priests, had given a much more favourable prospect of religious affairs than had as yet been conveyed to Rome; the wiser part of the conclave, however, had doubted. But now, the king had voluntarily made his recantation, it was no longer thought time for delay, and accordingly Alphonso Mendez, a Jesuit doctor of divinity, a man of great learning, by birth a Portuguese, was ordained at Lisbon the 25th of May 1624.
From thence he proceeded to India by the way of Goa, attended by several fresh missionaries; and finding there letters from Socinios, and a passport from the king of Dancali, a Mahometan prince in alliance with the Abyssinians, he arrived at Bilur, an open bay in the small and barren state of Dancali, on the second of May 1625, and was received, by the brother of the reigning prince, with every token of friendship that so poor a state and sovereign could afford; the king of Dancali himself was at the distance of six days journey, in a place where there was greater plenty of water and provisions. The following day the king sent four mules for the fathers to join him, and received them in a room of a round figure, surrounded and covered with bundles of straw, but so low they scarce could raise themselves after having made their bows.
In this miserable kingdom, which I shall not describe, as, since that period, it has been conquered by the Galla, the patriarch and fathers staid almost in want of necessaries for sixteen days. At last they set out, having, with much difficulty, mustered sufficient beasts of burden to carry their baggage. The road lay through part of the country wherein are the mines of fossile-salt, hot, barren, and absolutely
