Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 2/Book 3/Chapter 15
ISCANDER, or ALEXANDER.
From 1478 to 1495.
AS soon as the king Bæda Mariam was dead, the history of Abyssinia informs us, that a tumultuous meeting of the nobles brought from the mountain of Geshen the queen Romana, with her son Iscander, who upon his arrival was crowned without any opposition.
It is to be observed in the Abyssinian annals, that very frequent minorities happen. A queen-mother, or regent, with two or three of the greatest interest at court, are, during the minority, in possession of the king's person, and govern in his name. The transactions of this minority, too, are as carefully inserted in the annals of the kingdom as any other part of the subsequent government, but as the whole of these minorities are but one continued chain of quarrels, plots, and treachery, as soon as the king comes of age, the greatest part of this reign of his ministers is cancelled, as being the acts of subjects, and not worthy to be inserted in their histories; which they entitle Kebra Za Negust, the greatness or atchievements of their kings. This, however political in itself, is a great disadvantage to history, by concealing from posterity the first cause of the most important transactions.
For several years after Iscander ascended the throne, the queen his mother, together with the Acab Saat, Tesfo Georgis, and Betwudet Amdu, governed the kingdom despotically under the name of the young king. Accordingly, after some years sufferance, a conspiracy was formed, at the head of which were two men of great power, Abba Amdu and Abba Hasabo, but the conspirators proving unsuccessful, some of them were imprisoned, some put to death, and others banished to unwholesome places, there to perish with hunger and fevers.
The king from his early age had shewn a passionate desire for a war with Adel, and that prince, whose country had been so often desolated by the Abyssinian armies, omitted no opportunity of creating an interest at that court, that should keep things in a quiet state. In this, however, he was much interrupted at present by a neighbouring chief of Arar, named Mafsudi. This man, exceedingly brave, capable of enduring the greatest hardships, and a very great bigot to the Mahometan religion, had made a vow, that, every Lent, he would spend the whole forty days in some part of the Abyssinian kingdom; and to this purpose he had raised, at his own expence, a small body of veteran troops, whom he inspired with the same spirit and resolution. Sometimes he fell on one part of the frontier, sometimes upon another; slaying, without mercy, all that made resistance, and driving off whole villages of men, women, and children, whom he sent into Arabia, or India, to be sold as slaves.
It was a matter of great difficulty for the king of Adel to persuade the Abyssinians that Mafsudi acted without his instigation. The young king was one who could not distinguish Adel from Arar, or Mahomet's army from Mafsudi's. He bore with very great impatience the excesses every year committed by the latter; but he was over-ruled by his nobility at home, and his thoughts turned as much as possible to hunting, to which he willingly gave himself up; and, tho' but fifteen years of age, was the person, in all Abyssinia, most dexterous at managing his arms. At last, being arrived at the age of seventeen, and returning from having observed a very successful expedition made by Mafsudi against his territories, he ordered Za Saluce, his first minister, commander in chief, and governor of Amhara, to raise the whole forces to the southward, while he himself collected the nobility in Angot and Tigré. With those, as soon as the rainy season was over, he descended into the kingdom of Adel.
The king of Adel had been forced into this war, yet, like a wise prince, he was not unprepared for it. He had advanced directly towards the king, but had not passed his frontiers. Some inhabitants of a village called Arno, all Mahometans, but tributary to the king of Abyssinia, had murdered the governor the king had set over them. Iscander marched diredly to destroy it, which he had no sooner accomplished, than the Moorish army presented itself. The battle was maintained obstinately on both sides, till the troops under Za Saluce withdrew in the heat of the engagement, leaving the king in the midst of his enemies. This treason, however, seemed to have inspired the small army that remained with new courage, so that the day was as yet dubious, when Iscander, being engaged in a narrow pass, and seeing himself close pressed by a Moor who bore in his hand the green standard of Mahomet, turned suddenly upon him, and slew him with a javelin; and, having wrested the colours from him as he was falling, he, with the point of the spear that bore the ensign, struck the king of Adel's son dead to the ground, which immediately caused the Moors to retreat.
The young prince was too prudent to follow this victory in the state the army then was; for that of Adel, though it had retreated, did not disperse. Za Saluce was returning by long marches to Amhara, exciting all those in his way to revolt; and it was high time, therefore, for the king to follow him. But, unequal as he was in strength to the Moors, he could not reconcile it with his own honour to leave their army masters of the field. He, therefore, first consulted the principal officers of his troops, then harangued his men, which, the historian says, he did in the most pathetic and masterly manner; so that, with one voice, they desired instantly to be led to the Moors. The king is said to have ranged his little army in a manner that astonished the oldest officers. He then sent a defiance to the Moors, by several prisoners whom he released. They, however, more desirous to keep him from ravaging the country than to fight another battle, continued quiet in their tents; and the king, after remaining on the field till near noon, drew off his troops in the presence of his enemy, making a retreat which would not have been unworthy of the hero whose name he bore.
The king, in his return to Shoa, left his troops, which was the northern army, in the northern provinces, as he passed; so that he came to Shoa with a very small retinue, hearing that Za Saluce had gone to Amhara. This traitor, however, had left his creatures behind him, after instructing them what they were to do. Accordingly, the second day after Iscander's arrival in Tegulat, the capital of Shoa, they set upon him, during the night, in a small house in Aylo Meidan, and murdered him while he was sleeping. They concealed his body for some days in a mill, but Taka Christos, and some others of the king's friends, took up the corpse and exposed it to the people, who, with one accord, proclaimed Andreas, son of Iscander, king; and Za Saluce and his adherents, traitors.
In the mean time, Za Saluce, far from finding the encouragement he expected in Amhara, was, upon his first appearance, set upon by the nobility of that province; and, being deserted by his troops, he was taken prisoner; his eyes were put out, and, being mounted on an ass, he was carried amidst the curses of the people through the provinces of Amhara and Shoa.
Iscander was succeeded by his son Andreas, or Amda Sion, an infant, who reigned seven months only.
A wonderful confusion seems to be introduced at this time into history, by the Portuguese writers. Iscander is said to die in the 1490. He began, as they say, to reign in 1475, and this is confirmed by Ludolf; and, on all hands, it is allowed he reigned 17 years, which would have brought the last year of his reign to 1492. It seems also to be agreed by the generality of them, that Covillan saw and conversed with this prince, Iscander, some time before his death: this he very well might have done, if that prince lived to the 1492, and Peter Covillan came into Abyssinia in 1490, as Galvan says in his father's memoirs. But then Tellez informs us expressly, that Iscander was dead 6 months before the arrival of Peter Covillan in that country: If Peter Covillan arrived 6 months after the death of Iscander, it must have been in the end of his son's reign, Amda Sion, who was an infant, and reigned only 7 months.
Alvarez omits this king, Amda Sion, altogether, and so does Tellez; and there is a heap of mistakes here that shew these Portuguese historians paid very little attention to the chronology of these reigns. They call Alexander the father of Naod, when he was really but his brother; and Helena, they say, was David's mother, when, in fact, she was his grandmother, or rather his grandfather's wife; for Helena, who was Iteghé in the time of David the III. had never either son or daughter. So that if I differ, as in fact I do, 4 years, or thereabout, in this account, I do not think in those remote times, when the language and manner of accounting was so little known to these strangers, that I, therefore, should reject my own account and servilely adopt theirs, and the more so, because, as we shall see in its proper place, by the examination and comparison made by help of an eclipse of the sun in the 13th year of Claudius' reign in the 1553, and counting from that downwards to my arrival in Abyssinia, and backwards to Iscander, that that prince must have begun his reign in 1478, and reigning 17 years, did not die till the year 1495, and therefore must have seen Peter Covillan, and conversed with him, if he had arrived in Abyssinia so early as the 1490.