At that period, Socinios had determined upon an expedition against the Funge, that is, against the blacks of Sennaar, who had entered his country in a violent manner, destroying his people, and carrying them off as slaves. It was, therefore, concerted, that while the king was busied far off with the Funge, Emana Christos, Julius, and the eunuch Kefla, at once should attack Sela Christos, at whom, next to the king, the conspirators chiefly aimed; and the cause was, that the king had taken the polls of Ras and the government of Gojam from Emana Christos, who was a schismatic, and had given them to his younger brother, Sela Christos, a violent Catholic.
Julius began by a proclamation in Woggora, in which he commanded, that those who believed two natures in Christ should immediately leave the province, and that all those who were friends to the Alexandrian faith should forthwith repair to him, and fight in defence of it. He then ordered the goods of all the Catholics in Tigre to be confiscated, and straightway marched to surprise Sela Christos then in Gojam. But the king received intelligence of his designs, and returned into Dembea before it was well known that he had left it. This, at first, very much disconcerted Julius; and the rather, that Emana Christos and Kefla Wahad kept aloof, nor had they declared themselves openly yet, nor did they seem inclined to do it till Julius had first tried his fortune with the king.
This rebel, now full of presumption, advanced with his army to where the Nile issues out of the great lake Tzana; and there he found the Abuna Simon, who had staid for some weeks in one of the islands upon pretence of devotion.
