vations. The circumference of Pico is computed at about fifteen leagues; and its moft remarkable places are Pico, Lagoas, Santa Cruce, or Cruz, San Sebastian, Pesquin, San Rocko, Playa, and Magdalena, the inhabitants of which live wholly on the produce of the ifland, in great plenty and felicity. The cattle are various, numerous, and excellent in their feveral kinds; it is the fame with the vine, and its juice, prepared into different wines, the best in the Azores. Befides cedar and other timber, they have a kind of wood which they call teixo, folid and hard as iron, and veined, when finely polifhed, like a rich fcarlet tabby, which colour it has in great perfection. The longer it is kept, the more beautiful it grows; hence it is, that the teixo tree is felled only for the king's ufe, or by his order, and is prohibited from being exported as a common article of trade. The laft of the islands, properly called Azores, is Fayal, and the moft confiderable of the whole next to Tercera and Saint Michael. This ifland takes its name from the great abundance of beech-trees it produceth; befides which, it hath a variety of other wood in fuch plenty, that the English frequent it chiefly on that account. It also produces large folds of cattle, flocks of birds, and fhoals of fifh, with which every part of its coaft is well stocked. The chief port is before the town of Orta, defended by an old caflle, fome cannon, and a flight Portuguese garrifon. Orta is indeed the only town on the island, and a place of but little confideration. As for the other names we meet with in geographers, they are not those of towns, or even villages, but of mean hamlets, which have been paffed by pompous names for places of fome confequence. We have obferved, that this ifland is peopled by Flemings, who imagining the Portuguefe garrifon to be a kind of oppreflive tax upon them, petitioned his catholic majefty for leave to take upon themfelves the defence of the island. Their request was granted, and the event almost fatal; for the English, at different times, under the earls of Cumberland and Effex, made defcents on Fayal, took it, and deftroyed the fortifications, after having taken and burnt a fquadron of rich homeward-bound fhips that lay in the harbour. This difafter induced the king to refume the defence of the island; fince which time a Portuguefe garrifon has conftantly been maintained here. Fayal is the most western of the Azores. As to the islands of Flores and Corvo, they are improperly included under that name, as they lie seventy leagues weft of Tercera. The firft of thefe, or the Ilha des Flores, as the Por- Flores. tuguese call it, takes its name from the great variety of beautiful flowers with which it is covered. Its dimenfions are about feven leagues in compafs, every part of which is clothed with wood, grain, pafture, or fome other production ufeful to life. It is populous, and the inhabitants live happily upon their grain, cattle, and fruits. About a league to the south of-Flores ftands the island Corve. of Corvo, fo called from the incredible flights of crows feen in it by the firft difcoverers, every tree or rock in the island being covered with their nefts. It abounds in much the fame productions as the preceding island; but neither of them are confiderable enough to merit a particular account; and the only reason why the Portuguefe keep poffeffion of them, is to prevent other nations from eftablishing fuch fettlements here, as, by their contiguity, might endanger the fecurity of the Azores, by taking every favourable occafion that might offer for feizing upon the Canaries, fo important to their Brazil commerce'. 1 Davity, Sanut. Linfchot. Dapper, Barbot, Cadamosto, La Croix, cum multis aliis, in loc. citat. СНАР. Abyffinia little CHA P. XLIII. The Hiftory of Abyffinia, or Upper Ethiopia. SECT. I. Giving an Account of the principal modern Authors, quoted through the Courfe of this Chapter, and of fundry Stratagems made use of to open a Commerce with that Empire. E have already given in our Ancient Hiftory the beft account we could compile of this vaft empire, its limits, inhabitants, and cities, as far as they were known to the ancient writers, and the records they have left us of them would allow; and if the greater part of what not only they, but others of a more modern date, have written of it, be either too fabulous or uncertain, either with regard to its true fituation, extent, and boundaries, derns till as well as with relation to its nature, climate, &c. it must frequented be chiefly afcribed to that erroneous notion, which reigned by the Por- fo long among hiftorians and geographers, that all the tuguefe. known to the ancients and mo Why fo great dif ference countries that lay fo near the equinoctial line, were, for the most part, wafte and uninhabitable; and to the fame caufe we must attribute that fo much lefs hath been written of it than of many others, and that what we meet with concerning it, before the Portuguese found means to introduce themfelves into it, appears at the best uncouth and unfatisfactory; fo that is entirely to the difcoveries which thefe have been enabled to make by their abode in thofe parts, that we are obliged for that more perfect knowlege we have of them: perfect only, we mean, in comparison of what we had before they publifhed their fill in their accounts of this great empire; though ftill vaftly short of accounts of perfection and certainty. Thofe good fathers, Jefuits and others, who were fent miffionaries thither, to reduce the Abyffinian church to the obedience of the fee of Rome, had their hearts and minds too full of this one important Their over- point, to find leifure for leffer discoveries; which being zeal to of fuch a nature as would rather excite the jealousy than convert the admiration of that rude and ignorant people, they thought safions their might be more fitly poftponed till the main end of their expulfion. miflion was once gained; after which they might, with it. natives oc more more pleasure and fafety, attend to the other lefs momentous branches of it. The misfortune was, that their untimely zeal brought fuch a dreadful and general perfecution upon them, as hath at once quashed all the hopes and prospect of regaining either; not only the missionaries of all denominations, but the very names of Portuguefe and Franks, by which they called the Europeans, are become deteftable to the whole Abyffinian nation a. What occafioned this fudden and furprifing change, af- All parts ter the Portuguese had been fo kindly invited thither by of it beone of their empreffes, and had done her and fome of come inacher fucceffors fignal fervices, for which they were raised ceible to to the highest degree of esteem and confidence in the the Europeans. Abyffinian court, will be beft feen in the courfe of this hiftory: at prefent, it will be fufficient to fay, that all accefs to any part of that kingdom is, fince their expulfion, become to the last degree dangerous, and in fome measure impracticable, to all Europeans, in any disguise, or under any pretence whatfoever. All the paffes to it are guarded with the utmoft diligence; and no fooner doth a stranger offer himself at any of their frontiers, but he is immedi- ately examined from head to foot, to fee whether he carries any arms, letters, books, writings, or any other thing that is liable to fufpicion: his skin, hair, complexion, and fhape, are fcrupuloufly fcrutinized, and especially whether he carries with him the fear of circumcifion. Upon the whole, whoever compares the obfervations The obferof those miffionaries, will find them fo different and im- vations of perfect, that he will have reafon to conclude they were the Portumade in haste, and without that accuracy which we ob- guese made ferve them to use in all other countries, where they make with preci pitation. a longer refidence, and have better means and inftruments for fuch a work. Whoever reads those who seem to have taken the most pains to review their obfervations, and reconcile them to each other, fuch as father Tellez, Ludolph, and others of equal capacity, will find ftill variance enough amongst them to make us wish for, what we are not likely to fee in hafte, a more accurate furvey. of the country. To give an inftance or two of this remarkable difference, we need but compare the fituation of the town of Giefim, which was reckoned the mid-way between the town of Sennaar and the confines of Ethiopia, Material as fixed by father Brevedent's own obfervations, who is difference allowed to have been an excellent aftronomer, and one between a Tellez, Poncet, Ludolph, Maillet, & al. plur. who them. Why its li phers. who accompanied the phyfician Poncet into Ethiopia, but died in the way thither, and places that town in the oth degree of north latitude, and the fituation which father Tellez, and Mr. Ludo'ph after him, give it in their map of this empire, and we shall plainly fee that one of them must be greatly out; and yet Brevedent took his obfervation upon the fpot. Another proof how little Tellez's map is to be depended upon, is the fituation which another Portuguese Jefuit affigns, from his own obfervations likewife, to the kingdom of Dembea; which is fuch, according to him, that both the poles are visible, and that the antartic appears the higher of the two; which is the very reverfe of what Tellez and Ludolph's maps repre fent it. We need not therefore wonder if fome of the writers mits fo far of the African part of the world, particularly fome of our extended by Atlaffes, have extended the limits of this empire fo far beold geogra yond its due bounds; to fay nothing of thofe of older date, who have stretched its fouthern limits fo vastly beyond the equinoctial line; though they are found to come fo fhort of it by the common confent of all our modern geographers. They were altogether in the dark about the countries that lay beyond it on that fide; and had no other way to fupply that great chafm of fix hundred leagues, than by bringing all that vast tract within the limits of it, and beftowing upon its emperors, all that immenfe territory which they knew not how to difpofe of otherwise. Thus they have stretched it from 22° north, to 16 or 17 fouth, and given it an extent of 39 or 40 degrees; which is above twenty-one more than it really hath, as we fhall fhew very foon from the more authentic teftimonies, and more accurate obfervations, of those Portuguese fathers, whofe long refidence and acquaintance with these parts, have enabled them to give us a more fatisfactory knowlege of them; of whom, therefore, it will not be improper to give fome previous account, before we proceed farther, and by way of introduction to the following history. The Portuguefe in ved into Aby finia by the emprefs Helena. The emprefs Helena, grandmother to the emperor David, having received a kind of congratulatory embaffy from Emanuel king of Portugal, was fo highly pleafed with it, that the refolved to fend the like to him, with a b See Poncet's Voyage to Ethiopia, p. 33. © Fernandez Vide inter al. Mercator, |