stant and effectual aid of arms and soldiers, to defend an unwarlike
people from the Barbarians who ravaged the inland country and the Turks
and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast in more formidable array.
Aethiopia was saved by four hundred and fifty Portuguese, who displayed
in the field the native valor of Europeans, and the artificial power of
the musket and cannon. In a moment of terror, the emperor had promised
to reconcile himself and his subjects to the Catholic faith; a Latin
patriarch represented the supremacy of the pope: [158] the empire,
enlarged in a tenfold proportion, was supposed to contain more gold than
the mines of America; and the wildest hopes of avarice and zeal were
built on the willing submission of the Christians of Africa.

[Footnote 155: The abuna is improperly dignified by the Latins with
the title of patriarch. The Abyssinians acknowledge only the four
patriarchs, and their chief is no more than a metropolitan or national
primate, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l. iii. c. 7.) The seven
bishops of Renaudot, (p. 511,) who existed A.D. 1131, are unknown to the
historian.]

[Footnote 156: I know not why Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p.
384) should call in question these probable missions of Theodora into
Nubia and Aethiopia. The slight notices of Abyssinia till the year 1500
are supplied by Renaudot (p. 336-341, 381, 382, 405, 443, &c., 452, 456,
463, 475, 480, 511, 525, 559--564) from the Coptic writers. The mind of
Ludolphus was a perfect blank.]

[Footnote 157: Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop. l. iv. c. 5. The most necessary
arts are now exercised by the Jews, and the foreign trade is in the
hands of the Armenians. What Gregory principally admired and envied was
the industry of Europe--artes et opificia.]

[Footnote 158: John Bermudez, whose relation, printed at Lisbon, 1569,
was translated into English by Purchas, (Pilgrims, l. vii. c. 7, p.
1149, &c.,) and from thence into French by La Croze, (Christianisme
d'Ethiopie, p. 92--265.) The piece is curious; but the author may be
suspected of deceiving Abyssinia, Rome, and Portugal. His title to the
rank of patriarch is dark and doubtful, (Ludolph. Comment. No. 101, p.
473.)]

But the vows which pain had extorted were forsworn on the return of
health. The Abyssinians still adhered with unshaken constancy to the
Monophysite faith; their languid belief was inflamed by the exercise
of dispute; they branded the Latins with the names