The Sign and the Seal. A quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant

88 A. H. M. Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, A History of Ethiopia, op. cit., p. 53. In October 1990 I visited the Ethiopian monastery on the roof of the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross.

89 A good account of the restoration of the Solomonic dynasty is given in Richard Pankhurst, An Introduction to the Economic History of Ethiopia, op. cit., pp. 60-71.

90 Encyclopaedia Britannica, op. cit., p. 594.

91 For example see Helen Adolf, 'New Light on Oriental Sources for Wolfram's Parzival and Other Grail Romances', Publications of the Modem Languages Association ofAmerica, vol. 62, March 1947, p. 308.

92 An English translation of the letter is given in full in Sergew Hable-Selassie, Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History, op. cit., pp.

93 Ibid. p. 255-61.

94 Ibid.

95 Sir E. A. Wallis Budge (trans. and ed.), The Bandlet of Righteousness: An Ethiopian Book of the Dead, Luzac, London, 1929. See, for example, pp. 41 ff.

96 This conflict, and its implications, are discussed in Chapter 6 below.

97 Full text of the letter in Sergew Hable-Selassie, Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History, op. cit., pp. 255-61.

98 Ibid.

99 Irmgard Bidder, Lalibela, op. cit., p. 29.

100 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., for example pp. 406, 393 and 241.

101 Ibid., p. 406.

102 Ibid., p. 251.

103 Ibid., p. 252.

104 Ibid., p. 252, footnote.

105 An independent state from An 1056 until it passed to the Habsburgs in the thirteenth century, Styria was annexed by Hider in 1938 and is now an alpine province of south-east Austria (capital Graz). Slovenes are included amongst the inhabitants of the province and Wolfram mentions Slovenes after referring to `the Rohas'. This insertion of a deliberate ambiguity into his text, leaving room for two or more possible interpretations, is the sort of technique that Wolfram repeatedly employs in his encoding of vital information. In this way he veils the truth he wishes to convey in an alternative meaning that most will accept as the only possible meaning of his words.

106 For details of the Templar anix pant see Andrea Hopkins, Knights, Collins & Brown, London, 1990, pp. 72-91.

107 UNESCO was involved in the restoration of some of the Lalibela churches in the 1960s and subsequently adopted them as a world heritage site. They are described as 'A remarkable coupling of engineering and architecture and a unique artistic achievement.' See A Legacy for All: The World's Major Natural, Cultural and Historic Sites, UNESCO, Paris, 1982, p. 74.

108 See, for example, D. R. Buxton, 'The Christian Antiquities of Northern Ethiopia', Archaeologic, no. 92, 1947, p. 23.

109 C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B Huntingford (eds), The Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of Presser John, being the Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520 written by Father Francisco Alvarez, Cambridge, published for the Hakluyt Society at the University Press, 1961, vol. I. pp. 13.

110 Ibid., p. 223.

111 Ibid., p. 226.

112 Ibid., p. 227.

113 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, op. cit., p. 406.

114 Ibid., P. 406.

Chapter 6 Resolving Doubts

1 Le R. P. Dimodieos, Deux ans de 40ur enAbyssinie: ou vie morale, politique et rdigieusedesAbyssiniens,Jerusalem, 1871, p. 137.

2 Ibid., p. to.

3 Ibid.,p. 141.

4 Ibid., p. 143.

5 As noted in Chapter I above, the sanctuary chapel was built by the late Emperor Haile Selassie in 1965.

6 Again, see Chapter I above.

7 Le R. P. Dimotheos, Deux ans de siYour en Abyssinie, op. cit., p. 41.

8 Ibid.,p. 141.

9 Sergew Hable-Selassie, Ancient and Medkval Ethiopian History to 1270, Haile-Selassie I University, Addis Ababa, 1972.

10 See Chapter 3 above.

11 Exodus 37:1-2.

12 B. T. Evens (trans. and ed.), Abu Salih, Churches andMonasteries of Egypt and some Neighbouring Countries, Oxford, 1895.

13 Ibid., p. 287.

14 Ibid., p. 288.

15 Numbers 4:5-6.

16 For a short summary of the place of Amharic and other northern Ethiopic languages within the Semitic language group as a whole see Edward Ullendorff, The Ethiopians: an Introduction to Country and People, Oxford University Press, London, 1973, Chapter 6, 'Languages', pp. 111 ff. Arabic is also a Semitic language, and Amharic has the second largest number of speakers of any Semitic language after Arabic.

17 See, for example, Julian Morgenstern, 'The Ark, the Ephod and the Tent of Meeting' in Hebrew Union CollegeAnnual, vol. XVII, 1942 3, KTAV Publishing House, New York, 1968, P. 249.

18 See for example Edward Ullendorff, 'Hebraic-Jewish Elements in Abyssinian (Monophysite) Christianity', Journal of Semitic Studies, vol. I, no. 3, 1956, p. 233, footnote 6. He says that tabot is 'derived from the Jewish Pal. Aramaic tebuta (tebota) which in turn is a derivation from Hebrew tebah.'

19 See Genesis 6:7 ff. The first reference to Noah's Ark as tebah comes in verse 14 of this chapter.

20 See Exodus 2:3. For confirmation that tebah is used in the Bible to refer to the Ark of Noah and also to Moses's Ark of bulrushes see Bruce Metzger, David Goldstein, John Ferguson (eds), Great Events of Bible Times: New Perspectives on the People, Places and History of the Biblical World, Guild Publishing, London, 1989, p. 12.

21 E. A. Wallis Budge, The Queen of Sheba and her Only Son Menelik:being the 'Book of the Glory of Kings' (Kebra Nagast), Oxford University Press, 1932, pp. 14-15.

22 Ibid., P. 14.

23 Edward Ullendorff, 'Hebraic-Jewish Elements in Abyssinian (Monophysite) Christianity', op. cit., p. 234. Ullendorff also advances the same argument in his excellent Ethiopia and the Bible: The Schweich Lectures 1967, published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 84.

24 Edward Ullendorff, 'The Queen of Sheba in Ethiopian Tradition', in James B. Pritchard (ed.), Solomon and Sheba, Phaidon Press, London, 1974, p. 108.

25 Kebra Nagast, op. cit., Introduction, p. xlii.

26 Jean Doresse, Ancient Cities and Temples of Ethiopia, Elek Books, London, 1959, p. 21.

27 A. H. M. Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, A History of Ethiopia, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966, p. 16.

28 Kebra Nagast, op. cit., p. 29.

29 See Chapter 2 above.

30 Edward Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible, op. cit., p. 18.

31 Ibid., pp. 117 and 17-21.

32 Ibid., pp. 16-17.

33 For an informative account of the negative impact of Christian missionary activity on Falasha culture, see David Kessler, The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, Schocken Books, New York, 1985.

34 Date from The Jerusakm Bible, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1968, Chronological Table, p. 345.

35 J. M. Flad, Falashas ofAbyssinia, London, 1869, p. 3.

36 For a good and up-to-date reference on Jewish festivals see Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, Jerusalem Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1989. For Hanukkah see p. 319.

37 Ibid., p. 576. See also J. S. Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, Frank Cass, London, 1965, pp. 20-1. This scholarly and meticulously researched book, first published in 1952, contains a recommendable general round-up on Ethiopia, The Region and its Folk', pp. 1-31.

38 Henry A. Stern, Wanderings among the Falashas in Abyssinia, London, 1862. Reprinted by Frank Cass, London, 1968, p. 188.

39 Ibid., pp. 188-9.

40 In fact a few years later Stern was punished, on the order of the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros who had him flogged within an inch of his life (though not because he had interfered with the Falashas). Stern was imprisoned, along with several other Europeans, and was eventually rescued by the Napier expedition to the citadel of Magdala which cost the British taxpayer several million pounds.

41 Date from The Jerusalem Bible, op. cit., Chronological Table, p. 343.

42 Leviticus 17:8-9.

43 See Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, op. cit., p. 615.

44 F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 1221.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid. See also Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, op. cit., pp. 618 and 693.

47 Ibid., pp. 481-3 and 695-6.

48 '[The Falashasj are ... the only Jews in the world whose worship is focussed upon sacrifice on the altar', J. S. Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, op. cit., p. 21.

49 See, for example, David Kessler, The Falashas, op. cit., p. 69 and Wolf Leslau, Falasha Anthology, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1979, pp. Kiwi ff.

50 James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the years 1768, 1769,1770, r771, 1772 and 1773, Edinburgh, 1790, vol. p. 500.

51 For Bruce's views on this subject, see for example Travels, vol. II, p. 293 in which he describes Judaism as being the religion of Ethiopia 'long before Christianity'.

52 Before the sack of Magdala the manuscript was seen by Flad and translated for him by the Emperor's librarian. See J. M. Flad, Falashas of Abyssinia, op. cit., p. 4.

53 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. I, p. 485.

54 Ibid.

55 See, for example, A. H. M. Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, A History of Ethiopia, op. cit., p. 30. See also Jean Doresse, Ancient Cities and Temples of Ethiopia, op. cit., pp. 85-6.

56 Kebra Nagast, op. cit., pp. 225 ff.

57 For confirmation of the Falashas' own use of the term Beta Israel, see for example Wolf Leslau, Falasha Anthology, op. cit., Introduction, p. ix, The word `Falasha' itself is derived from an ancient Ethiopic term meaning 'Immigrant' or 'Stranger'.

58 See note 94 to Chapter 3 above. For the use of 'Zion' as an epithet or synonym for the Ark of the Covenant in the Kebra Nagast see Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Kebra Nagast, op. cit., for example, pp. 14-15 and 178-79. See also p. 223.

59 Kebra Nagast, op. cit., p. 227.

60 Ibid., pp. 226 and 227.

61 A full translation of Eldad's treatise is given in Elkan Adler, Jewsh Travellers, London, 1930. See p. 11.

62 Fora discussion, see The Jewish Encyclopaedia, Funk and Wagnalls Co., New York, 1925, vol. V, pp. 90-1. See also The Universal Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. IV. p. 46.

63 Date from The Jerusalem Bible, op. cit., Chronological Table, p. 344.

64 Quoted in Elkan Adler, Jewish Travellers, op. cit., p.13.

65 See for example David Kessler, The Falashas, op. cit., p. 68 ff. See also Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. VI, which Kessler cites extensively. See also Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, op. cit., pp. 568-70, and Wolf Leslau, Falasha Anthology, op. cit., Introduction, p. xxiii.

66 Quoted in Elkan Adler, Jewish Travellers, op. cit., p.12.

67 Ibid., p.11.

68 Benjamin of Tudela's book of travels is translated in Elkan Adler, Jewish Travellers, op. cit., seep. 60.

69 R. L. Hess, 'An Outline of Falasha History', Journal of Ethiopian Studies, no. 6, Addis Ababa, 1967. See also Elkan Adler, Jewish Travellers, op. cit., p. 153.

70 S. Mendelssohn, The Jews of Africa, London, 1920.

71 Joseph Hal , La Guerre de Sarsa-Dengel centre les Falachas, Paris, 1907.

72 Ibid.Adonai is, of course, one of the Hebrew names ofGod.

73 Ibid.

74 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. II, p. 293.

75 Ibid., vol. I, p. 486.

76 Joseph Hal , Travels in Abyssinia, London, 1877.

77 Reported in David Kessler, The Falashas, op. cit. to whose account I am greatly indebted.

78 The Falashas: Thejews ofEthiopia, Minority Rights Group Report no. 67, London, July 1985.

79 See Chapter 2 above.

80 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, Penguin Classics, London, 1980,p. 125.

Chapter 7 A Secret and Never-Ending Quest

1 For the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire under Constantine see, for example, J. M. Roberts, The Pelican History ofthe World, Penguin, London, 1981, pp. 281-4. For details on the civilization, power and prosperity of the Axumite Empire see Chapter 1 above.

2 Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London, 1788.

3 See Chapter 4 above for a discussion.

4 See, for example, Edward Burman, The Templars: Knights of God, Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1986. See also Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars, Cambridge University Press, 1989.

5 Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars, op. cit., page 45.

6 See F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 117 and 119.

7 Ibid., p. 300.

8 Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars, op. cit., p. 2.

9 Ibid., p. 3.

10 James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773, Edinburgh, 1790, vol. I, p. 528.

11 Ibid., p. 530.

12 Ibid., p. 530. Interestingly, the notion that Ethiopia might take steps to interrupt the flow of the Nile to the disadvantage of Egypt is still in circulation. In January 1990, for instance, aware of the close military and economic co-operation that was then being developed between Ethiopia and Israel, the Egyptian government officially warned Ethiopia and Israel not to 'tamper' with the Blue Nile. See The Independent, London, 6 January 1990, p. 16.

13 See Edward Burman, The Templars, op. cit., p. 123.

14 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. I, p. 530.

15 Ibid., p. 532.

16 For a discussion, see Chapter 5 above.

17 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. I, p. 528.

18 B. T. Evetts (trans. and ed.), Abu Salih, Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and some Neighbouring Countries, Oxford, 1895.

19 Ibid., p. 288. Emphasis added.

20 This rendering of 'blond hair' instead of 'red hair' is given in a direct translation from the original made by that great linguist Professor Edward Ullendorff in his Ethiopia and the Bible: The Schweich Lectures 1967, published for the British Academy by the Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 26.

21 Secrecy was enshrined within the rule that governed the Templar order, and betrayal of secrets was punishable by expulsion or worse. See for example Edward Burman, The Templars, op. cit., p. 46. See also John J. Robinson, Born in Blood, Century, London,

1990, p. 77.

22 O. G. S. Crawford (ed.), Ethiopian Itineraries circa 1400-1524, Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1958, p.

212.

23 Ibid., pp. 213 and 214.

24 Extract from Foresti's chronicle translated in Ibid., p. 215.

25 Ibid., p. 212.

26 Ibid., pp. 214-15.

27 The significance of the data is indeed that it confirms a meeting with Pope Clement V somewhere in 1306. That meeting may not necessarily have taken place in Avignon which anyway was not part of France at that time and which did not become the official seat of the Pope until the year 1309. Between 1305 (the date of his coronation in Lyons) and March of 1309, when he officially took up residence in Avignon, Clement V had an itinerant existence, travelling around France and basing himself temporarily in various cities. It is possible that he did meet with the envoys in Avignon: even though he had not yet established his official seat there in 1306 he could well have been temporarily in residence at the time. Alternatively the envoys may have travelled to meet him elsewhere in France. Foresti's abstract from the original chronicle was made nearly two hundred years after that chronicle was written. It may be surmised that the original did not even state where in France the meeting between the envoys and the Pope took place. If so Foresti may be excused for jumping to the conclusion that the venue was Avignon since that was the Pope's official seat for most of his period in office. Foresti may simply not have known that he did not move there officially until 1309. At any rate, establishing the precise venue of the meeting is a matter of minor significance. The point is that a meeting did take place. For a discussion of these issues see E. Ullendorff and C. F. Beckingham, The Hebrew Letters of Prester John, Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 6-7.

28 This is confirmed, for example, in Richard Pankhurst, An Introduction to the Economic History of Ethiopia from Early Times to 1800, Lalibela Housel/Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1961, pp. 64-5. See also Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, The Queen of Sheba and her Only Son Menelik: being the 'Book of the Glory of Kings' (Kebra Nagast), Oxford University Press, 1932, Introduction, p. xxxvii.

29 Kebra Nagast, op. cit., Introduction, pp xvi and xxli.

30 Mordechai Abir, Ethiopia and the Red Sea, Cass, London, 1980, p. 47.

31 Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars, op. cit., pp. 47-8.

32 Ibid., p. 48.

33 Possibly as many as twenty-four knights. See Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars, op. cit., p. 46.

34 See, for example, John J. Robinson, Born in Blood, op. cit., p. 138.

35 See Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templar!, op. cit., pp. 193-

220.

36 Ibid., p. 203.

37 See John J. Robinson, Born in Blood, op. cit., pp. 150-1.

38 Ibid., pp. 150-1.

39 Ibid., p. 153. See also O. A. Haye, The Persecution of the Knights Templars, Edinburgh, 1865, p. 114.

40 The Monymusk Reliquary, which may now be seen at the National Museum of Antiquities, Queen Street, Edinburgh. It is said to have been modelled on the Temple of Solomon. For accounts of its role at Bannockburn see article by David Keys in The Independent, London, 29 July 1989, p. 38. See also Robert the Bruce, Pitkin Pictorials, London, 1978, p. 15.

41 The oldest Masonic documents, the Old Charges, date back no earlier than the mid-1300s, i.e. just after the suppression of the Templars. See, for example, Alexander Horne, King Solomon's Temple in Masonic Tradition, Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1972, p. 25.

42 Kenneth Mackenzie, The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1987 (first published 1877). See pp. 84 and 420-1.

43 Ibid. See pp. 593-4 and 719-22.

44 Ibid., p. 325.

45 It was in 1717, after four centuries of complete secrecy, that Freemasonry first officially declared its existence.

46 Kenneth Mackenzie, The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, op. cit., pp. 719-22.

47 John J. Robinson, Born in Blood, op. cit.

48 Ibid., p. 137.

49 Hyginus Eugene Cardinale (ed.), Orden of Knighthood, Awards and the Holy See, Van Duren Publishers, 1985, p 27.

50 Ibid., pp. 27 and 207-8.

51 Ibid., p. 27. Papal confirmation took the form of the granting of a constitution: Ad ea ex quibus.

52 A small and intrepid group of Dominican friars went to Ethiopia as evangelists in the fourteenth century (and it is a matter of some interest that they were sent by the same Pope, John XXII, who had granted confirmation to the Order of Christ). Somewhat later, in the fifteenth century, a Venetian painter named Nicholas Brancaleone was attached to the court of Emperor Baeda Mariam.

53 Zurara, quoted in Edgar Prestage, The Portuguese Pioneers, Adam & Charles Black, London, 1933, p. 158.

54 Ibid., p. 27.

55 Ibid., pp. 215-16.

56 Ibid., pp. 165-6.

57 Ibid., pp. 168-70.

58 Ibid., p. 170.

59 Ibid., p. 30.

60 Ibid., pp. 32 and 212-13.

61 lbid., p. 27: `Henry was a crusader by disposition.'

62 Ibid., pp. 27 and 160.

63 Ibid., p. 29.

64 Wolfram von Eschenbach,Parzival, Penguin Classics, London, 1980, p. 232.

65 Edgar Prestage, The Portuguese Pioneers, op. cit., pp. 161 and 155.

66 Ibid., p.154.

67 Ibid., p.170.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid.

71 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, 15th edn, 1991, vol. V, p. 100.

72 Edgar Prestige, The Portuguese Pioneers, op. cit., pp. 251-2.

73 Ibld., p. 257.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid., see Chapter XII.

76 A useful account of Covilhan's journey to Ethiopia is provided by James Bruce in Travels, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 103-13. See also Edgar Prestage, The Portuguese Pioneers, op. cit., pp. 214-21.

77 Edgar Prestage, ?be Portuguese Pioneers, op. cit., p. 216.

78 A. H. M. Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, A History ofEthiopia, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966, p. 62.

79 C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford (eds), The Prester John of the Indies:A True Relation ofthe Lands of Prester John, being the Narrative of the Portugese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520 written by

Father Francisco Alvarez, Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1961, vol. I, 9.227.

80 Ibid., p. 226.

81 Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, First Footsteps in East Africa, London, 1894, reprinted Darf Publishers, London, 1986, vol. II, p.5.

82 Ibid., p. 6. See also James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 162-72, and A. H. M Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, History of Ethiopia, op.

cit., pp. 82-3.

83 Jean Doresse, Anaent Cities and Temples of Ethiopia, Elek Books, London, 1959, p. Y 27.

84 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. II, p. I 64.

85 A. H. M. Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, History ofEthiopia, op.cit., p. 83.

86 James Bruce, Treads, op. cit., vol II, p.173.

87 Quoted in Philip Carman, The Lost Empire: the Story of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1985, p. 8.

88 Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, op. cit.

89 The best overall account of Don Christopher's mission is given by Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 181 ff. Sir Richard Burton, First Footsteps, op. cit., pp. 6-11, also contains useful material. In addition, the campaign is well covered in all the general histories.

90 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. II, p. 185.

91 Reported in The ltinerario of Jeronimo Lobo, The Hakluyt Society, London, 1984, pp. 206-7.

92 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 187-8.

93 Ibid., pp. 190-I.

94 Ibid., p. 418.

95 A. H. M. Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, History of Ethiopia, op. cit., p. 108. Professor Edward Ullendorf, The Ethiopians, Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 76. The tradition of the Ark's sojourn on Lake Tana during and after the Gragn campaigns is well known in Ethiopia and was repeated to me in an interview with the Head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Britain, Archpriest Solomon Gabre Selassie. The answers to the questions that I addressed to the archpriest were given to me in writing on 12 July 1989.

96 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. II, p. 409. Philip Carman, The Lost Empire, op. cit., p.

97 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 481-2.

98 Professor Edward Ullendorff, 'James Bruce of Kinnaird', Scottish Historical Review, T. Nelson, Edinburgh, 1953, p. 129.

99 James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. III, p. 598.

100 See, for example, discussion in Alan Moorehead, The Blue Nile, Penguin Books, London, 1984, pp. 34-5. See also Professor Edward Ullendorff, 'James Bruce of Kinnaird', op. cit., pp. 1336.

101 For Bruce's comments on Paez see, for example, Travels, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 244,245,266,344, and vol. III, p. 617. Likewise an extensive treatise on Lobo's book (which had been translated into English by Dr Samuel Johnson in 1735 as A Voyage to Abyssinia) appears in vol. III of Travels, pp. 133-41. See also vol. III, p. 426 for a further comment on Lobo.

102 Indeed he not only failed to give them credit for their achievements but also blatantly plagiarized their accounts. Here, for example, is Paez on his own visit to the twin springs which lie to the south of Lake Tana and which are regarded as the source of the Blue Nile: 'On April 21 in the year 1618, being here together with the king and his army, I ascended the place and observed everything with great attention; I discovered first two round fountains, each about four palms in diameter, and saw, with the greatest delight, what neither Cyrus, the king of the Persians, nor Cambyses, nor Alexander the Great, nor the famous Julius Caesar, could ever discover. The two openings of these fountains have no issue in the plain at the top of the mountain, but flow from the foot of it. The second fountain lies abut a stone cast west from the first' (quoted in Alan Moorehead, The Blue Nile, op. cit., p. 34). Jeronimo Lobo reached the source some twelve years after Paez, around the year 1630. Here is his description: 'The source of this famous river, the object of so much searching but hidden for so long, is discovered ... on a very gradual slope made by a certain mountain, seeming rather more like a rather irregular field than a mountain slope with quite an expanse of open, flat ground, where one can see for a fair distance. In this gradually rising plain, one discovers, in the driest part of summer, two circular pools or wells of water, which we can more appropriately call pits four spans in width and separated from each other by a distance of a stone's throw ... The whole plain, especially the part near the said wells ... is swollen and undermined with water ... and the reason it does not swallow up anyone who walks on it is that, since all the land is green and this part has many various grasses and herbs, the roots are so intertwined that ... they can support anyone who walks on the field' (The Itinerario of Jeronimo Lobo, op. cit., p. 228). Bruce's own 'discovery' was made on 4 November 1770 (a century and a half after Paez and Lobo) and was preceded by his guide pointing out to him a 'hillock of green sod ... in [which] the two fountains of the Nile are to be found ... Throwing off my shoes, I ran down the hill towards the little island of green sods, which was about two hundred yards distant; the whole side of the hill was thick grown over with flowers, the large bulbous roots of which appearing above the surface of the ground ... occasioned two very severe falls before I reached the brink of the marsh; I after this came to the island of green turf ... and I stood in rapture over the principal fountain which rises in the middle of it. 'It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns for the course of near three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies, and each expedition was distinguished from the last only by the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly, and without exception, followed them all ... Though a mere

private Briton I triumphed here, in my own mind, over kings and their armies' (James Bruce, Travels, op. cit., vol. III, pp. 596-7). As I read and re-read Bruce's description I could not help but feel that it was a kind of bastardized pastiche of the earlier experiences of Paez and Lobo (mixing the intertwined roots and swollen green marshes of the latter with the former's allusions to kings and conquerors). Moreover, as I have already stated, it cannot be denied that the Scottish traveller was thoroughly familiar with the writings of both his predecessors.