Dawaro, Ifat, and Fatigar; and, in one year, had driven away, and slain, above nineteen thousand Christians, subjects to the king. A terror was now spread over the whole kingdom, and great blame laid both upon the empress and the king, for sitting and looking timidly on, while the Turks and Moors, year after year, ravaged whole provinces without resistance.
These murmurs at last roused David, who, for his own part, had not suffered them willingly so long. He determined immediately to raise an army, and to command it in person: In vain the empress admonished him of his danger, and his absolute want of experience in matters of war; in vain she advised him to employ some of the old officers against the veteran Moorish troops.
The king answered, That every officer of merit had been tried already, and baffled from beginning to end, so that the army had no confidence in them; that he was resolved to take his trial as the others had done, and leave the event where it ought to be left. Though the diviners all prophesied ill from this resolution of the king, the generality of the kingdom, and young nobility, flocked to his standard, rejoicing in a leader so near their own age. The middle-aged had great hopes of the vigour of that youth; and the old were not more backward, satisfied of the weight their years and experience mull give them in the councils of a young king.
Seldom a better army took the field; and the empress, from her own treasures, furnished every thing, even to superfluity, engaging all the people of consequence by giving them
