ps
influenced by the reports his subjects had brought him of its magnificent
ceremonies, he appointed one of his principal noblemen, named _Cacuta_ or
_Zazut_, to accompany Diego Cam, as his ambassador to King John;
anxiously requesting the king of Portugal to allow this nobleman and his
attendants to be baptized, and that he would be pleased to send some
ministers of his holy religion to convert him and his subjects from their
idolatrous errors. Diego Cam arrived safely in Portugal with Cacuta; who
was soon afterwards baptized by the name of _John Silva_, the king and
queen of Portugal doing him the honour of attending on him as sponsors at
the holy font; and the splendid ceremonial was closed by the baptism of
his sable attendants.

Some time previous to this event, Alphonso de Aviero carried an
ambassador from the king of Benin to the king of Portugal, requesting
that some missionaries might be sent for the conversion of his subjects;
and, although the artful conduct of that African prince threw many
difficulties in the way of this mission, many of the Negroes of that
country were converted. From the ambassador of Benin, the king of
Portugal received information of a powerful monarch, named _Organe_,
whose territories lay at the distance of 250 leagues beyond the kingdom
of Benin, and who possessed a supremacy over all the adjacent states.
Assuming Cape Lopo Goncalves, in lat. 1 deg. S. as the southern boundary of
the kingdom of Benin, 250 Portuguese leagues would bring us to the
kingdom of Benguela, or that of Jaa Caconda, about lat. 14 deg. or 15 deg. S. Yet
some persons have strangely supposed that this king _Organe_ or _Ogane_
was a corruption of _Jan_ or _Janhoi_, the title given by the Christians
of the east to the king of Abyssinia. "But it is very difficult to
account for this knowledge of Abyssinia in the kingdom of Benin, not only
on account of the distance, but likewise because several of the most
savage nations in the world, the _Galla_ and _Shangalla_, occupy the
intervening space. The court of Abyssinia did indeed then reside in
_Shoa_, the south-east extremity of the kingdom; and, by its power and
influence, might have pushed its dominion through these barbarians to the
neighbourhood of Benin on the western ocean. But all this I must confess
to be a mere conjecture of mine, of which, in the country itself, I never
found the smallest confirmation[2]." To these observations of the
celebrated Abyssinian t