readiness of resource, and his fidelity, marked him out as the one
to be sent to the headquarters in India to secure the payment of a
ransom for his companions. He obtained the ransom, and desired also
to obtain from the Portuguese Viceroy in India armed force to
maintain the missionaries in the position they had so far won. But
the Civil power was deaf to his pleading. He removed the appeal to
Lisbon, and after narrowly escaping on the way from a shipwreck, and
after having been captured by pirates, he reached Lisbon, and sought
still to obtain means of overawing the force hostile to the work of
the Jesuits in Abyssinia. The Princess Margaret gave friendly
hearing, but sent him on to persuade, if he could, the King of
Spain; and failing at Madrid, he went to Rome and tried the Pope.
He was chosen to go to the Pope, said the Patriarch Alfonso Mendez,
because, of all the brethren at Goa, the 'Pater Hieronymus Lupus'
(Lobo translated into Wolf) was the most ingenious and learned in
all sciences, with a mind most generous in its desire to conquer
difficulties, dexterous in management of business, and found most
able to make himself agreeable to those with whom there was business
to be done. The vigour with which he held by his purpose of
endeavouring in every possible way to bring the Christianity of
Abyssinia within the pale of the Catholic Church is in accordance
with the character that makes the centre of the story of this book.
Whimsical touches arise out of this strength of character and
readiness of resource, as when he tells of the taste of the
Abyssinians for raw cow's flesh, with a sauce high in royal
Abyssinian favour, made of the cow's gall and contents of its
entrails, of which, when he was pressed to partake, he could only
excuse himself and his brethren by suggesting that it was too good
for such humble missionaries. Out of distinguished respect for it,
they refrained from putting it into their mouths.