The priest is said to have limited his advice still further, and to have only begged him to remember not to eat the fish of a certain river in the territory of Giba in the province of Shat. The king, however, flushed with his victory over the Boren Galla, forgot the name of the river and the injunction; and, having ate fish out of this river, was immediately after taken dangerously ill, and died on his return.
The writer of his life says, that the fatal effects of this river were afterwards experienced in the reign of Yasous the Great, at the time in which he wrote, when the king's whole army, encamped along the sides of this river, were taken with violent sickness after eating the fish caught in it, and that many of the soldiers died. Whether this be really fact or not, I will not take upon me to decide. Whether fish, or any other animal, living in water impregnated with poisonous minerals, can preserve its own life, and yet imbibe a quantity of poison sufficient to destroy the men that should eat it, seems to me very doubtful. Something like this is said to happen in oysters, which are found on copperas beds, or have preparations of copperas thrown upon them to tinge a part of them with green. I do not, however, think it likely, that the creature would live after this metallic dose, or preserve a taste that would make it food for man till he accumulated a quantity sufficient to destroy him.
Sertza Denghel was of a very humane affable disposition, very different from his father Menas. He was stedfast in his adherence to the church of Alexandria, and seemed perfectly indifferent as to the Romish church and clergy. In conversation, he frequently condemned their tenets, but always commended the sobriety and sanctity of their lives.
