Several times
before Theodore had vented his rage on the unfortunate city; he had
already more than once sent his soldiers to plunder it, and the
rich Mussulman merchants had only saved their houses from destruction
by the payment of a large sum. It was no more the famous city of
Fasiladas, nor the rich commercial town that former travellers had
described; confidence could no longer dwell under the repeated
extortions of king and rebel, nor could the metropolis of Abyssinia
afford to answer the repeated calls made upon its wealth. But still
the forty-four churches stood intact, surrounded by the noble trees
that gave to the capital such a picturesque appearance; no one had
dared extend a sacrilegious hand to those sanctuaries, and until
then Theodore himself had shrunk from such a deed. But now he had
made up his mind: the gold of Kooskuam, the silver of Bata, the
treasures of Selassie should refill his empty coffers; her churches
should perish with the doomed city: nothing would he leave standing
as a record of the past, not a dwelling to shelter the people he
despised.
On the afternoon of the 1st of December, Theodore started on his
merciless errand, taking with him only the elite of his army, the
best mounted and the best walkers amongst his men. He never halted
until he came, the next morning, to the foot of the hill on which
Gondar is built--a march of more than eighty miles in less than
sixteen hours.
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