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The Palestinians From Peasants to Revolutionaries 2nd
Edition Rosemary Sayigh Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Rosemary Sayigh
ISBN(s): 9781842779637, 184277963X
Edition: 2nd
File Details: PDF, 3.08 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
 About the Author
Rosemary Sayigh is a social anthropologist, researcher and author.
She has been based in Beirut for several decades, and has spent a
lifetime researching the impact of the Israel–Palestine conflict on
Palestinian refugees. She is also the author of Too Many Enemies:
The Palestinian Experience in Lebanon (Zed Books, 1994).
The Palestinians

R o s e m a ry S ay i g h

with a new Foreword

by Noam Chomsky

zed book s
London & New York
 The Palestinians was first published in 1979 by
Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London n 1 9 jf, uk ,
and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, n y 10010, usa
www.zedbooks.co.uk

This new edition was first published in 2007

Copyright © Rosemary Sayigh, 1979, 2007

Foreword and Introduction copyright © Noam Chomsky, 1979, 2007

The right of Rosemary Sayigh to be identified as the author

of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
Designed and typeset in ITC Bodoni Twelve
by illuminati, Grosmont, www.illuminatibooks.co.uk
Cover designed by Andrew Corbett
Printed in the EU by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn
Distributed in the usa exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St
Martin’s Press, llc , 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, n y 10010
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
isbn 978 1 84277 963 7 Hb
isbn 978 1 84277 964 4 Pb
 Contents

Foreword Noam Chomsky vii

Introduction to First Edition Noam Chomsky xvii

Preface to First Edition xxiii

1 The Peasant Past 1

2 The Uprooting 62

3 The New Reality, 1948–1965 98

4 The Palestinian Revolution 148

Epilogue 198

Glossary of Arabic Words 201

Political Glossary 206

Notes 211
 Dedication and Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to the Palestinians whose experiences it

aims to record, the Palestinians of the camps; also to Palestinians
under Israeli occupation; and to the people of Tel al-Za’ter, for
whom no memorial can be adequate.
While recording interviews for this book, I met people of all
ages, both sexes, and many different occupations: building labour-
ers, laundry workers, traders and craftsmen, students, mothers of
families. I can sincerely say that they are people with whom I should
be happy to share a country. May this book convey something of
their courage and goodheartedness.
Among the many who helped me I should like to record my
particular gratitude to: Shereen Abdul-Razzak, Adnan abu-Hajer,
Samir Ayoub, Nabil Badran, Badriyeh Habet, Bayan and Shafiq al-
Hout, Hani Mundus, Rabah Mustafa, Sabah Nabulsi, Ahmad Saleh,
Hala Sayegh, Bassem Sirhan, Hisham Sharabi, Michael Simpson;
none of whom is responsible for errors or tendentious opinions. I
should also like to record special gratitude to my family for tolerat-
ing my absenteeism.
Royalties from the sale of this book will be given to the Dar
al-Sammood (for the orphans of Tel al-Za’ter), and to the Ghassan
Kanafani Cultural Foundation.
 Foreword
Noam Chomsky

As the Nakba was being consummated by violence in 1948, with the

proposed Palestinian state partitioned between Israel and Jordan,
Israeli Arabists predicted that the refugees would either assimilate
elsewhere or ‘would be crushed’ and ‘die’, while ‘most of them
would turn into human dust and the waste of society, and join
the most impoverished classes in the Arab countries.’ Subsequent
US–Israeli planning, until the present, has been predicated on
such assumptions.
In 1967, the doctrine was extended to the newly occupied ter-
ritories. The rationale was explained in 1972 by Haim Herzog, later
President of Israel (1983–93):

I do not deny the Palestinians a place or stand or opinion on every

matter.... But certainly I am not prepared to consider them as partners
in any respect in a land that has been consecrated in the hands of our
nation for thousands of years. For the Jews of this land there cannot
be any partner.

The phrase ‘this land’ of course refers at least to cis-Jordan, man-

datory Palestine from the Jordan river to the sea. Moshe Dayan,
who administered the occupied territories and was perhaps the
most sympathetic to the Palestinian plight among Israeli leaders,
viii The Palestinians
informed his Labour Party colleagues that Israeli control over the
territories is ‘permanent’ and advised that Israel tell the Palestin-
ians ‘that we have no solution, that you shall continue to live like
dogs, and whoever wants to can leave — and we will see where this
process leads’. That has effectively been the policy ever since.
Palestinian notables in the occupied territories suggested various
forms of local autonomy after the 1967 conquest. General Shlomo
Gazit, military commander of the occupied territories until 1974,
reports in his memoirs that these suggestions were transmitted
sympathetically by Israeli military intelligence, but rejected or ig-
nored by the higher political echelons. They insisted on ‘substantial
border changes’ and had no intention of reaching any agreement
with Palestinians, he writes, acting ‘with determination to thwart
any Palestinian hopes in that direction, [while] Israel forbade any
political activity’.
Similar policies had been enacted at once for the Palestinians
who remained within what became Israel in 1948–9. Reviewing a
study by historian Hillel Cohen (Aravim Tovim — Good Arabs),
based on newly released archives, Israeli journalist Amira Hass
describes the ‘official paradigm’ for Palestinian citizens of Israel:
‘continued theft of lands, continued fragmentation and weaken-
ing of Arab society, and undermining the possibility of the Arabs
developing an independent leadership’. Israel’s regional committee
for Arab affairs in the areas of Palestinian settlement, which also
coordinated the various security agencies, ‘does not approve of pro-
viding the residents of the region with higher education’, according
to the minutes of a 1954 meeting. Hass adds that ‘the committee
worked to prevent Arabs from being accepted to institutes of higher
education. Cohen allows himself to speculate that the motive was
its desire to prevent the creation of an educated class that would
succeed in organizing and making demands of the state.’
The same paradigm, Hass observes, was extended to the oc-
cupied terrorities:

maximum weakening, in every possible way, of the Palestinian national

collective, so that it will not be able to realize its goal and establish a
state worthy of the name, in accordance with international resolutions…
In the name of security — but not for its sake — Israel is exacerbating
ignorance and economic deterioration in the occupied territories.
 Foreword ix
The archival revelations will not come as a great surprise to
those who have followed developments within Israel since 1948, or
in the earlier period of state-formation. The place of Palestinians
is at best anomalous in what the High Court determined to be ‘the
sovereign State of the Jewish people’ in Israel and in the diaspora,
not the state of its citizens, just as there would be no real place for
Jews in the USA if it were to become ‘the sovereign state of the
White Christian people’. The conflict with fundamental democratic
principle would not be severe if these commitments were largely
symbolism, but that is far from true, matters that need not be
reviewed again here.
Security considerations were also secondary in Israel’s inter-
national relations. Perhaps Israel’s most fateful decision in this
regard was in February 1971, when President Sadat of Egypt offered
Israel a full peace treaty containing all the obligations of UN Secu-
rity Council Resolution 242, if Israel withdrew from the Egyptian
Sinai. In his detailed and comprehensive review of Israeli security
and foreign policy, strategic analyst Zeev Maoz writes that the
significance of the several Egyptian offers at that time ‘could not
be overstated’. It was a formula for ‘what the Israelis had been,
presumably, praying for over the past twenty-three years: a full-
fledged peace treaty’ — and, furthermore, one offering nothing
to the Palestinians. Israel rejected the offer, and soon began pro-
grammes of forceable expulsion of Bedouins from the north-eastern
Sinai — 5,000 according to the Israeli army, 20,000 according to
the sheikhs of the nine tribes expelled — and construction of the
city of Yamit and other settlements. As always, these plans were
conditional on US support, and that was forthcoming, as a result
of a ‘bureaucratic turf struggle’ between National Security Adviser
Henry Kissinger and Secretary of State William Rogers. Kissinger
advocated ‘stalemate’ (no negotiations, just force) while Rogers
held to Washington’s official commitment to UN 242, with its
rejection of acquisition of territory by force. Kissinger’s conception
prevailed.
In 1971 there was a stark choice: expansion or security. Both
the USA and Israel chose expansion. That set the course that has
been followed until the present. With rare and temporary excep-
tions, US–Israeli rejectionism has effectively barred the very broad
 The Palestinians
international consensus on a two-state settlement, explicitly since
January 1976, when Washington vetoed a Security Council resolu-
tion to this effect supported by the major Arab states and, tacitly,
the PLO.
The fundamental commitments of the USA and Israel have some-
times been articulated with stark clarity — but virtually suppressed
in media and other commentary. Perhaps the clearest illustration
was in 1989, in response to the formal acceptance by the Palestin-
ian National Council of a two-state settlement in terms of the inter-
national consensus. Israel’s coalition government (Likud–Labor,
headed by Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres) responded with a dec-
laration that there can be no ‘additional Palestinian state’ between
Jordan and Israel — Jordan already being a ‘Palestinian state’ — and
that the fate of territories will be settled ‘in accordance with the
basic guidelines of the [Israeli] government’. Washington endorsed
these conditions without qualification in the State Department’s
‘Baker Plan’ of December 1989; Secretary of State James Baker and
President Bush I are regarded as dangerously biased against Israel,
in much prevailing folklore. Baker did add that Palestinians could
take part in negotiations, but only if they kept to these conditions,
which bar any Palestinian national rights. Peres’s final words in
office in 1996 were that there could never be a Palestinian state.
The ultra-right Netanyahu government that succeeded him issued
what seems to be Israel’s first official mention of the possibility of
a Palestinian state: it agreed that Palestinians could call whatever
fragments of Palestine are left to them ‘a state’ if they like, or they
can call them ‘fried chicken’ (David Bar-Illan, Director of Com-
munications and Policy Planning in the Prime Minister’s office).
In May 1997, Peres’s Labour Party, apparently for the first time,
recognized ‘the Palestinians’ right to self-determination [and did]
not rule out in this connection the establishment of a Palestinian
state with limited sovereignty [in areas excluding] major Jewish
settlement blocs’.
There was an apparent exception to the consistent record of
US–Israeli rejectonism: in 1978–79, when President Carter bro-
kered a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt that required
Israeli withdrawal from the Egyptian Sinai. But although that has
entered history as a diplomatic triumph for US efforts to bring
 Foreword xi
peace to the region, reality is different. It was a diplomatic disaster
for the USA and Israel. The 1973 war, a very close call for Israel, was
a direct outcome of the rejection of Sadat’s 1971–2 peace initiatives
and the settlement programmes in the Sinai. The war shocked US
and Israeli leaders into the realization that Egypt could not be
dismissed, and they slowly moved towards acceptance of Sadat’s
1971 offer, though in a harsher form (from their point of view) than
the offer they had rejected in 1971. Since then Sadat had joined
the international consensus calling for recognition of Palestinian
national rights. There were inconclusive words to that effect in the
Camp David agreements. The USA and Israel, however, continued
to reject any such rights.
The one authentic departure from US–Israeli rejectionism was
in January 2001, in a week of negotiations in Taba, Egypt. These
negotiations were within the general framework of Clinton’s ‘para-
meters’, which he proposed in December 2000, after recognizing
that the US–Israeli proposals at the failed 2000 Camp David nego-
tiations could not be accepted by any legitimate Palestinian leaders.
As Clinton publicly explained, both sides accepted his parameters,
though ‘Both have expressed some reservations.’ The difference
between the two sides was substantially narrowed at Taba. In their
final press conference, the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators ex-
pressed optimism that with a little more time they could complete
an agreement on a two-state settlement, on the international border
with some adjustments, which were still under contention. Israeli
prime minister Ehud Barak broke off the negotiations, and they
have not been resumed, formally at least. Sharon and Bush then
took over, turning to even more extreme forms of rejectionism, not
only in practice but also in words: Bush was the first US president to
have recognized Israel’s right to annex West Bank territories.
Despite the occasional temporary departures, as at Taba, plans
and actions to consolidate Israeli control over the occupied ter-
ritories, while ignoring the rights of refugees, have been fairly
stable. These should properly be called ‘US–Israeli plans’: they
are articulated and implemented by Israel, but its actions cannot
proceed without decisive US military, economic, diplomatic and
doctrinal support, on a scale without parallel in contemporary
international affairs.
xii The Palestinians
Shortly after the 1967 conquest, military commander and politi-
cal leader Yigal Allon formulated the ‘Allon Plan’, calling for the
Israeli takeover of about one-third of the West Bank and control
over the whole region. As he described the evolution of the plan
in 1976, the government had never adopted a formal ‘conceptual
resolution’ on settlement, but practice expressed the planning
consensus: settlements were being established in ‘strategically
important areas’ and along likely future ‘border lines’, which he
informally outlined. By then, thirteen ‘permanent settlements’ had
been established in the Jordan Valley, a precursor to current pro-
grammes of removing Palestinians and ultimate annexation. Dayan
called for free settlement everywhere, with total Israel control over
the land while remaining Palestinians would be considered Jordani-
ans. He emphasized that ‘we are not foreigners in the West Bank …
but returners to Zion’. These programmes accelerated after Likud
came to power in 1977, particularly under the initiative of Ariel
Sharon. Right through the Oslo ‘peace process’, settlement growth
continued at a steady pace, one of many mechanisms to undermine
the two-state settlement that was vaguely envisioned. The pace
of settlement sharply increased in 2000, Clinton’s final year and
Barak’s, then expanding further under Sharon and Bush.
Sharon’s successor as prime minister, Ehud Olmert, received a
standing ovation in May 2006 at the US Congress, where he de-
clared that ‘I believed, and to this day still believe, in our people’s
eternal and historic right to this entire land’, from the Jordan to the
sea (his former party, Likud, had extended the right to both sides of
the Jordan, as did the major component of the Kibbutz movement,
Ahdut Avodah). Olmert was expressing the traditional conception:
Palestinians are a foreign implant; they are in the Land of Israel by
sufferance, not by right, and it is therefore appropriate for them to
be removed, by force or ‘voluntarily’. Olmert was willing to offer
a concession in the 22 per cent of the former Palestine claimed
by Palestinians: his ‘convergence’ programme, which called for
annexation of valuable land and resources (primarily water) within
the illegal ‘separation wall’ snaking through the West Bank; dis-
memberment of the shrinking territories left to the Palestinians,
who will ‘live like dogs’ under a rigid and unpredictable ‘matrix of
control’ (analyst Jeff Halper’s phrase), designed and implemented
 Foreword xiii
to make life impossible for Palestinians; and imprisonment of the
whole by Israeli takeover of the Jordan Valley. In the USA and much
of the West, this programme for the murder of a nation was hailed
as ‘moderate’ and ‘forthcoming’ — though it was soon found to be
‘too moderate’, after Israel’s savage assaults on Gaza and Lebanon
in the summer of 2006; the fifth Israeli invasion since 1978, once
again explicitly supported by Washington.
The summer 2006 US–Israel assaults on Gaza and Lebanon were
justified on grounds of capture of Israeli soldiers: by Hamas on June
25 and by Hezbollah on July 12. The Israeli justification, and the
Western support for it, were cynical fraud. No one has called for
invasion of Israel or terrorist attacks within it because kidnapping
of civilians — a far more serious crime than capture of soldiers
— has been a regular Israeli practice. To underscore the cynicism
even more sharply, on June 24, one day before the capture of Israeli
corporal Gilad Shalit, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians,
the Muammar brothers, transferring them to Israel (in violation
of the Geneva Conventions) to join some 800 others held without
charge, hence kidnapped. The facts were known, and even received
a few scattered words reporting them. But they were dismissed as
insignificant. In the case of Lebanon, for decades Israel had been
kidnapping (and killing) civilians, within Lebanon or on the high
seas between Cyprus and Lebanon. The crimes passed with little
notice and certainly no call for violent retribution, destroying a
large part of Israel.
The differential reaction is not at all surprising. On the con-
trary, it is quite normal. The imperial mentality is deeply rooted in
Western culture, far beyond awareness. It routinely yields a sharp
dichotomy between ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy victims’, to borrow
Edward Herman’s apt phrase. Accordingly, there is nothing new or
startling about the utter cynicism of the support for Israel’s devas-
tation of Lebanon — once again — and for its systematic reduction
of existence in Gaza to bare survival, in reaction to crimes that are
the merest fraction of those that the US–Israel carried out routinely,
with complete impunity, even one day before.
The firm grip of the imperial mentality is revealed as well by
the events preceding the sharp escalation of US-backed Israeli
violence in Gaza from June 2006. In January, Palestinians had
xiv The Palestinians
committed a grave crime: they voted ‘the wrong way’ in a free
election. Instantly, the USA and Israel, with general backing from
Europe, instituted measures to punish the population for this
democratic transgression: increase in violence and repression,
ending desperately needed aid and witholding funds that Israel
was legally obligated to transfer, even cutting off water to the
arid region, an act of wanton cruelty. All of this is accompanied,
untroubled, by reverence for George Bush’s ‘messianic mission’ to
bring democracy to the backward people of the Middle East.
Bush’s mission was announced in his ‘freedom agenda’, pre-
sented with much fanfare in November 2003 as the real reason for
the invasion of Iraq, well after the original pretexts had collapsed.
Once again, actual practice conforms to what is ruefully conceded
by the most respected scholar/advocates of ‘democracy promotion’:
with rare exceptions, the USA (along with the West generally) sup-
ports democracy if and only if the outcomes conform to strategic
and economic objectives (Thomas Carothers, head of the Law and
Democracy Project of the Carnegie Endowment). Accordingly,
Palestinians must be punished for misunderstanding the operative
Western concept of democracy.
According to prevailing US–Israel–EU doctrine, the punish-
ment of Palestinians must continue until the elected government
satisfies three conditions: Hamas must recognize Israel, renounce
violence, and accept earlier agreements, in particular the Road
Map of the Quartet. In a more absurd version commonly used, for
example in the report of the Baker–Hamilton Iraq Study Group in
December 2006, Hamas must not only recognize Israel but must
also recognize its abstract ‘right to exist’. That demand appears to
have been invented in the 1970s after the relevant Arab actors had
recognized that Israel has the right to exist in peace and security
within recognized borders, in accord with UN Resolution 242. This
new formula raises an impassable barrier to diplomatic settlement:
Palestinians must recognize not only the fact of their disposses-
sion, but also its legitimacy. It is as if Mexico were compelled to
recognize not only the United States but also the legitimacy of its
conquest of half of Mexico.
Even apart from absurdities, the cynicism is once again trans-
parent. The USA and Israel reject all three conditions. They
 Foreword xv
certainly do not recognize Palestine or renounce violence. They
also reject the Road Map. To be more precise, Israel technically
agreed to the Road Map, but added fourteen reservations that
eviscerate it (as always, with US support). There is, then, no need
to go into the severe deficiencies of the Road Map, so far as minimal
Palestinian rights are concerned.
Meanwhile, nothing has been offered to the refugees who fled
or were expelled in 1948, to the hundreds of thousands of new
refugees from the war in 1967, or to the victims of the ‘silent
expulsions’ that have followed until the present. The only step
towards a resolution of their miserable plight was at the Taba
negotiations, which partially recognized UN Resolution 194, call-
ing for return or compensation. The tentative agreement at Taba
would have allowed return of Palestinians to the new state of
Palestine, and some symbolic return to Israel that would not not
affect the ‘demographic balance’, a permanent concern in a state
based on ethnic predominance. But for now, even those avenues
are closed.
Any hope for the millions of refugees would seem to lie in moves
towards some kind of federal arrangement for the region, or even
closer integration, which would provide for universality of rights
and relaxation of constraints on free movement of people. That is
not an idle dream. Such developments are under way in parts of the
world, overcoming the rigid state system that has been imposed
through centuries of brutality. For Israel and the occupied terri­
tories, moves towards such an arrangement might well have been
feasible after the 1967 war, but they had no detectable support,
and proposals to this effect elicited extreme hostility, if they were
noticed at all. By the mid-1970s, Palestinian national rights came
to be recognized internationally, outside the USA and Israel. Hence
any prospect for democratic federalism has been conditioned on
the two-state settlement of the international consensus, as a first
stage. That remains true. I am aware of no advocacy of a federal,
binational or one-state settlement that does not assume this first
stage. I mean here advocacy, as distinct from mere proposal: we
can propose that all people should live in peace and harmony, but
it only rises to advocacy when we sketch some reasonable path
from here to there.
xvi The Palestinians
As mentioned, a broad international consensus on a two-state
settlement has prevailed since the mid-1970s, barred by US–Israeli
rejectionism. Support for the consensus was strengthened in 2002
with the Arab League Beirut declaration calling for full normali-
zation of relations with Israel in the context of the international
consensus. Iran’s ‘supreme leader’ Ayatollah Khamenei, in June
2006, stated that Iran ‘shares a common view with Arab countries
on the most important Islamic–Arabic issue, namely the issue of
Palestine’, implying that Iran accepts the Arab League position
of 2002, as the leadership had indicated before. Hezbollah leader
Sayed Nasrallah has repeatedly stated that while Hezbollah does
not accept the legitimacy of Israel, it is a Lebanese organization,
and would not disrupt a Palestinian decision in favour of mutual
recognition in a two-state settlement. Hamas has repeatedly in-
dicated a similar position. In polls in December 2006, a large
majority of Americans once again held that the USA ‘should “not
take either side” in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian
territories’ (Republicans 58 per cent, Democrats 80 per cent). A
large majority supported the 2002 Arab League plan (called the
‘Saudi Plan’) when it was released.
The governments of the USA and Israel are largely isolated in
standing in the way of the only currently feasible plan to bring
some measure of peace to the region, perhaps the first step towards
some solution to the terrible plight of the refugees with at least a
modicum of fairness. But their rejectionism is not graven in stone,
and can be overcome by an aroused and engaged public.
Noam Chomsky
Cambridge MA, 2007
 Introduction to First Edition
Noam Chomsky

History is the property of the winners. That is true, generally, of

nation, class and individual. The peasants whose voices are heard
in Rosemary Sayigh’s moving study refer to themselves as ‘the don-
keys of the earth’. Stories such as theirs rarely enter the chronicles
of history. In the industrial societies there is little concern for their
fate — with, of course, one notable exception: when some area is lib-
erated from colonial rule, the deep sympathy for the downtrodden,
so characteristic of Western sensibility, is suddenly aroused and
there are no limits to the indignation over the suffering imposed
on poor and innocent subjects of a harsh revolutionary regime. But,
at other times, they are merely the donkeys of the earth, unknown
to Western humanism.
If donkeys are compelled by the progress of civilization to graze
in remote and unaccustomed pasture, or to be confined or set to
hard labour, this cannot be considered a troubling moral issue.
So we can perhaps understand the lack of concern in the West
as the largely peasant society of Palestine, not to speak of the
surrounding areas, has been destroyed over the past thirty years.
The Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather, of colonial America, once
wrote with regard to the decimation of the Indians by disease that
‘the woods were almost cleared of these pernicious creatures, to
xviii The Palestinians
make room for a better growth.’ A related sentiment was expressed
in more sophisticated modern terms by Chaim Weizmann, the first
president of Israel, when the military operations of 1948 led to
what he called ‘a miraculous clearing of the land: the miraculous
simplification of Israel’s task’.
American and other Westerners have watched the successive
waves of expulsion in silence. The flight of refugees from postwar
Indochina, reduced to ruin, starvation and disease by the American
war, is a major atrocity; but when, in March 1978 (to take a recent
example of Israeli aggression), a quarter of a million Lebanese and
Palestinians are driven from their villages and camps by a Western
military force armed by the United States, the press and journals
of opinion find space only to comment on questions of efficacy
and tactics. Similarly, there was barely a whisper when the Jordan
Valley was cleared or when a million and a half Egyptians were
driven from the Suez region (by the estimate of the Israeli Chief
of Staff, Mordechai Gur) during the ‘war of attrition’ of 1970.
Some 400,000 Palestinians, many already refugees, fled or were
driven from their homes during the June war of 1967, and, as we
know from UN Commander General Odd Bull and other sources,
for many months afterwards. There were no protests from hu-
manitarians in the West. On the contrary. In 1967, and even more
dramatically in 1970, the US alliance with Israel was solidified and
aid rapidly increased, as Israel was perceived to be a guarantor of
American interests in the region.
Nor was Western opinion appalled at the earlier flight and expul-
sion of refugees in 1948, under circumstances described vividly in
the words of refugees in this book here, and few eyebrows have been
raised as Israel since 1948 has ignored repeated calls in UN Decla-
rations for resettlement or compensation. Only the 1947 Partition
Resolution is sacrosanct; later UN General Assembly Resolutions
are dismissed as insignificant scraps of paper.
The same is true in the case of the ‘minor’ expulsions, for ex-
ample in the region of Gaza and the north-eastern Sinai, where
thousands of bedouins, many of them farmers for generations,
have been expelled since 1950, with increasing severity in the past
decade, to prepare the area for all-Jewish settlement. This has now
gained some international attention only because the settlements
 Introduction xix
in the Sinai may stand in the way of a political agreement of the
sort favoured by the United States, which, for the present at least,
offers nothing to the Palestinians beyond rhetorical pieties.
One of the refugees quoted in this book says that ‘in twelve hours
we had been changed from dignity to humiliation’. Sayigh’s account
of peasant life reminds us that the ‘donkeys of the earth’ before 1948
lived rich and full lives despite backwardness and poverty, that a
vibrant and complex village society was destroyed as the land, care-
fully tended for countless generations, was miraculously cleared.
This perception, too, is foreign to Western sensibility. Some of the
most disgraceful rhetoric of the dismal Vietnam era was produced
by liberal doves who explained the failure of American strategy
there as a ‘reasonable strategy’ for those ‘who love life and fear
“costs”,’ but inappropriate when directed against the peasants of
Indochina who know no such feelings and who ‘stoically accept
the destruction of wealth and the loss of lives’; ‘happiness, wealth,
power — the very words in conjunction reveal a dimension of our
experience beyond that of the Asian poor’, who thus invite us, by
their apathy, to carry our ‘strategic logic to its conclusion, which is
genocide’, though we then balk, unwilling to ‘destroy ourselves …
by contradicting our own value system’ (William Pfaff). To Western
commentators, contemplating and explaining to us the mysterious
workings of the Asian mind, it seems evident that these miserable
peasants do not love life and cannot conceive of happiness. Perhaps
such attitudes help explain the disregard for their suffering when
the texture of their lives is unravelled as ‘civilization’ encroaches
upon them.
The Jews of Europe suffered a disaster on a scale and of a char-
acter unknown in human history, following upon centuries of
persecution and terror. Their growing national movement turned
back to a homeland that had not been abandoned in memory of
tradition. The author of the Balfour Declaration expressed widely
held sentiments in the industrial West when he wrote, in 1919, that
‘Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long
tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder
import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who
now inhabit that ancient land.’ Somehow the Palestinian peasants,
mired in their prejudice, were never able to appreciate their moral
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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to send to him, the Abima, with such powers, and that it would only
cost him the expenses of the journey, which would not be much, and
also the letters of his powers: and that they could go and come
through Portugal in three years: and by the road of Jerusalem, that I
did not know it. To this there came no answer except that I might go
in peace to say mass. I said it was no longer time for saying mass,
that midday was long passed. So I went to dine with our Portuguese
and the Franks.
This tank was all closed in and covered over with coloured tent
cloths, so well that more could not be said, and so well arranged,
with so many oranges and lemons, and boughs suspended and so
well disposed, that the boughs, oranges, and lemons appeared to
have grown there, and that it was a well ordered garden. The large
tent which was over the tank was long and ...,[182] and above
covered with red and blue crosses of the fashion of the crosses of
the order of Christ. This day, later in the afternoon, Prester John
sent to call the ambassador and all his company. The baptism was
already ended, and His Highness was still within his curtain where I
left him. We entered there, and he at once asked the ambassador
what he thought of it. He replied that it was very good, although we
had not got such a custom. The water was then running into the
tank, and he asked if there were here Portuguese who could swim.
At once two jumped into the tank, and swam and dived as much as
the tank allowed of. He enjoyed greatly, as he showed by his looks,
seeing them swim and dive. After this he desired us to go outside
and go to one end of the enclosure or circuit; and here he ordered a
banquet to be made for us of bread and wine (according to their
custom and the use of the country), and he desired us to raise our
church tent and the tent we were lodging in, because he wished to
return to his quarters, and that we should go in front of him because
he was ordering his horsemen to skirmish in the manner in which
they fight with the Moors in the field. So we went in front of him,
looking at the said skirmish. They began, but soon there came such
heavy rain that it did not allow them to carry out the skirmish which
they had begun well.[183]
 Cap. xcvi.—How I went with an interpreter to visit the Abima Mark,
and how I was questioned about circumcision, and how the
Abima celebrates the holy orders.
Next day after the baptism I went to visit the Abima Marcos,
whom as yet I had not spoken to, nor seen, except at the baptism,
when he was half dead with the cold, and I could not speak to him
there. He rejoiced greatly at my visit, and would not give me his
hand to kiss it, but rather wished to throw himself on the ground
with demonstrations of kissing my feet. When we were seated both
together on a bedstead, the beginning of our conversation was to
give thanks to God for bringing us together. Then he began to speak
of the great pleasure he had received from what they had related to
him of what I had said on several occasions, and from what he had
seen had passed with me at the baptism, and from the great
clearness with which I had spoken the truth in the presence of the
Prester, which he would not believe from him, the Abima, because
he was alone; and that if he had a partner or two, who would assist
him in speaking the truth, he would withdraw the Prester from many
things and errors, in which he was with his people. Upon this there
came in a priest of his, a white man, son of a Gibete, that is, a white
man born in this country. This one asked why we were not
circumcised, since Christ had been so. I answered that it was true
that Christ had been circumcised, and that he chose it in order to
fulfil the law which was in force at that time, and in order not to be
accused before the time of being a breaker of the law: and
afterwards it had been commanded to cease circumcision. This
priest next said that he was the son of a Frank, and that when he
was born his father would not have him circumcised, and when he
was already twenty years old and his father had died, he had gone
to bed entire, and in the morning found himself cut smaller: how
would that be since God no longer would have circumcision. I
answered him that it would be a great lie, because although God
had not forbidden circumcision, yet he would not be sufficiently
worthy nor so holy, that God should have wrought a miracle for him,
and from imperfect to make him perfect: and if it was so as he said,
that he went to bed entire and found himself cut, the devil must
have cut him to make a mockery of him. The Abima, with as many
as were in the house, were seized with much laughter, and the
Abima rejoiced much; and this priest, from this time forward became
much my friend, and came every day to our mass, and was very
friendly with the Portuguese. The Abima sent for wine and fruit, and
sent with me to our tents much bread and wine and a cow. On the
8th day of January the Abima Mark conferred orders, and I went to
see their manner of giving them, and it is as follows. They pitched a
white tent in a large plain without inhabitants, where there were
quite five or six thousand people to be ordained. The Abima arrived
upon a mule, and I with him, as I came in his company, and many
others who came with him. In the midst of these people he made a
speech from his mule in Arabic, which one of his priests translated
into Abyssinian. I asked the interpreter that I brought with me what
the Abima said. He told me that he said if there was anyone here
who had two wives or more, even though one was dead, that he
was not to become a priest, and that if he did become a priest, that
he excommunicated him, and held him to be accursed by the curse
of God. Having made this speech he went to sit on a chair in front of
the said tent, and before him sat three priests on the ground with
several books in their hands, and others which ruled the office; and
they made all sit down, as many as were to be ordained, squatting,
[184] that is to say, upon their heels. This in three very long rows,
and each row ended at the three priests who had the books. And
there they examined them a very short examination, for each one
did not read more than two or three words: then they go to one who
stands behind these with a vase of ink and a stamp like a seal, and
he puts this stamp on the flat of the right arm. Then they rose from
where they came, and went to sit in the middle of the plain in a
clump, in which sat all those that had been examined, and there
were very few who did not pass. When this examination was ended,
the Abima went into the tent and sat on the said chair. This tent had
two entrances, and they put all the examined persons in a line, one
before another, and they passed before the Abima, entering by one
door and going out by the other: when they passed before him, he
put his hand on their head, and said words which I did not
understand, and so there did not remain one for whom this
ceremony was not done. Here he took a book in his hands and read
a piece for himself, and held a cross in his hand, and made with it
the sign of the cross over them. This ceremony being concluded, a
priest who was with the Abima went out to the door of the tent, and
read from a book something like an epistle or gospel; then the
Abima said mass, which was not more than as much as one might
say the psalm Miserere mei Deus three times. And he gave the
communion to these priests, who were two thousand three hundred
and fifty seven, all mass priests: because the mass priests are
ordained by themselves, and the deacons by themselves on another
day: and the Abima told me that the deacons were ordained in all
the orders as far as deacon, like St. Stephen. And later I saw men
ordained zagonais and priests of the mass all in one day, and this
several times, because he conferred orders almost every day, and
always in great number, because they come to him from all the
kingdoms and lordships of the Prester, for there is no other who
ordains these priests. They are not put down in a register, nor do
they carry a letter, or other certificate of their orders; and as to the
number which I named, which was 2,357, I did not count them, but
I asked the person who had the charge, and he told me this number,
and certainly it seems to me that it would be true. As to the orders
of zagonais,[185] I will relate where I saw them and was present at
them.

Cap. xcvii.—How the Prester questioned me about the ceremony of

holy orders, and also how I went to the lesser orders which they
call zagonais, and what sort of people are ordained.
On the following day, 9th of January, Prester John sent to call
me, and as soon as I arrived, there came a message to say that they
had told him that I had been to see how they made his priests, and
what did I think of it? I answered that I had seen two things, which
if I had not seen, even though another should have told them to me
with an oath, I should not have believed, and which would not be
believed from me, although I should affirm that I had seen them, as
I did see them. One was the multitude of clergy and crosses at the
reception of His Highness, and the other was the great number of
priests that I had seen ordained together; and the office seemed to
me very good, but what did not seem to me good was the great
indecency with which those priests came who were ordained; and so
I had seen the order of the Church transgressed in the ordaining of
those priests. Then there came a message that I should not be
astonished at any of these things, for, as to his reception, there had
only come to it the priests of the churches of his ancestors which
were in those districts, and that these wore mitres, and hats, and
crosses, which his ancestors had left them; and that the clergy who
had been ordained were very few for what there usually are, as
there are always about five or six thousand ordained; and now there
were few because they did not know that the Abima was coming:
and he asked me to tell him what indecency I had seen and what
breach of the commands of the Church. I answered that it seemed
to me very indecent and a very shameful thing that priests who were
ordained for the mass, and were to receive the body of the Lord, to
come almost naked and showing their nakedness, and that Adam
and Eve as soon as they had sinned saw that they were naked and
covered themselves because they had to appear before the Lord:
and these had to receive him: and also that a friar had come entirely
blind, how was he, who never had eyes, to be made a priest for the
mass: also another entirely paralysed of the right hand, and four or
five who were paralysed in the legs: these also they made priests,
and a priest had to be sound in his limbs. The answer came, that he
rejoiced much that I looked at all things and spoke of what did not
seem to me right, so as to amend them. As to the priests that were
naked he would see to that. With respect to the cripples, that I
should speak to Ajaze Raphael, who was present on the occasion.
This Ajaze Raphael was the honourable priest and great gentleman
to whom we were entrusted when we came to the Court. Then I
went to dine with him in his tent, and before we dined he sent for a
book, which, according to what they read in it, must have been a
sacramental of their fashion, and he read in it that a priest had to be
complete, as I had said. I told him that the book spoke the truth,
and that a priest had to be complete in age, judgment, learning, and
limbs: and that those that I saw and had called cripples were
wanting in some of their limbs; firstly, the blind man who had never
seen, how could he know learning, or administer the sacrament?
The Ajaze answered, that I had good reason if our books spoke
thus. I said that they did so, and at great length. He asked me what
such as these would do if they had not alms from the church. I
answered that in this country I did not know, but that in our country
such as these, being given to the church, might serve and would
have alms in the churches and monasteries, and such as the blind
would be organ blowers and bell ringers, and do other things which
there are there, and which there are not in this country. And if they
did not serve in monasteries or churches, that the Kings of the
country had in their cities and towns large hospitals, with much
revenue, for the blind and cripples, and sick and poor. The Ajaze
answered, that this all seemed very good, and that the Prester
should know it, and would be much pleased.
On the 10th day of the said month of January the Abima made
deacons. They do not examine for this office, and they make
deacons of children in the lap who cannot yet speak, and, to the age
of fifteen years, when they are still unmarried, and if they are
married, they cannot be deacons. Those who are going to be mass
priests, as soon as they are deacons they get married, and, when
married, are ordained for the mass; because if they got ordained for
the mass before being married, they could not afterwards be
married or have a wife. The children who can neither speak nor
walk, are carried by men in their arms, because women cannot enter
into the church, and their lamentations resemble those of kids in a
yard without the mothers, when they are separated and are dying of
hunger, because they finish the office at hours of vespers; and they
are without food because they have to receive the communion. The
little children of such age we know that they cannot read, and of the
bigger ones there are but few who can read, and the ceremony with
regard to them is this. The Abima is seated on a chair in the church
tent, and these deacons pass before him in a line after he has said a
short prayer, and when they pass thus, he cuts a lock of hair from
the head of each; then he takes the book and again reads a prayer;
they come another time and he gives them keys to touch, and they
open the door of the tent or only put their hands to it.[186] Also they
put a cloth on their head, and each of these things they do in turn;
and he gives them small earthenware pots (to touch),[187] for there
are no cruets there; and they return another time and he puts his
hands upon their heads; and between each of these things he
always prays a little, and the little ones come in arms, as has been
said. Then they follow with their mass, and at the end of it they give
the communion to all of them, and it is an amazing thing the danger
of the little ones, for even by force of water they cannot make them
swallow the Sacrament, both on account of their tender age, and
their much crying. This office having been concluded, the Abima
begged me to come and dine with him at his abode, and when I was
there he asked me to give him my opinion of that office, as I had
been present, and had seen it well, and the Prester had sent to tell
him to talk to me about the said office, because he would find in me
good reason. Then I told him what I had said to Ajaze Rafael of the
enormity and indecency of the priests and cripples and blind men
who had come to be ordained. He answered, that the Prester had
already sent him word of this, and of what had passed about it, and
of what ought to be done, and also he had sent him word of what
the Ajaze had said, but he asked me about the zagonais whom he
had just made. I said to him that his services seemed to me very
good, but that to ordain children newly born, and great ignorant
boys, did not seem to me well, neither should it be done in the
house of God. He answered that God had brought us to this country
to speak the truth, and that he only did that which he was
commanded, and that the Prester ordered him to make
zagonais[188] of all the children, and that they would learn, because
he was very old, and he did not know when they would have
another Abima, and that this country had already been twenty-three
years without an Abima, and that it was not very long ago that they
had sent two thousand ounces of gold to Cairo in search for an
Abima: and on account of the wars of the Sultan[189] with the Turk,
they had not sent him, and they had taken the gold, and that now
God had brought us to this country for us to speak the truth, and
that this country might quickly be provided with an Abima, because
his life as Abima was short. After these two times of going to see
how orders were conferred, I went an infinite number of times later
to see them, for they were given nearly every day, and also on
Sundays, for they did not wait for the four seasons, nor Lent. If
some day they desisted from conferring them, then at once some
came to me and made friends with me without my knowing them
before, and they entreated me for the love of God to speak to the
Abima, and ask him to confer orders, as they had nothing to eat:
and if I went to ask it of him at vespers, at that time he ordered the
tent to be pitched in order to confer them next day; and certainly I
never asked it but what he did it, for he had a very good will
towards me; and all the things which I said to him he used to do
them as though I had been his equal in dignity.

Cap. xcviii.—How long a time the Prester’s country was without an

Abima, and for what cause and where they go to seek them, and
of the state of the Abima, and how he goes when he rides.
How this country was for twenty-three years without an Abima:
they say that after the time when the Abima died in the time of the
great grandfather of this Prester, who was named Zeriaco, the father
of Alexander, the grandfather of this king, and father of his father
Nahu, for ten years after the death of the said Abima, the Prester
would not send for another, and he said he did not choose that an
Abima should come from Alexandria, and that he should not come
from Rome, for he did not choose it, and he would rather lose his
countries than have a reverend father from the country of the
heretics: and he died also at the end of ten years that the country
had been without an Abima: and his son Alexander, grandfather of
this Prester, had remained in the same opinion for thirteen years
without choosing to send for an Abima, until the people complained,
saying that now there were neither priests nor zagonais to serve the
churches, and that the servants being lost, the churches would be
lost, and that when the churches were lost the faith would be lost.
Therefore, seeing this, Alexander sent to Cairo to seek for an Abima
from the Patriarch of Alexandria who was there, and he sent him
two, so that one should succeed the other, and both were alive in
our time. Whilst we were here the Abima Jacob died, who was to
succeed this one who is now living; and he told me that he had been
fifty years in the country, and that he had come as white as he now
was, and he was then of the age of sixty-five years, and that he was
getting to the age of one hundred and twenty and odd years. That
the Prester who sent for them was most Christian, and that soon
after they had come, the Prester John by his command had ordered
that Saturday should not be kept, and that they should not do other
erroneous ceremonies which they used to do, and that they should
eat pig’s flesh and all other meat, although it had not had its throat
cut. When this had begun to be done at the Court and its
neighbourhood, not very long ago, there came to this country two
Franks, who are still living in it, that is to say, one Marcoreo, a
Venetian, and after him Pero de Covilhan, a Portuguese; these, when
they arrived, before they were at Court, began to keep the usages of
the country which are still kept in some parts, that is, to keep
Saturdays, and to eat like the people of the country. Some priests
and friars who pretended to know something of the Bible seeing
this, came to the Prester and complained of the two Abimas,
principally of the Vicar, and saying, What thing is this? these Franks
who have now come from Frankland, each one from his own
kingdom, and they keep our ancient customs, how is it that this
Abima, who came from Alexandria, orders things to be done which
are not written in the books? and on this account the Prester had
given orders to return to the former usages. This the Abima related
to me, giving great thanks to God for our arrival, and because the
Prester had seen and heard our mass, and was much pleased with
all our offices, and Church matters, and he, the Abima, hoped in God
that by our coming, and others who should come after us, this
country would return to the truth, and he did not pray to the Lord
for anything else but to grant him life until he should see in this
country a ruler of the Church of Rome, and to hear tell that the Latin
mass was celebrated in the house of Mekkah which belongs to
Mahomed; and he trusted in God that it would soon be, because the
Abyssinians had a prophecy that there would not be more than a
hundred Popes in their country, and that then there would be a new
ruler belonging to the Church of Rome, and that the Abima would
complete the hundred; and also he held it to be a prophecy that the
Franks from the end of the earth would come by sea and would join
with the Abyssinians, and would destroy Jiddah and Tor[190] and
Mekkah; and that so many people would cross over and would pull
down Mekkah, and without moving would hand the stones from one
to another and would throw them into the Red Sea, and Mekkah
would remain a razed plain, and that also they would take the great
city of Cairo, and upon that there would be great differences as to
whose it should be, and the Franks would remain in the great city.
The manner of this Abima in his person and state is in this wise.
I will relate how he was in his tent, for I never saw him more than
once in his house. He is always seated on a bedstead, such as the
great people of this country are accustomed to use, and he has a
curtain over the bedstead: he wears a white cotton robe of fine thin
stuff, and in India from whence it comes it is called cacha: he has an
upper garment which does not seem like a good cloak for rain,[191]
nor like a church cloak, he has a hood like that of a cloak for rain, it
is of camlet of blue silk. On his head he has a large turban, also of
blue stuff, and, as I have said, he is a very old man, small and bald.
He has a beard like very white wool, thin and of middling length, for
in this country the clergy do not use to wear beards. He is pleasing
in his speech, and rarely speaks without giving thanks to God. When
he goes out to the King’s tent, or to confer orders, he goes on a
mule well caparisoned and accompanied by many both on mules and
on foot. He carries a cross in his hand, and at his side they carry
three crosses on poles raised higher than him. With respect to this I
told him that these crosses ought to go in front of him. He told me
that the cross which he carried in his hand was most excellent, and
that no others had to go before it. He carries before him through all
the country wherever he goes two tall umbrellas with long supports,
like those of the Prester, but not rich; there also go before him four
men with whips, who make the people withdraw on each side where
he goes on the roads. The country is covered with children and
youths and priests and friars who follow after him shouting, each in
his language. I asked what they shouted, they told me that they
said: My lord make us priests or zagonais, and may God grant you a
long life.

Cap. xcix.—Of the assembly of clergy, which took place in the church
of Macham Selasem when they consecrated it, and of the
translation of the King Nahum, father of this Prester, and of a
small church there is there.
Saturday, the 12th day of January, there was a great assemblage
of clergy in the said church, and all the night they were engaged in
much chaunting and sounding of instruments, and they said that
they were consecrating the church. Mass had not yet been said in
this church, for it was said in another small church which was close
to this, in which was buried the father of this Prester; and he wished
to remove him to the large church which he had ordered to be built
and had commenced in his lifetime, and which his son had finished;
and they said that it was thirteen years since he died. On the
Sunday, when it was morning, they said mass in this church. This
church already has, at its beginning, four hundred canons with large
revenues, and they have increased as the others did, and they have
not enough to eat. On the 15th of the said month we were all
summoned, and they told us to go to the said church, where there
were more than two thousand priests, and as many zagonais; these
were together before the principal entrance to the church, and inside
the circuit, which is almost part of it. The Prester was within his
curtains upon the space above the steps of the principal entrance,
before him were the before mentioned clergy, and they made a
great office, with singing, and instruments, and dancing, and
leaping. When a great part of the office had been performed, the
Prester sent to ask what we thought of it. We replied that things
done for the service of God in His name, all seemed good to us, and
certainly they did a service that was agreeable to see as a thing
done in praise of God. Soon he again sent to ask which seemed to
us the best mode, this or ours, and which pleased us most, we were
to say which, and that they would take. Here we answered that God
would be served in many ways, and that this office seemed to us
good, and that also ours seemed to us good, because all was for
God, and the one and the other were done with one object, namely,
to serve God, and obtain merit before Him. Then there came
another message, that we were not to keep anything back in our
hearts, and to send and tell him the truth. Then we sent word that
we had already said the truth, and that we kept back nothing in our
hearts; and so we remained there until the end of the office. This
being ended, they ordered all the people to go out of the church,
and all the clergy, and we also with them, and they sent to place us
on the north side, and told us to remain quiet there. The clergy and
people all went to the small church, where the father of this Prester
was buried, and there entered it, as many as it would hold. Whilst
we remained thus, not knowing why we had been sent to this place,
there passed between us and the great church all the clergy and
people in a very well ordered procession, and they brought the
remains of the father of the Prester, and carried them to the great
church; and there came in this procession the Abima Marcos, who
was very much fatigued, and two men supported him under the
arms on account of his great age. Moreover, there came in it the
Queens, that is, the Queen Helena, mother of the Prester, and the
Queen his wife; and each of them with her black parasol for
mourning, because, before, they had white parasols. All the people
also were covered with black cloths, and wept and uttered loud
cries, saying: Abeto, abeto, which means, “O Lord, O Lord”. They
said this so dolefully, that we, standing where we were, all wept.
The bier in which the remains came was under a canopy of brocade,
closed in with curtains of satin. So they placed the bier and canopy
in the church, in the cross part, where we stood with the people who
could not enter the church. We came to this office at sunrise, and
we went away by night with torches.

Cap. c.—Of the conversation which the ambassador had with the
Prester about carpets, and how the Prester ordered for us an
evening’s entertainment and banquet.
On the 17th of January, Prester John sent to call us, and we all
went with the ambassador, both Portuguese and Franks; and as
soon as we arrived near the tents, the Prester sent to ask how much
carpets of twenty palms cost in Portugal. The ambassador sent him
word that he was not a merchant, nor were those who came with
him, and that he did not know for certain what they cost. They again
came to say that a carpet of twenty ells had been brought from
Cairo for four ounces of gold. The ambassador replied that it seemed
to him that in Portugal it would cost twenty ducats. Then they came
with another question, whether there were in Portugal carpets of
twenty or thirty ells? The ambassador sent word that there were.
Then they returned to ask whether, if the Prester sent gold to the
captain-major, he would send him these carpets, and if he would
send him enough to carpet the whole of that church? The
ambassador sent word that he would send him enough for a
thousand such churches. Another time he sent to ask, if they would
send those carpets if he sent the gold? They answered him that
whatever His Highness sent to ask for from the King of Portugal, or
his great captain, all should be sent him in perfection, as his
Highness would see from the things that he might have need of. He
ceased about the carpets, and sent to ask if there was anyone in
Portugal who could read the Arabic character and the Abyssinian
character? They answered that all interpreters were to be found in
Portugal. He sent word that he well believed that there would be
such in Portugal, but at sea who would read those letters? They
replied that at sea there were a great many Arabs and Abyssinians
who continually sailed in the ships of the King of Portugal; and that
the Moors carried off Abyssinians from their country, and went to sell
them in Arabia and Persia, and in Egypt and India, and to the
Portuguese. And the Portuguese, whenever they took Moors
prisoners, happened to find among them many Abyssinians. At once
they freed them, and clothed and treated them very well, because
they knew they were Christians; and that we had brought here
George the interpreter, whom His Highness knew well, who had
been rescued from captivity from a Moor of Ormuz, and he could tell
His Highness how he got there. The Prester then ordered him to be
asked how he went from these countries to Ormuz. He replied that a
man who was a Moor and had become Christian deceitfully, had sold
him to the Moors, and they carried him to Ormuz, and he had
remained there until the father Francisco Alvarez, who came there,
took him out of captivity, and did and still does to him many favours:
and so also to the other Abyssinians that they take from the Moors
who keep them as captives. Upon this he sent to ask if we wished to
eat: we replied that we kissed the hands of His Highness, and that
we had already eaten. Then he had us conducted to a tent which
had never been pitched till then. It was pitched behind the great
church, inside the circuit; it was a large[192] tent; above it was
covered with crosses of Christ, just like that which was over the tank
the day of the baptism. The whole of this tent was carpeted, and it
was large like a reception room, and he sent to tell us that for his
sake we should enjoy ourselves there and talk of our affairs. Whilst
we were in conversation they brought to us much to eat and drink of
various viands, among which were many fowls, or their skins, and
they were stuffed with their own meat without bones, minced and
pounded with spices: these skins of fowls had nothing wanting
except the necks, and the legs below the knees, and they had
nothing broken, so that we could not determine how or whence they
had extracted the meat from inside, or the skin from the meat. This
dainty was very good. There also came large earthen pots with
boiled meats and other viands of divers kinds, done in their fashion:
what was boiled was done with much butter, and the roast well
roast. There were also many jars of wine, among which was one
very large jar of clear glass (for the others were of black
earthenware), and with this jar was a large gilt glass cup, and
another cup of silver, enamelled with four large stones which looked
like sapphires, placed in a square on this cup, which was large and
beautiful. After this repast, the Prester sent to request us to sing and
dance after our fashion, and to enjoy ourselves. Then our people
began to sing songs to a harpsichord which we had here, and
afterwards dance and country songs. There were with us certain
pages and others, and we heard others outside, as though the
Prester were there, and also those who were with us affirmed that
he was there, and that nothing indecorous ought to occur among us.
For this evening they sent us twenty-five large white candles and a
candlestick of iron, and a large tray on which to set the candlestick,
and it had as many places for holding candles as there were candles,
for they sent them according to the number. We were at this
entertainment quite till midnight. Seeing such hours we sent to ask
leave to go, and they gave it us. We went to our quarters, and the
morning did not delay long, for it was very late.

Cap. ci.—How the Prester sent to call the ambassador and those that
were with him, and of what passed in the great church.
On the following day, 18th of January, the Prester sent to call us
to go to the said church. We went, and he ordered us to be placed
before his curtains, where he was before, on the top of the steps
which make a courtyard before the principal door: and there we
stood. We mounted two rows of the steps, and there were in the
church much more clergy than the other time when the remains of
his father were removed. All these clergy did nothing but sing,
dance, and jump, that is to say, leaping upwards. When we had
been a good while at this feast, he sent to ask us if they sang like
that in our country. We answered no, because our singing was very
slow and quiet, both the voice and the movement of the body, and
that they did not dance or leap. Upon this he sent to ask whether as
that was not our custom we thought theirs bad. We sent word that
the service of God, in whatever manner it was done, seemed to us
good. When this office was ended, they began to walk round the
church with twenty-five crosses, and each priest who carried a cross
carried a thurible, because they carry the cross in the left hand
almost like a staff, and the thurible in the right hand. Others carried
thuribles without crosses, and they expended incense without stint.
On the steps where we stood there were two basins of brass, very
large, gilt, and wrought with a graving tool, and full of incense, and
at each turn they took they cast off rich vestments and cloaks made
according to their custom; and also some of those who sang and
danced had such vestments. There were in this office many mitres
made in their fashion. They told us to move from the place where
we stood to another side of the church, on the side of the epistle;
and in that part, at the transept door, were the Queens, the mother
and wife of the Prester, each with her white parasol. Whilst we were
in front of them, where they assigned to us to stand, they sent to
ask of what metal were the patens and chalices in our country. We
replied that they were of gold or of silver. They came to ask why we
did not make them of any other metal. We answered that the
regulations forbade their being of other metal, because other metals
are dirty and produce rust and verdigris and other impurity. Still they
came with another message to know whether we did this from
economy or if there was there much gold and silver. They had for
answer that it was done for cleanliness and to do what the
regulations ordered, and that if they did it out of economy they
would not make them of gold and silver, but would make them of tin
or lead or copper, which were metals of low price. Here we knew
why the Prester put these questions, because he had moved from
his curtains inside the church, and had come to the umbrella of his
wife, which was stuck in the cross entrance: and he also sent to ask
how many chalices each church had in Portugal? We answered that
there were monasteries and churches there which had two hundred,
and no church, however poor, had less than three or four chalices,
and upwards. He sent to ask what was the name of the church or
monastery which had two hundred chalices? We told him that many
possessed that number, principally a monastery named Batalha. He
sent to ask why it was called Batalha? We said because the King of
Portugal had won a battle there, and had ordered this monastery to
be built, and the patron of it is our Lady: and because he had a
monastery in the kingdom of Amara, for that reason he asked this
question, and in this kingdom there is no other called Battle,
because in former times a Negus had there conquered certain
Moorish kings, and had built this monastery in honour of our Lady.
He sent to ask how many kings lie buried in Batalha? We told him
that four lay there and one prince, and several Infantes, and that
other kings lie buried in other rich monasteries, and cathedral sees
in the kingdom of Portugal, in splendid tombs. Upon this he sent to
tell us to go and say our mass because midday was approaching,
which was the hour at which we used to say it.

Cap. cii.—How the ambassador and all the Franks went to visit the
Abima, and of what passed there.
On the 29th of January, the ambassador with all the Franks, both
the Portuguese and those that were here before, went to see the
Abima Marcos at his quarters, because as yet the ambassador had
not spoken to him. We found him, as I had gone to find him, in his
house. The ambassador attempted to kiss his hand, but he would
not give it, and gave him the cross which he always holds in his
hand to kiss, and also to all those that accompanied him. When the
ambassador was seated, he told the Abima how he came to visit him
on behalf of the great captain of the King of Portugal, and that he
should pardon him for not having visited him sooner, and that he
had not visited him, because they had not given him an opportunity
to visit anybody. The Abima answered that he should not be
surprised at that, as it was the custom of this Court that they did not
allow any foreigner to go to the house of any person, and that the
Prester did not do this but the great people of the Court who were
bad did it; and that the Prester was a good and holy man. The
ambassador said to the Abima that the great captain sent him to kiss
his hands, and that he commended himself to him in his prayers,
and he entreated him to strengthen Prester John, so that he should
have courage to join his people with those of the King of Portugal to
destroy Mekkah, and cast out from it the Moors and the bad sect of
Mahomed. The Abima answered that he would do as much as was in
his power, and that Prester John was already encouraged not only to
destroy the house of Mekkah, but to take the holy house of
Jerusalem; and so they found it in their writings that the Franks
would join with the Abyssinians, and would destroy Mekkah and
would take the holy house: and he always had prayed to God to
show him the Franks, and that God had fulfilled it for him, and for
this he gave Him great thanks; and that here was the Portuguese
Pero de Covilham, who spoke the language between us and them;
and that many times he had said to him: Cide[193] Petrus do not be
vexed, for in your days the people of your country will come to this
country and to these kingdoms: and now you have to give thanks to
the Lord. The ambassador further said to the Abima that the King of
Portugal had been informed of His Holiness by Matheus his brother,
and by other persons, and therefore he sent to entreat him to make
the Prester be strong and constant in this enterprise, as was to be
hoped from such men as they were. The Abima answered that he
was not holy, but was a poor sinner, and Matheus was not his
brother, but he had been a merchant and a friend of his, and that
going on his journey with a lie, it had been ordained by God that he
should afterwards do such great service and profitable work; and as
to encouraging the Prester, it was unnecessary, for he was so strong
and strenuous in the Christian faith, and so strenuous for the
destruction of the Moorish State, that more so he could not be; and
that he, the Abima, had told him of the greatness of the King of
Portugal, and of the great name he has in Cairo and all Alexandria,
and that he ought to give many thanks to the Lord for making him a
friend and acquaintance of so great a king as is the King of Portugal;
and that the Prester had much information about this, and was very
joyful on that account: and the Abima still trusted in God, that he
should see the great captain of the King of Portugal in the fortresses
of Zeila and Masua, which would be built for the service of God.
Many other things having passed he gave us leave, and we went
away.

Cap. ciii.—How Pero de Covilham, Portuguese, is in the country of the

Prester, and how he came there, and why he was sent.
I have sometimes spoken of Pero de Covilham, a Portuguese,
who is in this country, and have quoted him, and will not desist from
quoting him, as he is an honourable person of merit and credit, and
it is reasonable that it should be told how he came to this country,
and I will relate the cause of it, and what he told me of himself.
Firstly, I say that he is my spiritual son, and he told me in
confession, and out of it, how thirty-three years had passed that he
had not confessed, because he said in this country they do not keep
the secret of confession, and he only went to the church and there
confessed his sins to God. Besides, he related to me the beginning
of his life; first, that he was a native of the town of Covilham in the
kingdoms of Portugal, and in his youth he had gone to Castile to live
with Don Alfonso, Duke of Seville, and at the beginning of the wars
between Portugal and Castile he had come with Juan de Guzman,
brother of the said Duke of Seville, to Portugal. This Don Juan had
given him to Don Afonzo, King of Portugal, as a groom,[194] and he
soon took him as his squire, and he served in that capacity in the
said wars, and went with the king to France. When king Don Afonzo
died he remained with king Don Joan his son, whom he served as
squire of the guard until the treasons, when the king sent him to go
about Castile, because he could speak Castilian well, in order to
learn who were the gentlemen who had gone there. On his return
from Castile, the King Don Joan sent him to Barbary to buy woollen
cloths[195] and to make peace with the King of Tremezen; and
returning he was again sent to Barbary, to Muley Belagegi, he who
sent the remains of the Infante Don Fernando.[196] In this journey
he carried goods of the King Don Manuel, who was then Duke, to
buy horses for him, because the King Don Joan intended to give him
an establishment, and one Pero Afonso, a veterinary, an inhabitant
of Tomar, was going to inspect the horses. On this arrival coming
from Barbary, it was ordained that one Afonso de Payva, a native of
Castel Branco, should come to these parts, and he waited for Pero
de Covilham to come together. When he came, the King spoke to
him in great secrecy, telling him that he expected a great service of
him, because he had always found him a good and faithful servant,
and fortunate in his acts and services; and this service was that he
and another companion, who was named Afonso de Payva, should
both go to discover and learn about Prester John, and where
cinnamon is to be found, and the other spices which from those
parts went to Venice through the countries of the Moors: and that
already he had sent on this journey a man of the house of Monterio,
and a friar named frey Antonio, a native of Lisbon, and that they
both had arrived at Jerusalem, and that they had returned thence,
saying that it was not possible to go to those countries without
knowing Arabic, and therefore he requested Pero de Covilham to
accept this journey and to do this service with the said Afonso de
Payva. To which Pero de Covilham answered, that he regretted that
his capacity was not greater, so great was his desire to serve His
Highness, and that he accepted the journey with ready willingness.
They were despatched from Santarem on the 7th of May of 1487;
King Don Manuel, who was then Duke, was present, and gave them
a map for navigating, taken from the map of the world, and it had
been made by the Licentiate Calçadilha, who is Bishop of Viseu, and
the doctor mestre Rodrigo, inhabitant of Pedras negras, and the
doctor mestre Moyses, at that time a Jew, and this map was made in
the house of Pero d’Alcaçova; and the King gave four hundred
ducats[197] for the expenses of both of them, which he gave out of
the chest of the expenses of the garden of Almeirim, the King Don
Manuel, then Duke, being present at all this. The King Don Joan also
gave him a letter of credence for all the countries and provinces in
the world, so that in case he saw himself in danger or necessity, this
letter of the King’s might succour him:[198] and in the presence of
the Duke he gave them his blessing. Of the said four hundred ducats
they took a part for their expenses, and the rest they placed in the
hands of Bartolomeu, a Florentine, for it to be given to them in
Valencia. Setting out, they travelled and arrived at Barcelona on the
day of Corpus Domini: and they changed their route from Barcelona
to Naples, and they arrived at Naples on St. John’s day, and their
journey was given them by the sons of Cosmo de Medicis; and from
there they passed to Rhodes; and he says that at this time there
were not more than two Portuguese in Rhodes, one was named frey
Gonzalo, and the other frey Fernando, and they lodged with these.
From here they passed to Alexandria in a ship of Bartolomeu de
Paredes: and in order to pass as merchants, they bought much
honey, and they arrived at Alexandria. Here both the companions fell
ill of fevers; and all their honey was taken by the Naib of Alexandria,
thinking that they were dying, and God gave them health, and they
paid them at their pleasure. Here they bought other merchandise
and went to Cairo. Here they remained until they found some
Moghreby Moors of Fez and Tremecem, who were going to Aden,
and they went with them to Tor, and there they embarked and went
to Suaquem, which is on the coast of Abyssinia; and thence they
went to Aden, and because it was the time of the monsoon, the
companions separated, and Afonso de Payva went to the country of
Ethiopia, and Pero de Covilham to India, agreeing that at a certain
time they should both meet in Cairo to come and give an account of
what they had found to the King. And Pero de Covilham departed
thence and came to Cananor, and thence to Calicut, and from there
he turned back to Goa, and went to Ormuz, and returned to Tor and
Cairo in search of his companion, and he found that he was dead.
Whilst he was about to set out on the way to Portugal, he had news
that there were there two Portuguese Jews who were going about in
search of him; and by great cleverness they heard about each other,
and when they had met, they gave him letters from the King of
Portugal. These Jews were named, one, Rabbi Abraham, a native of
Beja, the other, Josef, a native of Lamego, and he was a shoemaker.
This shoemaker had been in Babilonia, and had heard news or
information of the city of Ormuz, and had related it to King Don
Joan, with which news, he said, the King had been much pleased.
And Rabbi Abraham had sworn to the King that he would not return
to Portugal without seeing Ormuz with his own eyes. When the
letters had been given and read, their contents were, that if all the
things for which they had come were seen, discovered, and learned,
that they should return and welcome, and they should receive great
favours: and if all were not found and discovered, they were to send
word of what they had found, and to labour to learn the rest; and
chiefly they were to go and see and learn about the great King
Prester John, and to show the city of Ormuz to the Rabbi Abraham.
Besides the letters, these Jews made requisitions to Pero de
Covilham that he should go and learn about Prester John, and show
the city of Ormuz to Rabbi Abraham. Here he at once wrote by the
shoemaker of Lamego, how he had discovered cinnamon and pepper
in the city of Calicut, and that cloves came from beyond, but that all
could be had there; and that he had been in the cities of Cananor,
Calicut, and Goa, all on the coast, and to this they could navigate by
their coast and the seas of Guinea, coming to make the coast of
Sofala, to which he had also gone, or a great island which the Moors
call the island of the moon; they say that it has three hundred
leagues of coast, and that from each of these lands one can fetch
the coast of Calicut. Having sent this message to the King by the
Jew of Lamego, Pero de Covilham went with the other Jew of Beja
to Aden, and thence to Ormuz, and left him there, and returned
thence and came to Jiddah and Mekkah and El Medina, where lies
buried the Zancarron,[199] and from thence to Mount Sinai. Having
seen all well he again embarked at Tor and went as far as outside
the strait to the city of Zeila, and thence travelled by land until he
reached Prester John, who is very near to Zeila; and he came to the
Court, and gave his letters to the King Alexander, who then reigned,
and he said that he received them with much pleasure and joy, and
said that he would send him to his country with much honour. About
this time he died, and his brother Nahum reigned, who also received
him with much favour, and when he asked leave to go he would not
give it. And Nahum died, and his son David reigned, who now
reigns; and he says he also asked him for leave and he would not
give it, saying that he had not come in his time, and his
predecessors had given him lands and lordships to rule and enjoy,
and that leave he could not give him, and so the matter remained.
This Pero de Covilham is a man who knows all the languages that
can be spoken, both of Christians, Moors, and Gentiles, and who
knows all the things for which he was sent; moreover he gives an
account of them as if they were present before him.

Cap. civ.—How Prester John determined to write to the King and to

the Captain-major, and how he behaved with the ambassador and
with the Franks who were in his country, and of the decision as to
departure.
I return to our journey, or history of us who were in the tent in
which they gave us a banquet. From this time forward Prester John’s
scribes did not cease from writing the letters which we were to carry
for the King of Portugal and his captain-major: and they spent a long
time over them, because their usage is not to write one to another,
and their messages, communications, and embassages, are all by
word of mouth. With us they began to acquire the manner of
writing, and when they were writing, all the books of the epistles of
St. Paul, of St. Peter, and St. James were present, and those that
they esteemed as the most lettered studied them, and then began to
write their letters in their Abyssinian language, and other letters in
Arabic, and also others in our Portuguese language, which the friar
who had guided us read in Abyssinian, and Pero de Covilham turned
them into Portuguese, and Joam Escolar, the clerk of the embassy,
wrote them, and I, who, by order of the Prester, assisted in
arranging the language, and it is very laborious to translate the
Abyssinian language into Portuguese: thus the letters were made for
the King our Sovereign in three languages, Abyssinian, Arabic, and
Portuguese; and likewise for the captain-major; and all of them in
duplicate, that is to say, two in Abyssinian, two in Arabic, and two in
Portuguese. And they go by two ways, that is to say, one in
Abyssinian, one in Arabic, and one in Portuguese, in one bag of
brocade, and three others of the same sort in another little bag: so
also those for the captain-major go in two little bags. These letters
are all written on sheets of parchment. On Monday, the 11th of
February of the year 1521, Prester John sent to call the ambassador
and all that were with him, and also the Franks who had come
before. While we were a good space in front of the doors of his tent,
the Prester sent to the first arrived Franks rich cloths of brocade and
silk, that is to say, damask, of which three pieces came, and besides
he sent thirty ounces of gold to be divided amongst all, and they
were thirteen, so that each had two ounces and four to be divided
amongst all. We, seeing how well they did for those Franks, who had
come to them as runaways, thought that they would do better for
us, and we made sure that they had prepared for us dresses of
brocade. Messages were going and coming, and during this his great
Betudete, who is the lord of the left hand wing, came and brought to
me a cross of silver, and a crozier wrought with inlaid work, saying
that the Prester sent it to me as the title and possession of the
lordship which he had given me. Having received the cross and
crozier we again sat down. As all the messages which went and
came were about friendship between the ambassador and Jorge
d’Abreu, again another time a message returned that the
ambassador should be a friend to Jorge d’Abreu, and that we should
all travel together as we had come. The ambassador replied that he
was not going to be his friend, nor to travel where he was, but
rather he begged of His Highness to keep him at his Court two
months after his departure, because he sought to kill him. Upon this
a message came that the Prester ordered thirty mules to carry our
baggage, and that eight of these should be given for the baggage of
Jorge d’Abreu, and those who were with him; and saying, besides,
that he sent thirty ounces of gold for the ambassador, and fifty for
those that accompanied him, and that Jorge d’Abreu, and those that
were with him, were to have their share of it: and that he sent a
hundred loads of flour, and as many horns of mead for the road; and
that we were to be entrusted to certain captains, who would conduct
us from one country to another as far as the sea; that is to say, each
one through his own lands: and that they were not to annoy or
injure the cultivators who were poor, for we had told him that when
we came, they destroyed the people of the country: and these
captains were to give us all that was necessary. Then we were
entrusted to the sons of the Cabeata, because we had to travel a
good deal through the lands of the Cabeata, which are of the church
of the Trinity, to which the remains of the Prester’s father were
removed. And this church had from its beginning four hundred
canons, and a son of the Cabeata is “licanete”, which means the
office which Caiaphas held when they brought Christ before him,
that is to say, high priest or judge that year. And the Cabeata is head
in this church, and in the other churches of this kingdom, which all
belong to the kings, and his title and style means head over the
heads. And this head remains over all like a bishopric.

Cap. cv.—How the Prester sent to the ambassador thirty ounces of

gold and fifty for those that came with him, and a crown and
letters for the King of Portugal, and letters for the Captain-major,
and how we left the Court and of the road we took.
This day, in the afternoon, there came to our tent thirty ounces
of gold for the ambassador and fifty for us: and with them came a
large crown of gold and silver which belonged to Prester John; and
its value is not so great as its size. It was brought in a round basket
lined inside with cloth and outside with leather. This crown was
presented by Abdenagus, page and captain of the pages, and it was
stated by him that Prester John sent that crown to the King of
Portugal, and to tell him that a crown was never removed except
from father to son, and that he was his son, and he took it off his
head and sent it to the King of Portugal, who was like his father, and
that he sent it as a present; and as a crown was a precious thing, by
it he presented and offered all favour and assistance and succour of
men, gold, and provisions which might be necessary for his
fortresses and fleets, and for the wars he might please to make
against the Moors in these parts, from the Red Sea as far as the
Holy House.[200] And because the dresses did not come which we
knew were already made, some of our people murmured, and those
who had brought these things heard it, and said that Prester John
was much vexed with the ambassador because two days before he
had ordered to strike and cudgel close to his tent a Portuguese who
was named Magalhāes, and who had betaken himself to Jorge
d’Abreu; and that he was also vexed because he would not be
friends with Jorge d’Abreu, and that he was despatching us with
much reserve, and that we were not to expect dresses, nor anything
else, and that we should lose much for what has been related.
On Tuesday, the 12th of February, which was our Shrove
Tuesday, the friar who had guided us came, and he brought the
letters for the King and for the captain-major, for as yet they had not
been delivered to the ambassador, nor did the Prester send an
ambassador. The letters came in this manner; before those which
were for the King were in two bags, and now they changed them
into three, because there were three of each language, and they had
separated one of each language, and had made three bags; and for
the captain-major there were two bags, as there were before, and
all were of brocade. All five came placed in a basket lined with cloth
inside and with leather outside. Then he took out the bags and
showed that they were closed and sealed, and having shown them,
again put them into the basket, and sealed its fastenings, and said
to the ambassador that we might go whenever we pleased as we
were entirely despatched. The ambassador replied to the friar that
he wished to speak again to the Prester John before his departure, if
His Highness should be so pleased. The friar and those that came
with him said that the Prester had gone away that morning early,
which we knew was true, and they said that he was very
discontented with the ambassador because he so ill-treated men,
and because he would not be a friend of Jorge d’Abreu, and for
other things which he kept to himself, and that we might depart in
peace, and that mestre Joam and the painter should remain in the
country; as in effect they did remain. Seeing that we were thus
despatched, we began to make ready to start as soon as we could,
and the friar came with the thirty mules they were giving us for the
journey, and with many horns in which to carry wine for the journey.
When they promised them we thought that they would give them
full of wine, and they came empty, and they said that the Prester
said that notwithstanding that they did not drink wine during Lent,
since it was our custom to drink it, that the gentlemen who
conducted us would give it to us, that so it had been ordered. With
respect to the mules, they at once set aside eight for Jorge d’Abreu
and his companions, and also his share of the horns. Upon this some
of us went to the market to buy what they wanted for the road, and
on this account we were giving up our departure till another day, as
it was already late, when so great a wind fell upon us that it broke
the tent ropes, and the whole of it came to the ground. When we
saw this and how we were left in the open, all of us that were there
began to call out: “Come, come, let us be going, since they send us,
let us go in peace.” So we set out from the Court this day, which was
our Shrove Tuesday, and went to sleep in a field a distance of a
league from the Court. There came with us and in our company Pero
de Covilham, with his wife and some of his sons, and the friar came
with Jorge d’Abreu, almost like his guard, and they took up their
quarters apart from us.
On Ash Wednesday, in the morning, we commenced our journey,
and while travelling, a son of the Cabeata passed by us, who was
going to give us what was necessary in the lands of his father or of
his church, through which we had to travel several days; and there
also passed by Abdenago, the Captain of the pages, who had
brought us the crown, because when we had done with the lands of
the other gentlemen, we were to pass through his. We went to take
up our quarters at the foot of a high hill, which had upon it a church
of St. Michael, and we remained in a cultivated field, and at the end
of it the above-named gentlemen took up their quarters, and we did
not know of their being there till after we had settled ourselves.
Jorge d’Abreu and the friar were in their company, and what was
necessary for our supper came from there. Then in this second night
of our journey, sin began to excite fresh quarrels: for Joan Gonzalvez
our factor began to quarrel with one Joan Fernandez, whom he had
brought, or whom the Captain-major had given him, to be his
assistant with the goods that were entrusted to him, in such sort
that they said that he struck him with a stick. When this quarrel
began we made peace again as well as we could, and the
ambassador favoured Joan Fernandez, and he left the factor and
went in company with the ambassador. The following day we
travelled on our road in parties, that is to say, Jorge d’Abreu and the
friar in one party, and we with the son of the Cabeata in another
party, and we were well provided with all that was necessary every
day. When we were in the kingdom of Angote, close to a monastery
of the Abima Marcos, the lands of the Cabeata having been left
behind, and we had almost entered those of Abdenago, sin got into
the head of Joan Fernandez, and he went and waited for the factor
who was going alone with the goods, and with a lance belonging to
the ambassador, and gave him two lance thrusts, one in the hand
and another in the breast. That in the hand wounded his fingers,
and that in the breast, God was pleased that it struck him on a rib,
and did not go through it. And as we were going rather divided, and
here there were two roads, some of us were on one side, and others
on the other; and when we came together they called me to confess
him, and another man to cure him; we found him half dead; God
was pleased to give him health with the care that was taken of him.
Joan Fernandez ran away and met with the ambassador, and those
who were coming after him shouted loudly to take him prisoner, that
he had killed the factor; and he was arrested; and the factor
shouted and said that the ambassador had killed him with the favour
he had shown and the lance he had given to his servant, or the man
who had been given to him for his service. Abdenago had gone on
to his lands where we expected to go and sleep, and with these
quarrels we did not go. We remained by a great river, as its
appearance showed it to be in the winter and season of
thunderstorms, for at this time it contained very little water, and
there we slept, with the said Joan Fernandez a prisoner and his
hands tied behind him. The ambassador ordered all to watch and
guard that prisoner, and he begged me to remain near the factor,
and so we lay down together with our heads on one saddle, and it
seems we slept. Meantime there was not wanting someone who let
loose the prisoner, and he ran away to Jorge d’Abreu, who was lying
down in the same river bed lower down than us. Then the
ambassador’s fear became doubled. The next day we travelled and
found Abdenago, who was coming in search of us, and we went with
him and Jorge d’Abreu and the friar in their party and by another
road, all through the lands of Abdenago: so he travelled with us
through his lands and those that were not his as far as Manadeley.

Cap. cvi.—Of what happened in the town of Manadeley with the

Moors.
When we arrived at this town of Manadeley, a town entirely of
peaceful tributary Moors, as has been before related, we passed by
this town and went to take up our quarters at some springs beneath
some large trees; and because the people of the country do not care
for water nor shade, but only for the heights where there is sun and
wind, Abdenago passed on to a hill and sat down in a tent of his
own, and we remained at the said springs. And some of our people
turned back to the town to buy what they wanted; among them was
a servant of the ambassador’s named Estevan Palharte: and, as it
appeared, he got into a quarrel with a Moor in such a manner that
the Moors broke two of his teeth, and some of our people coming up
to his assistance they took one of them and struck him on the head
with stones, so that he was brought to our tent half dead. However,
on learning this, Abdenago came up and ordered those Moors to be
made prisoners whom he found to be in fault. And because this day
it soon became night, on the following day he sent to call us, and we
went to where he was and got the Moors prisoners; that is to say,
two of them; and he bade us all sit down on the ground and on the
grass; and he also was seated on the ground with his back leaning
against his chair. Thither they brought the prisoners and he gave
them their trial, and put questions to them: and on account of what
he found against them, he ordered them at once to be stripped and
severely flogged, and to be asked from time to time: What will you
give? They began by promising one ounce of gold—two—three.
They again flogged them and asked: What will you give. At last they
arrived at giving seven ounces. This they gave soon, and this gold
was given to the two wounded men: and the two Moors were then
made prisoners and sent to Prester John. I will now at once relate
what happened to them. We travelled forward on our road as far as
the town of Barua, where we stayed on first coming from the sea,
and when we had been there already some days, there came a
message from Prester John, and with the message came one of the
Moors who had been flogged, and the head of the other Moor, and
the messenger said that he had brought this message: That the
Prester had examined into the fault of those Moors, and the injury
which they had done to the Portuguese, and he had cut off the head
of the one he had found to be in fault, and he sent it to us, in order
that we might be certain of the truth, and know that it was that
man; and that as to the other he did not find him to be guilty, but he
sent him also, and if we thought that he was guilty, we should do
what we pleased with him, either kill him, or let him go free, or
make him a captive. We all held a council over this, and the
ambassador asked what we thought we ought to do with this Moor.
This was what was said by those of us who were in this matter: I
spoke for all of them because I knew their wishes; and I said that
since the Prester sent to say that he found him to be without fault,
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