, the horsemen and soldiers, who used to obstruct the roads, were all retired to quarters, and the peasants, bringing provisions to the market, passed the high grounds in safety; all sorts of people, profiting by the plenty which this occasioned, indulged themselves to the greatest excess in every sort of pleasure to which their respective appetites led them. The rains had fallen, indeed, as usual, but had not, however, stopped the march of the armies, and if not a famine, at least a