_ 19 _ What happened subsequently we learned through the ships that came from Mecca, namely that the King who was a Catholic had died and Bishop Andre and his companions(A) were suffering there. A heretical King, much opposed to the ideals of the Catholic faith,(B) succeeded to the kingdom. He arrested the Bishop and his companions and holds them captive with many other Portuguese at the far end of Ethiopia, beyond a lake which is the source of the River Nile in the land of Egypt.(C) Only Father Manoel Fernandes escaped from captivity by taking refuge in the lands of the Barnagais, the Commander-in-Chief of the coastal strip,(D) who did not wish obey the heretical King. However, in the six years that they have been in the land of Prester John up to the present, we have had no news of any of them by which we can be guided. Last August, 1562, the Viceroy(E) received letters from a captive in Masawa saying that the Barnagais had (A) Andres de Oviedo, a bishop and his companions (cf catal., doc 89, 14). (B) Minas (Adamas Sagad). (C) Lake Tana. (D) Cf the report of the Ethiopian Fathers of 29th July 1562 to the Father General, in BECCARI X 152 ff. (E) D. Francisco Coutinho.
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