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Many things concurred to make them of this opinion: there was no Christian kingdom or state in the Indies of which all was true which they heard of this land of Prester-John: and there was none in the other parts of the world who was a Christian separated from the Catholic Church but what was known, except this kingdom of AEthiopia.

It has therefore passed for the kingdom of Prester-John since the time that it was discovered by the Portuguese in the reign of King John the Second. The country is properly called Abyssinia, and the people term themselves Abyssins. Their histories count a hundred and sixty-two reigns, from Cham to Faciladas or Basilides; among which some women are remarkably celebrated.

But there are no real grounds for imagining that Providence has vouchsafed them so distinguishing a protection, and from the wars with which this empire hath been shaken in these latter ages we may justly believe that, like all others, it has suffered its revolutions, and that the history of the Abyssins is corrupted with fables. This empire is known by the name of the kingdom of Prester-John.

Bargu may have been on the Baikal, near which there still is a place called Barsuzin. Of Cursa no trace is to be found in our maps. Prester-John, Presbyter or Priest, or, as called by the Germans, Priester Johann, from which our English denomination, was prince of the Naymanni or Karaites, a tribe residing on tke river Kallassui or Karasibi, which, discharges itself into the Jenisei.

They had no prince of their own nation, but paid tribute to a certain great king, named, as I have been told, in their language, Umcan, and which some people believe to signify, in the languages of Europe, Prester-John ; and to whom the Tartars gave yearly a tenth part of the increase of their flocks and herds, and of their horses.