Dembea, and on the other by the mountains of Begemder.
For this purpose he sent to Peter Paez, his ordinary confessor, to come to him; and, having told him his resolution, he declared, that, in proof of the sincerity of his conversion, he had put away ail his wives (of whom he had several of the first quality, and many children by them) and retained only his first, by whom he had the eldest of his sons, destined to succeed him in the empire.
Paez, having received his confession, and public renunciation of the Alexandrian faith, returned to Gorgora singing his nunc dimittis, as if the great end of his million was now completed; nor was he deceived in his prognostication. For, having too much heated himself with zeal in travelling, he was, upon his arrival, taken with a violent fever; and, tho' every sort of remedy was administered to him by Antonio Fernandes, yet he died on the third of May 1623, with great demonstrations of piety and resignation, and firm conviction, that he had done his duty in an active, innocent, and well-spent life.
He had been seven years a captive in Arabia in the hands of the Moors, and nineteen years missionary in Abyssinia, in the worst of times, and had always extricated himself from the most perilous situations, with honour to himself and advantage to his religion. In person, he was very tall and strong; but lean from continual labour and abstinence. He was red faced; which, Tellez says, proceeded from the religious warmth of his heart. He had a very good under-
