Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/716

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
700
TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

persons, almost as soon as they were uttered, nothing softened.

The consequences of the marriage of Ozoro Esther were very soon seen in the inveterate and determined hatred against the Galla. Esther, who could not save Mariam Barea, sacrificed herself that she might avenge his death, and live to see the loss of her husband expiated by numberless hecatombs of his enemies and murderers. Mild, gentle, and compassionate as, from my own knowledge, she certainly was, her nature was totally changed when she cast back her eyes upon the sufferings of her husband; nor could she be ever satiated with vengeance for those sufferings, but constantly stimulated Ras Michael, of himself much inclined to bloodshed, to extirpate, by every possible means, that odious nation of Galla, by whom she had fallen from all her hopes of happiness.

Fasil, as being a Galla, the first man that broke thro' the horse of Begemder, and wounded and put to flight her husband Mariam Barea, was in consequence among the black list of her enemies. Fasil, too, had murdered Kasmati Eshté, who was her favourite uncle, fast friend to Mariam Barea, and the man that had promoted her marriage with him.

The great credit of Fasil with the king had now given Ras Michael violent jealousy. These causes of hatred accumulated every day, so that Michael had already formed a resolution to destroy Fasil, even though the king should perish with him. In these sentiments, too, was Gusho of Amhara, a man of great personal merit, of whose father, Ras Woodage, we have already spoken, who had filled successive-