Marco Polo, who visited the East early in the thirteenth century, confirms the Chronicles of that period by his account of the country, and mention of a successful campaign which the reigning sovereign undertook against the Moors, in consequence of an affront offered to one of his priests, whom he had commissioned to carry his offerings to Jerusalem. This campaign is attributed to the year 1288 by Ramusio,[1] which in all probability applies to the conquests of Amda Sion, related in Mr. Bruce's Travels, Vol. III. p. 41 et seq. as extracted from the Chronicles; and therefore the reign of that sovereign should, I conceive, be carried back about twenty years, or rather more; a difference that will not appear extraordinary, when it be considered that the period assigned for that king's reign was ascertained merely by computing back from the time of Yoas.[2]
In this narrative of Amda Sion's wars, which is an important point in the history of Abyssinia, much confusion has been introduced into Mr. Bruce's account, owing to the slight knowledge then existing of the geography of the country; for, from his entertaining a supposition of Zeyla being an island, he was under the necessity of imagining that there were two towns of the same name; and has placed the one taken by Amda Sion about seven degrees to the south of the other, and carried the advance of the armies to an inconceivable distance beyond its actual progress, which, at that time, evidently extended no further than the ancient and present town of Zeyla, situated on a peninsula; the principal object of the war having been to open a free communication with the coast.
About this same time, an account is given by Ibn'el Wardi, an Arabian author, respecting the country, which, as it has not, I believe, before appeared in English, I have inserted with a translation of Marco Polo's, in the Ap-
- ↑ Ramusio, Viaggi di Marco Polo, p. 59, Lib. III. (In the "Voyages de Bergeron," which Geddes in his Eccles. Hist. has copied, this event is erroneously attributed to 1258.)
- ↑ The necessity of this correction is confirmed, in some degree, by a list which I brought to England, a translation of which I have made use of, which makes a difference of about 15 years from that given by Mr. Bruce.
