rovince. The industry of the
empress was again victorious, and the pious Theodora has established
in that sequestered church the faith and discipline of the Jacobites.
Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the
AEthiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world, by whom
they were forgotten. They were awakened by the Portuguese, who, turning
the southern promontory of Africa, appeared in India and the Red Sea,
as if they had descended through the air from a distant planet. In the
first moments of their interview, the subjects of Rome and Alexandria
observed the resemblance, rather than the difference, of their faith;
and each nation expected the most important benefits from an alliance
with their Christian brethren. In their lonely situation, the AEthiopians
had almost relapsed into the savage life. Their vessels, which had
traded to Ceylon, scarcely presumed to navigate the rivers of Africa;
the ruins of Axume were deserted, the nation was scattered in villages,
and the emperor, a pompous name, was content, both in peace and
war, with the immovable residence of a camp. Conscious of their own
indigence, the Abyssinians had formed the rational project of importing
the arts and ingenuity of Europe; and their ambassadors at Rome and
Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters,
tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use of their
country. But the public danger soon called for the instant 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: 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.

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