The church of St. Saviour stands alone, cut out of a rock; it is very large. Its interior is two hundred spans in length, and a hundred and twenty in width. It has five naves, in each one seven square columns; the large one has four, and the walls of the church have as much. The columns are very well worked, with arches which hang down a span below the vaulted roof. The vaulted roofs are very well worked, and of great height, principally the centre one, which is very high. It is of a handsome height; most of the ends are lower, all in proportion. In the principal height of these naves there is much tracery, such as ...,[95] or keystones, or roses, which they put on the vaults, on which they make roses and other graceful works. On the sides it has very pretty windows, with much tracery, long and narrow in the middle. Within and without, these are long, like the loopholes[96] of a wall, narrow without and wide within; these are wide both within and without, and narrow in the middle, with arches and tracery. The principal chapel is very high, and the canopy over the altar is very high, with a support at each corner. All this is made from the rock itself. In the other naves they do not deck the chapels and altars with canopies like the high altar in its grandeur. The principal door has at each side many and large buttresses, and the door commences with very large arches, and goes on narrowing with other arches until they reach a small door, which is not more than nine spans high and four and a half wide. The side doors are in this manner, only that they do not commence with so much width, and they end with the width of the principal door. On the outside part of this church are seven buttresses with arches,[97] which are twelve palms distant from the wall of the church, and from buttress to buttress an arch, and above the church, on these arches, a vault constructed in such manner that if it were built of pieces and soft stone it could not be straighter nor better constructed, nor with more work about it. These arches outside may be about the height of two lances. There is not any variation in the whole of this rock in which this church stands; it all looks like one block of marble. The court or cloister which the church has round it is all worked with the same stone. It is sixty palms wide at each end, and in front of the principal church door quite a hundred palms. Above this church, where it should be roofed, there are on each side nine large arches, like cloisters, which descend from the top to the bottom, to the tombs along the sides,[98] as in the other church. The entrance to this church is by a descent through the rock itself, eighty steps cut artificially in the stone, of a width that ten men can go side by side, and of the height of a lance or more. This entrance has four holes above, which give light to the passage above the edges. From this rock to the enclosure of the church is like a field; there are many houses, and they sow barley in it.

The house or church of Our Lady is not so large as that of St. Saviour, but it is very well constructed. It has three naves, and the centre one is very high, with large loops and roses very ingeniously carved in the rock itself. Each nave has five columns, and upon them their arches and vaults, very high pitched,[99] and well made. It has, besides, a high column in the cross of the transept, on which is placed a canopy which from its fretted work looks as if it were stamped in wax. At the head of each nave there is a chapel, with its altar like those of St. Saviour; only it has, besides, altars at each of the doors, which are of the size and fashion of those of St. Saviour. It has six buttresses on the exterior; two on each side are adhering to the wall, and four are distant from it, and well made arches spring from one to the other of them, and upon them are very well constructed canopies, which are very high and like a portico, over the doors. These canopies are all of one size, as broad as they are long. It has a very high and graceful circuit, and behind, as well as at the sides and in front, all round of the height of the church. This church is eighty spans in length and sixty-four in width. This church, also, has in front of its principal door, made out of the rock itself, a large house, in which they give food to the poor; and the way out of the church is through this house to the outside, or they enter the church through it underneath the rock a good distance. On each side of this church, in front of the side doors, are two churches each at its end. This church of Our Lady is the head of all the other churches of this place. It has an infinite quantity of canons, and the church which is on the side of the epistle is as long and as wide as that of Our Lady. It has three naves, and in each nave three columns well wrought of level work. It has not got more than one chapel, and one altar, made like those of other churches. Its principal door is very well worked; it does not face outwards, but to a corridor below the rock, which comes like a path to the house of Our Lady. This corridor comes from a distance; where it begins they ascend to it by fifteen steps of the rock itself. This is a very dark entrance. On the side towards the church of Our Lady, this church has a very pretty side door and two very elegant windows, and behind and on the other side all hewn rock and very rough, without having any work whatever. This church is called the Martyrs, and the church which is on the gospel side of the church of Our Lady, is called Holy Cross. It is small, it is sixty-eight spans in length, it has not got naves, it has three columns in the middle, which appear to have their tops above (the roof), very well made and vaulted; inside all is smooth work. On the side of Our Lady’s church it has a very handsome side door and two well made windows; it has a single altar, like others; the principal door is well wrought. It has not got a court nor faces outwards, only to a corridor like a path, which goes outside, underneath the rock, very long and very dark.

The church of Emanuel is well wrought, both inside and out, it is small. It is forty-two spans in length inside, and twenty in width. It has three naves, the middle one very high and with domed[100] vaults: the side naves are not vaulted, and are flat underneath, that is, the ceiling is like the floor of the church. These naves are upon five supports: the breadth and thickness of these supports are of four spans from corner to corner, and the wall of the church has four others. It has very well worked doors, both the side and principal doors, and all of the same size, that is to say, nine spans high, and four wide. It is all enclosed; on the outside there is a space[101] of three steps, which go all round it, except at the doors, which each have a wide court, each with five steps above those which surround the church. It is all of the rock itself, without a piece or fault. This church also has what none of the others have, that is, a choir, to which they ascend by a spiral staircase: it is not large, for a tall man with a span more would knock his head against the ceiling, which is flat, like the floor of the church, and so also over the naves and sides, large as they are; they go to small cells by doors from one to another, and from the choir itself doors open to these little rooms or cells. They do not make use of this choir except for keeping there chests of vestments and church ornaments. These chests must have been made inside this choir, because they could not enter by any way, I do not know how they could come in even in pieces. The outside walls of this church, also, have what others have not, that is to say, like tiers of walls, one bends outwards and another turns inwards two inches, another, again, turns outwards and another goes inwards, and so it is from the commencement of the steps to the top of the church; and the tier of stone which goes outwards is two spans wide, and that going inwards one span, and in this fashion and width they cover the whole wall, and reckoning up the spans, this wall is 52 spans high. The church has its circuit cut like a wall outside, and inside of the rock itself, and this wall is entered by three good doors like small gates of a city or walled town.

The church of St. George is a good bit lower down than the others, almost separated from the place; it is in the rock, like the others. The entrance to it is under the rock or cliff: there are eight steps to ascend, and when they are ascended one enters into a large house, with a bench which goes all round it on the inside, for outside it is rough rock. In this house alms are given to the poor, who seat themselves on these benches. Entering from this house one comes at once to the church circuit, which is made in the form of a cross. The church also is in the form of a cross, and the distance from the principal door to the chancel is the same as that from one side door to the other, all of one compass. The doors are very well worked outside. I did not go inside, as it was locked. In the circuit of the church, entering from outside, to the right hand, for it is all rough rock, without more than one entrance, there is, at the height of a man or a little more, placed in the wall, a kind of ark full of water. They go up to it by steps; and they say that this water springs there, but it does not flow out: they carry it away for intermittent fevers, and say that it is good for them. All this enclosure is full of tombs, like the other churches. On the top of this church is a large double cross, that is, one within the other, like the crosses of the order of Christ. Outside the circuit the rock is higher than the church, and on this rock are cypresses and wild olive trees. It wearied me to write more of these works, because it seems to me that they will not believe me if I write more, and because as to what I have already written they may accuse me of untruth, therefore I swear by God, in whose power I am, that all that is written is the truth, and there is much more than what I have written, and I have left it that they may not tax me with its being falsehood. And because no other Portuguese went to these works except myself, and I went twice to see them from what I had heard of them. This place is on a slope of the mountain, and from the peak of the mountain to this is a day and a half’s journey of descent. This slope or mountain seems to be quite separate from the other mountain, yet it is subject to it, and from this town to the bottom there is still a great descent, and at the end of it a view over four or five leagues, and many great plains which they say are two days’ journey distant. (It seemed to me that one could go in one.) They say that there are in these plains other such edifices as those of Aquaxumo, such as stone chairs and other buildings, and that the residences of the Kings were there, like the other buildings of the Queens, and this is in the direction of the Nile. I did not go there, and I relate on hearsay a thing at which I was more amazed. They told me that the works of these churches were done in twenty-four years, and that this is written, and that they were done by Gibetas, that is, white men, for they well know that they do not know how to do any well executed work. They say that King Lalibela ordered this to be done; this name of Lalibela means miracle. They say that he took, or that they gave him, this name, because when he was born he was covered with bees, and that the bees cleaned him without doing him any hurt. They also say that he was not the son of the King, but son of a sister of the King, and that the King died without having a son, and the nephew, the sister’s son, inherited the kingdom. They say that he was a saint, and that he did many miracles, and so there is much pilgrimage to this place.

This lordship of Abrigima was given by the Prester John, before our departure, to the ambassador whom he sends to Portugal; and as I say that I came twice to see these churches and edifices, the second time that I came to see them I came with the ambassador, who came to take possession of his lordship. And whilst we were thus going about the country there came to us two calaces, which means messengers or word from the King: these calaces said to the ambassador who was taking the lordship of Abrigima, that the Prester John sent to tell him to send him the gibir, that is to say, the dues which were owing by his predecessor, for he did not owe anything yet, as he was then taking possession. And what they said was owing was this, namely, a hundred and fifty plough oxen, thirty dogs, thirty assagays, and thirty shields. The new captain gave for answer that he would at once send to know what property was belonging to his predecessor, and that he would pay out of it. In this manner they paid in these kingdoms, as in other places. I have said that those towards Egypt and Arabia pay horses and silks, and so the other lands and lordships pay each their own produce, according to their quality and breed.

We departed from the church and fair of Ancona, and having gone a distance of three leagues we reached some villages with all the goods; in these they would not receive us nor carry our baggage, saying that these villages belonged to the mother of Prester John, and that they did not obey any one except her. And they desired to beat the friar who conducted us, and they did give a beating to one of his men. We left the baggage here, and went to sleep at a large town of good houses named Ingabelu. Its situation is on a hill in the midst of extensive cultivated lands between very high mountains, the skirts of which are studded with an infinite number of towns, the largest number and the greatest that we had yet seen: it seems to me that these towns exceed a hundred. This town has pretty rivers on each side of it. They were building here a pretty church of masonry, of good workmanship; and that it may not appear to be a lie that so many towns could be seen from this Ingabelu, I say that all were not in sight from there, but we saw them from the mountains by which we passed. Those which might be furthest off from this town would be a league and a half. We found in this town an infinite quantity of fowls, which, if not in a hurry,[102] could be bought a hundred, if one wanted so many, in exchange for a little pepper. In this place there are many lemons and citrons: we remained here Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday night the tigers sprung into the town, and fell in with a boy and carried him off. From that place they attacked a large farm where we were lodging, and there broke loose from us a mule and an ass, which already once before had escaped at the river of Sabalete: they got away from the farm house, the mule jumped into a cow yard and so escaped, and the ass was devoured. On the morning of Monday the 11th day of September, we set out from the said town, turning back to where the baggage had remained, and on the road we met many people, half peacably inclined, the other half hostile (these were they who would not receive the baggage), and their arms were cudgels; they received us with welcome, and we did likewise to them, and that night we slept in their town, and they made amends for the past, for they gave us very good food. On the following day we set out on our road, a distance of two leagues or three, and again slept without our goods. On the Thursday we turned back again in search of it, and when we found it we still travelled straight on a good three leagues, all of it crossing mountains and passing valleys as before, and the whole of it seemed to be mountains. This Kingdom of Angote is almost all of it valleys and mountains, and the tilled land has little wheat and little barley, yet it gives much millet, taffo, and dagusha, pulse, peas, lentils, beans, many figs, garlic, and onions, and great abundance of all vegetables. Iron is current as money in this country, as has been said.

On Thursday the 14th of the said month of September our baggage went and stopped at a dry river without any water at all, and it was about a league from where the Angote raz was staying: he is the lord of this Kingdom of Angote. And because it was a dry land, and because the ambassador had no inclination to speak to the Ras of Angote, because we had no need of him, he went on before the baggage a distance of a league and a half, and some of us went on with him, and others remained with the friar and the baggage. The friar told us that we should go with him to a village about a league on one side of the road, and the baggage remained on the road with the country people who carried it. As we were travelling, before we arrived at the village, people of the country shouted, and we thought that they were calling people to bring our baggage. But they collected together to shake us, and they took possession of three hills, and we remained in the hollows. On each hill there were quite a hundred men, most of them with slings, and others with their hands threw stones so thickly that they seemed to rain upon us (well did we think of our deaths). There might be in the company of the friar quite forty persons, that is, captains who accompanied him, and his men, and our slaves. There was not one without a blow of a stone, or a wound; I, and a young man who went with us, named Cafu, and who was sick with sores, God was pleased to protect us that we received no stones: but five or six men of the friar, and a captain of Angote, came out with broken heads, and Mestre Joam the same. Not satisfied with wounding, they took prisoners those who were most wounded, and we, those who escaped, returned to sleep at the baggage, without supper. Each one cried out for the bruises from the stones he had received, except myself and the young man of the sores. Friday, in the morning, I set out in search of the ambassador, who was gone on a league and a half. On reaching him they at once got ready; when I related to him the case which had happened to us, he hurried the saddling, mounting, and departure, saying that he would die for the Portuguese. When he and those that came with him arrived at the baggage, we found there the Ras of Angote, who had come to us, and had brought with him a good number of people. When we came up to where he was, the friar who conducted us was with him, the ambassador said to the interpreter: “Tell the Ras of Angote that I do not come to see him nor that friar who is with him, but I come to seek for the Portuguese whom I have lost in his country.” Whilst the battle was being related, Mestre Joam arrived, who had remained wounded and a prisoner, he was much covered with blood, and had large wounds on the head, and he said that he had escaped. When a long conversation was ended, which the ambassador, and the Ras of Angote, and the friar, held upon this affair, the Has of Angote entreated the ambassador that he and I, and our company, should come and stay Saturday and Sunday in his house. The ambassador having consulted with all of us, and it seeming to us good to accede to his entreaty, he granted him the going, and we all went with him, and it might be a league and a half from where we were to his house: and he ordered us to be lodged very well. Here we kept Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday he sent to call us; we came and found him on his dais, his wife and a few people with him: we had no detention on entering, only what takes place in the house of any man. The pomp, presentation, and welcome all consisted in drinking. He had near him four large jars of very good mead, and with each jar a cup of crystalline glass. We began to drink, and his wife and two other women who were with her assisted as well. They would not leave us until the jars were finished, and such is their custom; each jar held six or seven canadas, and yet he ordered more to be brought. We left him with good excuses, saying we were going away for our necessities.

The following Sunday we went to the church, and there we found the Ras of Angote, who came out to receive us with much good grace. Then he began to talk to me about matters of our holy faith; he asked to bring apart with me two friars and our interpreter, and the friar who conducted us as a third person; and they asked me common-place questions.[103] The first was: Where Jesus Christ was born; what road he took to Egypt, and how many years he passed there, and how old he was when his mother, our Lady, lost him, and found him in the temple; and where he made the water into wine, and who was there; on what beast he had ridden into Jerusalem; in what house he had supped in Jerusalem, and if he had a house of his own there, and who washed his feet; and what Peter meant, and what Paul meant. Our Lord was pleased to assist me, that I answered them truly. Our interpreter told me that the friar who conducted us, and was there as a third person, told the others that I was a man who knew much. May God forgive him, but there was little for me to forget. By reason of what this friar thus said, they perforce kissed my feet. From what these friars said of me to the Ras of Angote, he received me with much good will, and kissed my face. This gentleman, who is now Ras of Angote, is one of the good priests that there are in Ethiopia, and at the time of our departure was Barnagais and in gospel orders, who may say mass. At the end of mass he invited us to come and dine with him, which dinner we accepted, and the ambassador ordered our dinner to be taken in as it was; there were very fat roast fowls, and fat beef boiled with good cabbage: and the ambassador ordered this to be taken in because their meals are not like ours. The dinner was in this manner—it should be known how it is in a great house of one story, which is a Beteneguz: before the raised seat, on which he was seated, there were many mats spread out; he descended from the seat, and sat down on the mats, and over the mats they had put dark sheep skins, and upon them two trays for cleaning wheat, which they call ganetas; these were large and handsome, and very low, they have only a rim of two inches; the largest of these had sixteen spans circumference, and the other fourteen. These are the tables of the great lords. We all sat round with the Ras of Angote: the water came, and we washed, but no towel came to clean our hands, neither for putting bread upon, except it was put upon the ganetas (trays) themselves; there came bread of different kinds, namely, of wheat, barley, millet, pulse, and taffo. Before we began to eat, the Ras of Angote ordered to be placed before him rolls of that inferior bread, and upon each roll a piece of raw beef, and so he ordered it to be given to the poor who were outside the gate waiting for alms. Upon this we pronounced the blessing according to our usage, at which the Ras of Angote showed much satisfaction. Then came the dainties, and they were these, namely, three sauces or potages, which might well be called sauce of Palmela,[104] one of clove of garlic, and another I know not of what. In these potages there was an admixture of cow dung and of gall, which in this country they consider an esteemed food; and only great personages eat it. These sauces came in small sauce dishes, of a dark clay, and were well made. They put into this sauce the most inferior bread, broken very small, and butter with it. We would not eat of these potages, and the ambassador ordered our victuals to be brought, which he had very well cooked, because we could not eat their viands, neither did they eat ours. The wine was passed round freely.[105] The wife of the Ras of Angote ate close to us, with a curtain betwixt, at a table like ours. She ate her own viands; they also gave her some of ours, I do not know whether she ate them, because the curtain was between her and us. In drinking, she assisted us well. After all the dainties there came a raw breast of beef, and we did not taste it: the Ras of Angote ate some of it, like a person eating cake or other dainties for dessert. So we came to an end of the dinner, and thanks be to God, and we went away to our lodging.

On Monday morning we took leave of the Has of Angote, and the friar who conducted and guided us must needs have us wait for a mule of the Prester John, and an ass with certain baggage, which they had taken from us in the rout of the stone throwing. The ambassador departed with those who had been with him before, and we remained with the friar who had been with him in the hail of stones. On this Monday, near nightfall, they came with the said mule and the ass which had remained there, and the friar at once said that we should start, and that we could still go and sleep where the ambassador was. As it seemed to us it might be so we made ready and departed whilst night was closing in, thinking that we should keep to the road; and he goes and takes us through some bushes, and takes us to where we were stoned, and said he was going to do justice; and there were eight men on mules and fifteen on foot going with us. We went to lodge for the night in the house of one of those chief men who had stoned us, and we found the house and the whole village without people in it. They were all in a mountain which was above the village. We found plenty to eat for ourselves and our mules. As soon as we were in the house those men who came with us left us: certainly we were not without fear, and complained of the friar because he was bringing us to be killed, and because he did not take us on our road. He told us that we came to do justice, and that in the morning we would depart. When morning came he said that we could not go till midday. When we saw this we waited till midday, and when it was midday we required him to start, then he said that we could not go till next day. Seeing these delays, we started and left him. This same day, however, we rejoined the baggage, because it was waiting for us. In the night the friar reached us, because he did not dare to sleep alone among those people who had stoned us, and he brought with him two mules, a cow, and eight pieces of stuff, which they gave him for the blood they had shed. This is their justice, and no other, namely, to take away the goods, which are only mules, cows, and stuffs, from those who can do little. These villages where they stoned us are named, one Angua, and another Mastanho: they said they belonged to the Abima Marcos.

Here we entered into a very pretty country between very high mountains, the feet of which were very thickly peopled with large towns and noble churches. This country is laid out in large tillage fields of all sorts. Here there is an infinite quantity of figs, those of India, many lemons, oranges, and citrons, and extensive pastures of cattle. And on another occasion when I returned here with this friar, who then called himself an ambassador, we came and stayed a Saturday and a Sunday in the house of an honourable debetera, that is, canon, and these two days we went with him to the church: because there were a great number of canons in that church, we asked him how many there might be in it. He told us that there were five thousand three hundred canons, and we asked what revenues they had. He said that they were very little for so many; and we said, since the revenues are so small, why were there so many canons. He told us that at the beginning of that church there were not many, but that afterwards they had increased, because all the sons of canons, and as many as descended from them, remained canons, and the fathers each taught their sons, and so they had been increased in number, and that this happened in the King’s churches, and that frequently Prester John diminished them, when he set up a church in a new country, and sent to fetch canons from these churches, as he had ordered two hundred canons to be taken away to the church of Machan Celace,[106] and that in this valley there were eight churches, and there would be in them fully four thousand canons, and that the Prester took canons from here for the new churches, and also for the churches at court, because otherwise they would eat one another up.

The above mentioned valley reaches to the mountain where they put the sons of the Prester John. These are like banished men; as it was revealed to King Abraham, before spoken of, to whom the angels for forty years administered bread and wine for the sacrament, that all his sons should be shut up in a mountain, and that none should remain except the first born, the heir, and that this should be done for ever to all the sons of the Prester of the country, and his successors: because if this was not so done there would be great difficulty in the country, on account of its greatness, and they would rise up and seize parts of it, and would not obey the heir, and would kill him. He being frightened at such a revelation, and reflecting where such a mountain could be found, it was again told him in revelation to order his country to be searched, and to look at the highest mountains, and that mountain on which they saw wild goats on the rocks, looking as if they were going to fall below, was the mountain on which the princes were to be shut up. He ordered it to be done as it had been revealed to him, and they found this mountain, which stands above this valley, to be the one which the revelation mentioned, round the foot of which a man has to go a journey of two days; and it is of this kind: a rock cut like a wall, straight from the top to the bottom; a man going at the foot of it and looking upwards, it seems that the sky rests upon it. They say that it has three entrances or gates, in three places, and no more; I saw one of these here in this country, and I saw it in this manner. We were going from the sea to the court, and a young man, a servant of the Prester, whom they call a calacem, was guiding us, and he did not know the country well; and we wished to lodge in a town, and they would not receive us; this belonged to a sister of Prester John. The night had not yet advanced much, and he began travelling, telling us to follow him, and that he would get us lodgings. And because he travelled fast on a mule, and on a small path, I told one Lopo da Gama to ride in sight of the calacem, and that I would keep him in sight, and the ambassador and the other people would ride in sight of me. And the night closed in when we were quite a league from the road towards the mountain of the princes, and there came forth from all the villages so many people throwing stones at us, that they were near killing us, and they made us disperse in three or four directions. The ambassador had remained in the rear, and he turned back, and others who were about in the middle of the party started off in another direction; and some one there was who dismounted from his mule and fled in panic.[107] Lopo da Gama and I could not turn back, so we went forward and reached another town, which was still better prepared, on account of the noise which they heard behind in the other towns. Here many stones rained upon us, and the darkness was like having no eyes. In order that they might not throw stones at me by hearing the mule’s steps, I dismounted and gave the mule to my slave. God was pleased that an honourable man came up to me, and asked me who I was. I told him that I was a gaxia neguz, that is to say, a king’s stranger. This man was very tall, and I say honourable, because he treated me well; and he took my head under his arm, for I did not reach any higher, and so he conducted me like the bellows of a bagpipe player, saying, Atefra, atefra, which means “Do not be afraid, do not be afraid.” He took me with the mule and the slave, until he brought me into a vegetable garden which surrounded his house. Inside this garden he had a quantity of poles stuck up one against another, and in the midst of these poles he had a clean resting place like a hut, into which he put me. As it seemed to me that I was in safety, I ordered a light to be lit; and when they saw the light they rained stones on the hut, and when I put out the light the stone throwing ceased. The host, as soon as he left me, returned at the noise, and then remained an hour without coming. Whilst he was away, Lopo da Gama heard me, and broke through the bushes,[108] and came to me. On this the host came and said, “Be quiet, do not be afraid,” and ordered a candle to be lit, and to kill two fowls; and he gave us bread and wine and a hospitable welcome, according to his power. Next day, in the morning, the host took me by the hand and led me to his house, as far as a game of ball, where there were many trees of an inferior kind, and very thick, by which it was concealed as by a wall; and between them was a door, which was locked; and before this door was an ascent to the cliff. This host said to me: “Look here; if any of you were to pass inside this door, there would be nothing for it but to cut off his feet and his hands, and put out his eyes, and leave him lying there; and you must not put the blame on those who would do this, neither would you be in fault, but those who brought you hither: we, if we did not do this, we should pay with our lives, because we are the guardians of this door.” Lopo da Gama, I, and the calacem then at once mounted and rode down to the road, which was below us, a good league off, and we found that none of our party had passed by; and vespers were over, and yet we had not come together.

The manner they have of shutting up these sons of the kings. Until this King David Prester John, all had five or six wives, and they had sons of them or of most of them. By the death of the Prester, the eldest born inherited; others say that he who appeared to the Prester the most apt, and of most judgment, inherited: others say that he inherited who had the most adherents. Of this matter I will say what I know by hearing it from many. The King Alexander, the uncle of this David, died without a son, and he had daughters, and they went to the mountain and brought out from it Nahu his brother, who was father of this David. This Nahu brought with him from the mountain a legitimate son, who was, they say, a handsome youth, and a good gentleman, but of a strong temper. After that Nahu was in the kingdoms, he had other wives, of whom he had sons and daughters, and at his death they wished to make king that eldest son who had come from the mountain with his father; and some said that he was strong in temper, and would ill-treat the people. Others said that he could not inherit because he had been born as in captivity, and outside of the inheritance. So they set up as king this David who now reigns, and who at that time was a boy of eleven years of age. The Abima Martos told me that he and the Queen Helena made him king, because they had all the great men in their hands. Thus it appears to me, that beyond primogeniture, adherence enters into the question. Other sons of Nahu, who were infants, remained with the eldest who had come from the mountain with his father, and they took them all back to the said mountain, and so they do with all the sons of the Prester from the time of that King Abraham until now. They say that this mountain is cold and extensive, and they also say that the top of it is round, and that it takes fifteen days to go round it;[109] and it seems to me that may be so, because on this side, where our road lay, we travelled at the foot of it for two days; and so it reaches to the kingdoms of Amara and of Bogrimidi, which is on the Nile, and a long way from here. They say that there are on the top of this mountain yet other mountains which are very high and contain valleys: and they say that there is a valley there between two very steep mountains, and that it is by no means possible to get out of it, because it is closed by two gates, and that in this valley they place those who are nearest to the king, that is to say, those who are still of his own blood, and who have been there a short time, because they keep them with more precaution. Those who are sons of sons, and grandsons, and already almost forgotten are not so much watched over. Withal, this mountain is generally guarded by great guards, and great captains; and a quarter of the people who usually live at the court are of the guards of this mountain and their captains. These captains and guards of the mountain who are at court, lodge apart by themselves, and no one approaches them, nor do they go near others, so that no one may have an opportunity of learning the secrets of the mountain. And when they approach the door of the Prester, and he has to receive a message or speak to them, they make all the people go away, and all other affairs cease whilst they are speaking of this.

With regard to the matter of these princes, I saw this: they brought here a friar who was about thirty years old, and with him quite two hundred men. They said that this friar had brought a letter to the Prester John from one of the princes of the mountain, and these two hundred men were guards of the same mountain. They flogged this friar every two days, and they also flogged these men, distributing them in two parties. On the day they flogged the friar, they flogged half of the guards, and they always began with the friar, then all the others were always in sight of one another, and each time they put questions to the friar, who gave him that letter, for whom, and if he had brought more letters, and what monastery he belonged to, and where he had become a friar, and where he had been ordained for mass? The wretched friar said that it was sixteen years since he had come out of the mountain, and that they had then given him that letter, and that he had never returned there, nor had dared to give the letter except now; that sin had caught him (and this might be the truth, because in this country they are not accustomed to put in a letter the year, nor the month, nor the day). To the guards they did not put any other question, except how had they let this friar get out. The manner of flogging is this: they throw the man on his stomach, and fasten his hands to two stakes, and a rope to both feet, and two men both pulling at the rope; there are also two as executioners to strike one at one side and the other at the other; and they do not always strike the flogged man, many blows fall on the ground, because if they hit him every time, he would die there, so severe is the flogging, and of this company I saw a man taken away from the flogging, and before they could cover him with a cloth he died. Immediately they informed the Prester John of it, because these justices are done before his tents, and he ordered the dead man to be taken back to where he had been flogged, and those who were to be flogged afterwards he ordered to put their heads on the feet of the dead man. This justice lasted two weeks, for this regularity of flogging the friar every two days never ceased, and half the guards after him; except Saturdays and Sundays, on which days justice was not done. It was the common fame and report through all the court that this friar had brought letters to the Portuguese from the princes of the mountain that we might take them out of it, and we were innocent of this, and I believe the friar was in the same case.

But in the days and time that we were there, a brother of the Prester John, a youth (as they said) of sixteen years of age, fled from the mountain, and came to the house of his mother, a queen, who had been wife of Prester John, and on account of the pain of death that here falls on whoever takes in a prince from the mountain, the mother would not take in her son, but had him arrested and taken to Prester John.[110] They said that he asked his brother why he fled, and that he answered that he was dying of hunger, and that he had not come except for the purpose of relating this to him, since no one would bring this message to him. They said that the Prester John dressed him richly, and gave him much gold, and silk stuffs, and ordered him to return to the mountain. They also said generally in this court that he only fled in order to go away with the Portuguese. With regard to this individual who thus fled and was sent back to the mountain, when we, and this ambassador who is going to Portugal, were at Lalibela, where the rock churches are, and he was going to take possession of the lordship of Abrigima, which Prester John gave him, there came that way a calacem with many people, and he brought as a prisoner this brother of the Prester; and he and his mule were covered with dark cloths, so that nothing of him appeared, and the mule only showed its eyes and ears. The messengers said that this man had run away in the habits of a friar in company with a friar, and that this friar, his companion, had discovered him the day on which they left the lands of Prester John, and had caused him to be arrested, and so the friar himself brought him a prisoner. They did not allow any person to approach or speak to this brother of Prester John, except two men, who went close to the mule. Everybody said that he would die, or that they would put out his eyes. I do not know what became of him. Of another we heard say (and he is still alive) that he had attempted to fly from the mountain, and that in order to get away he had made himself into a bush, that is, covered himself with many boughs; and some cultivators who were at their tillage saw the said bush move, and went to see what it was, and finding a man they took him prisoner, and the guards, as soon as they had him in their power, put out his eyes. They say that he is still alive, and that he is an uncle of this Prester John. They relate that there are in this mountain a great multitude of these people, and they call them Ifflaquitas, or sons of this Israel, or sons of David, like the Prester John, because all are of one race and blood. There are in this country (as they say) many churches, monasteries, priests, and friars.[111]

In this country Prester John has no relation of his own, because those on the mother’s side are not held or reckoned or named as relations; and those on the father’s side are shut up and held to be dead, and although they marry and have children, as they say that they have an infinite number of sons and daughters, yet none of them ever comes out of the mountain, except, as has been mentioned before, if the Prester dies without an heir, then they bring out from it his nearest relation, and the most fit and proper. It is said that some women go out to be married outside, and they are not held to be relations, nor daughters nor sisters of the Prester, although they are so: they are honoured so long as their father or brother lives, and as soon as these die they are like any other ladies. I saw, and we all saw, at the court, a lady who was daughter of an uncle of this Prester, and although she still went about with an umbrella,[112] she was much neglected. We knew a son of hers who was as ill-treated as any servant, so that in a short time his lineage died and remained without any mention of being related to the king. This King David Prester who now reigns, had at our departure two sons; they said that he gave them large settled estates or dotations[113] of large revenues assigned to them. They showed to me in what part one of them had extensive lands. But the general voice was that as soon as the father should close his eyes, and that one of them should be made king, that the others would go to the mountain like their predecessors, without taking anything with them except their bodies. I also heard say that the third part of the expenses of the Prester were made for these princes and Ifflaquitas, and that this Prester dealt better with them than his predecessor had ever done; and that, beside the large revenues which were appropriated to them, he sent them much gold and silks and other fine cloths, and much salt, which in these kingdoms is current as money. And when we arrived and gave him much pepper, we learned for certain that he sent them the half of it; and he sent word to them to rejoice that the King of Portugal, his father, had ordered a visit to be paid to him, and had sent him that pepper. We also knew for certain, and by seeing it in many parts, that Prester John has in most of his kingdoms large tillages and lands, like the King’s lands[114] in our parts. These lands, or king’s patrimony, are ploughed and sown by his slaves, with his own oxen. These have their provisions and clothes from the king, and they are more free than any other people, and they are married, and they proceed originally[115] from slaves, and they intermarry. Of all the tillage that is near the mountain, most of it goes there, and the rest to monasteries, churches, poor people, and principally to poor and old gentlemen who once have held lordships and no longer hold them: and he twice ordered some of this bread to be given to us Portuguese, that is to say, once in Aquaxumo five hundred loads, and another time another five hundred in Aquate, and of this tillage he has nothing for himself, neither is any of it sold, and all is spent and given, as has been said.