Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/630

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TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

wards in the person of his son, Waragna Fasil, to the very great detriment of the country in general.

The first thing the queen did was to send Shalaka Waragna, and Billetana Gueta David, with a large body of Mahometan fusileers, Djawi and Toluma Galla, to guard the mountain of Wechné, where the males of the royal family were imprisoned, that no competitor might be released from thence. The next step was to marry Ozoro Welleta Tecla Haimanout to Ras Elias, to confirm him, if possible, in his much suspected allegiance. After which, the Ras, judges, and soldiers of the king's household, made this proclamation—"Bacuffa, king of kings, is dead! Yasous, king of kings, liveth! Mourn for those that are dead, and rejoice with those that are alive!" Orders were then given for burying Bacuffa with all magnificence possible.

The first thing that seemed the beginning of trouble in the new regency, and likely to destroy the calm that had hitherto subsisted, was an information given by Azage Georgis against Tecla Saluce, a great officer at court. Georgis accused him before the king and council, that he had been heard to say that king Yasous was dangerously ill. Tecla Saluce absolutely denied this charge, and said it was an invention of his enemy Georgis, and challenged him to prove it. Evidence being called, he was convicted in the most direct and satisfactory manner; was therefore condemned to death, and hewn to pieces at the king's gate that same day by the common soldiers.

Here is a species of treason without any overt act. The imagining the king's death, which seems much to resem-