first conversion. Many, they say, abandoned all the pleasures and
vanities of life for solitude and religious austerities; others
devoted themselves to God in an ecclesiastical life; they who could
not do these set apart their revenues for building churches,
endowing chapels, and founding monasteries, and spent their wealth
in costly ornaments for the churches and vessels for the altars. It
is true that this people has a natural disposition to goodness; they
are very liberal of their alms, they much frequent their churches,
and are very studious to adorn them; they practise fasting and other
mortifications, and notwithstanding their separation from the Roman
Church, and the corruptions which have crept into their faith, yet
retain in a great measure the devout fervour of the primitive
Christians. There never were greater hopes of uniting this people
to the Church of Rome, which their adherence to the Eutichian heresy
has made very difficult, than in the time of Sultan Segued, who
called us into his dominions in the year 1625, from whence we were
expelled in 1634. As I have lived a long time in this country, and
borne a share in all that has passed, I will present the reader with
a short account of what I have observed, and of the revolution which
forced us to abandon Aethiopia, and destroyed all our hopes of
reuniting this kingdom with the Roman Church.

The empire of Abyssinia hath been one of the largest which history
gives us an account of: it extended formerly from the Red Sea to
the kingdom of Congo, and from Egypt to the Indian Sea. It is not
long since it contained forty provinces; but is now not much bigger
than all Spain, and consists but of five kingdoms and six provinces,
of which part is entirely subject to the Emperor, and part only pays
him some tribute, or acknowledgment of dependence, either
voluntarily or by compulsion. Some of these are of very large