Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 2/Book 4/Chapter 2
HANNES I. OR ŒLAFE SEGUED.
From 1665 to 1680.
Bigotry of the King—Disgusts his Son Yasous, who flees from Gondar.
If this prince succeeded to his kingdom in peace, he had the address still to keep it so. He was not in his nature averse to war, though, besides two feeble attempts he made upon Lasta, and one against the Shangalla, all without material consequences, no military expedition was undertaken in his time; and no rebellion or competitor (so frequent in other reigns) at all disturbed his.
Hannes seems to have had the seeds of bigotry in his temper; from the beginning of his reign he commanded 424 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
the Mahometans to eat no other flesh but what had been killed by Christians; and gathered together the Catholic books, which the Jesuits had translated into the Ethiopia language, and burned them in a heap. Much of his attention was given to church matters, and, in regulating these he seems to have employed most of his time. He deposed the Abuna Christadulus, appointed by his father, and in his place put the Abuna Sanuda.
This last measure seems to have displeased his eldest son Yasous, who fled from the palace one night, and passed the Nile; and, though he was followed by Kasmati Aferata Christos, he was not overtaken, but staid some time in his father's house, and then returned to Gondar at the request of his father.
A convocation of the clergy, the second in this reign, was now held, and great heats and divisions followed among two orders of monks, those of Eustathius and those of Debra Libanos. The king seems to have assisted at all these debates, and to have contented himself with holding the balance in his hands without declaring for either party. But these altercations and disputes could not satisfy the active spirit of the prince his son, who again fled from his father and from Gondar, but was overtaken at the river Bashilo, and brought back to the palace, where lie found his father ill.
Hannes died the 19th of July, and was buried at Tedda, after having reigned 15 years. He seems, from the scanty memorials of his long reign, to have been a weak prince; but, perhaps, if the circumstances of the times were fully known, he may have been a wise one.