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ISBN 13: 978-1-4094-1473-5 (hbk)
WORKS ISSUED BY
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY
SOME RECORDS OF ETHIOPIA
15931646
SECOND SERIES
No. CVII
ISSUED FOR 1954
COUNCIL AND OFFICERS
OF
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY
1954
PRESIDENT
MALCOLM LETTS, Esq., F.S.A.
VICE-PRESIDENTS
Professor E. G. R. TAYLOR, D.SC.
JAMES A. WILLIAMSON, Esq., D.Lit.
TRACY PHILIPPS, Esq., M.C., Hon. D.C.L.
COUNCIL (WITH DATE OF ELECTION)
Miss E. M. J. CAMPBELL (1953)
Rear-Admiral A. DAY, C.B.E. (1951)
Professor E. W. GILBERT, M.A., B.Litt. (1952)
H. V. LIVERMORE, Esq. (1953)
C. C. LLOYD, Esq. (1951)
Sir HARRY LUKE, K.C.M.G. (1954)
F. B. MAGGS, Esq. (1951)
G. NICHOLSON, Esq., M.P. (1951)
WALTER OAKESHOTT, Esq.,
F.S.A., Hon. LL.D. (1954)
J. PACKMAN, Esq. (1951)
N. M. PENZER, Esq., Litt.D., F.S.A. (1952)
Professor D. B. QUINN (1952)
Lord RENNELL, of RODD, D.L. (1954)
Royal Geographical Society (G. R. CRONE, Esq.)
W. S. SHEARS, Esq. (1953)
Sir RICHARD WINSTEDT, K.B.E., C.M.G., F.B.A. (1953)
TRUSTEES
J. N. L. BAKER, Esq., M.A., B.Litt.
E. W. BOVILL, Esq., F.S.A.
MALCOLM LETTS, Esq., F.S.A.
TREASURER
J. N. L. BAKER, Esq., M.A., B.Litt.
HON. SECRETARY
R. A. SKELTON, Esq., B.A., F.S.A., British Museum, London, W.C. 1
HON. SECRETARIES FOR OVERSEAS
Australia; Professor R. M. CRAWFORD, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, N. 3.
British West Indies; Professor C. Y. SHEPHARD, Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad.
Canada; Professor J. B. BIRD, McGill University, Montreal.
India; Dr N. P. CHAKRAVARTI, Director-General of Archaeology, New Delhi, India.
New Zealand; C. R. H. TAYLOR, Esq., M.A., Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.
South Africa; DOUGLAS VARLEY, Esq., South African Library, Cape Town.
U.S.A.; W. M. WHITEHILL, Esq., Ph.D., F.S.A., Boston Athenaeum, 10
Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
CLERK AND ASSISTANT TREASURER
Mrs B. BAYLES, c/o British Museum, London, W.C. 1
T he texts translated in this volume consist of thirty-seven chapters from the History of High Ethiopia or Abassia (Historia de Ethiopia a alta ou Abassia), written in Portuguese by the Jesuit Father Manoel de Almeida between 1628 and 1646, and a short History of the Galla, written in Ethiopic by an ecclesiastic named Bahrey in 1593. The selections from Almeidas book describe either the country and its inhabitants or the journeys of the Jesuit missionaries attempting to enter or leave it. These chapters are printed in the order in which they occur in the original; the descriptive extracts precede the narratives of travel. As it seemed appropriate to place together two very early accounts of the Galla, one by a European and the other by an African, Bahreys work has been inserted immediately before Almeidas chapter on the same subject.
Almeidas history was not published in full until this century when it was included in Beccaris collection, Rerum aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti. In making this translation, however, we have followed a manuscript in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London (MS 11966), of which Beccari did not know; he used a slightly inferior manuscript in the British Museum (Add. MS 9861) which we have also consulted. The translation of Bahrey is based upon Guidis edition and his translation into French.
Bahrey and the first of the travel narratives from Almeida are largely concerned with what is now south-west Ethiopia. The complex ethnological and political history of this area is recorded in a number of rather inaccessible books, of which the most important are in Italian; very little information is available in English. We have therefore summarised what is known of the subject in an essay which is printed immediately after the Introduction, for the use of readers who may wish to appreciate more fully the significance of these texts. For convenience of reference our attempts at identifying place-names in north-east Africa are collected in a separate Gazetteer, instead of being given in the footnotes. The full titles of books mentioned in an abbreviated form in the Introduction and notes will be found in the Bibliography, which is no more than a list of such books. The reader requiring a more adequate bibliography is referred to Fumagallis Bibliografia etiopica and the supplements by Zanutto, and to the shorter but more recent Ethiopica & Amharica. A List of Works in the New York Public Library, by G. F. Black.
We have found it convenient to distinguish between Abyssinia and Ethiopia, using the former name to denote the historic kingdom of the plateau, and the latter, which is the official name of the empire, for the much larger area incorporated in it after the conquests of Menilek II. In the translated texts we have, of course, followed the practice of our authors.
