Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/93

 them. When it came to Ras Michael to give his vote, he affected moderation; he said that he was accused for being his enemy and accomplice; in either case, it is not fair that he should judge him. No superior officer being present, the last voice remained with the king, who sent Kal Hatze to the Board with his sentence; 'He is guilty and shall die the death.— The hangman shall hang him upon a tree to-day.' The unfortunate Acab Saat was immediately hurried away by the guards to the place of execution, which is a large tree before the king's gate; where uttering, to the very last moment, curses against the king, the Ras, and the Abuna, he suffered the death he very richly deserved, being hanged in the very vestments in which he used to sit before the king, without one ornament of his civil or sacerdotal pre-eminence having been taken from him before the execution. In going to the tree he said he had 400 cows, which he bequeathed to some priests to say prayers for his soul; but the Ras ordered them to be brought to Gondar, and distributed among his soldiers.

I have entered into a longer detail of this trial, at the whole of which I assisted, the rather that I might ask this question of those that maintain the absolute independence of the Abyssinian priesthood, Whether, if the many instances already mentioned have not had the effects, this one does not fully convince them, that all ecclesiastical persons are subject to the secular power in Abyssinia as much as they are in Britain or any European Protestant state whatever?

Chremation, Socinios's brother, was next called, he seemed half dead with fear; he only denied having any concern in his brother being elected king. He said he