with his own mouth to the monks of Debra Libanos, which was the occasion of the riot.

This bloody, indiscriminate massacre had comprehended too many men of worth and distinction not to occasion great discontent among the principal people both within and without the palace. Conspiracies against the king were now everywhere openly talked of, the fruits of which soon appeared. David fell sick, and those about him endeavoured to persuade him that it was the remains of an injury which he had lately received from a fall off his horse. But, upon the meeting of a council on the 9th of March 1719, it was discovered and proved, that Kasmati Late and Ras Georgis had employed Kutcho, keeper of the palace, to give strong poison to the king, which he had taken that morning from the hands of a Mahometan. Ras Georgis was then brought before the council, and scarcely denied the fact; upon which his only son was ordered to be hewn to pieces before his face, and immediately after the father's eyes were pulled out. Kutcho, keeper of the palace, and the Mahometan who gave the poison, were hewn to pieces with swords before the gate of the palace, and their mangled bodies thrown to the dogs. The king died that evening in great agony.

The king's favourite, Betwudet Georgis, found himself now in a most dangerous situation. David his protector was dead, and he was left now alone to answer for those bloody measures of which he was universally believed to be the adviser. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, if possible, to secure a successor of David's own family, who might stop the prosecutions against him for steps the king had adopted as his own, and as such had carried into execution.

We have already observed, that, when banished to the mountain of Wechne by Oustas, he had contracted there, first a friendship with David, and at the same time, with another prince, Ayto Welled Georgis, who was son to Yasous by Ozoro Mamet, whose sister Georgis had married, and consequently was uncle to Ayto Welled Georgis, as having married his aunt, sister to Ozoro Mamet. With this prince, now arrived at manhood, he knew himself perfectly secure; and, therefore, a number of the men in power being then assembled at his house, he lost no time, but surrounded it with a body of soldiers. He proposed to them Welled Georgis as immediate successor to David. The people present, seeing themselves in the soldiers' hands, and convinced from recent examples, that Georgis was not very tender in the use of them, in appearance cheerfully, and without hesitation, approved of the Betwudet's choice; and Lika Jonathan, one of the chief civil judges, performed the office of crier, proclaiming with an audible voice, " Ayto Welleda Georgis, brother to our late king David, son of our great king Yasous, he is now our king. Mourn for the king that is dead, but rejoice with the king that is alive." This is the ordinary stile of the proclamation. Mutual congratulations and promises passed among the members of the meeting, but with very different resolutions.

All the company, escorted by a body of archers, and another of fuzileers, with Betwudet Georgis at their head, repaired to the great place before the palace to make the same proclamation, by beat of drum, that they had done in the Betwudet's house. They found the drum ready, and the whole body of the king's household troops under arms, and drawn up before it. Upon the sight of their companions,

the soldiers left the Betwudet, and fell into a proper place reserved vacant for them by their brethren. Without loss of time the drum was beat, and a proclamation made, " Bacuffa, son of Yasous, is our king! Mourn for the dead, and rejoice with the living. Loud acclamations from the people were echoed back again by the soldiers, and Bacuffa's name was received with universal acclamations. Some of the principal people then went to the council-chamber, and sent proper officers, with a good body of troops, to escort the king from Wechne.

Upon their arrival they found the sentiments of the princes upon the election widely different from those testified by the people. They all to a man declared their dissent from that election. They upbraided Bacuffa for his brutal manners; for his violent, unsociable, unrelenting temper, from which, they said, they had the cruelest consequences to apprehend; and, indeed, it was not without great reason that they made these remonstrances; for Bacuffa, when he escaped from the mountain, fled for refuge among the Galla, and received a very strong tincture of the savage manners of that nation, which neither those of Gondar nor the army could have an opportunity to judge of. Resolute, active, and politic, he was very well formed to hold the reins of government in unsettled times; but his temper, of itself exceedingly suspicious, and the little regard he had for the life of man, made his whole reign (as it was feared) one continued tragedy. So that, notwithstanding the goodness of his understanding, and many acts of wisdom and justice, he is still considered as a bloody, merciless tyrant, and his memory regarded with the greatest detestation.

On the first news of the insurrection of the princes on Wechne, Kasmati Amha Yasous, governor of

Begemder, marched with his whole force, and encamped under the mountain. He then rescued Bacuffa from the hands of his relations; and, in order to obviate, as much as possible, any future trouble, he obliged the different branches of the royal family to a reconciliation with each other, making Bacuffa, on the one side, swear that he was not to remember nor revenge any injury or affront received upon the mountain; and the princes, that they would forget all old disagreements, consider Bacuffa as their king, and not create him any trouble in his reign by escapes, or other rebellious practices.

As it was then night, Bacuffa staid in the house of Azage Assarat, and next morning came to Serbraxos, whence he sent to the monks of Tedda to meet him there. From Tedda he proceeded to Gondar, where he was met by the Abuna and Itchegue, amidst the acclamations of a prodigious number of people.

BACUFFA.

From 1719 to 1729.

Bloody Reign-Exterminates the ConspiratorsGains Lasta-Nation disturbed by a report of his Death-His general Character.

HONEST men, who loved their country, saw the dangerous situation it was then in. Every day had produced instances of a growing indifference to that form of government, which, from the earliest times, they had accounted sacred; and upon every slight and unreasonable disgust a person of consequence thought he had met with, a party was immediately formed, and nothing less agreed on than directly imbruing their hands in the blood of their sovereign.

A prince, who had qualities of mind able to put a stop to these enormities before they involved the state in one scene of anarchy and ruin, was necessary. Ba cuffa was to answer these expectations; and, in the end, he was found to exceed them. Silent, secret, and unfathomable in his designs, surrounded by soldiers who were his own slaves, and by new men of his own creation, he removed those tyrants who opposed their sovereigns upon the smallest provocation.