(which Pedro Paez identifies with Sahart, although Whiteway locates it in the Wajirat Mountains). The Imam made the first contact, sending a messenger to Gama to demand that the Portuguese force either leave Ethiopia, join the Imam, or be destroyed. On the Imam's orders, the messenger produced the gift of a monk's habit, an expensive insult to Gama. Gama responded with his own messenger, who delivered "a few lines in Arabic", stating that he had come to Ethiopia "by order of the great Lion of the Sea" and on the "following day he [Ahmad] would see what the Portuguese were worth", and delivered Gama's own insulting gift: a pair of "small tweezers for the eyebrows, and a very large mirror – making him out [to be] a woman." Two battles followed these exchanges at Jarte, the first on 4 April and the next on 16 April. The first battle was a victory for the Portuguese, although Gama lost one of his captains: Ahmad Gragn was wounded, which forced his troops to retire to the far side of the plain. The Portuguese, finding their encampment on the battlefield becoming unbearable, moved across the plain next to the enemy camp, which led to the second battle. This time, the Adal-Ottoman army was even more soundly defeated, and according to Castanhoso, "The victory would have been complete this day had we only [had] a hundred horses to finish it." Ahmad was forced to retreat further south, where with fortune against him, the local population now openly defied him by refusing to provide him supplies or soldiers. Whiteway identifies the Imam's refuge as a village named Wajarat, while J. Spencer Trimingham places it in the Zobil mountains overlooking the Afar Depression. Gama marched after him as far as Lake Ashangi, where on the advice of Queen Seble Wongel, he made camp on a hill in Wofla as the rainy season started. At some point late in the rains, Gama was approached by a Jew (possibly one of the Beta Israel), who told him of a mountain stronghold that Ahmad Gragn's followers controlled weakly (identified by Whiteway as Amba Sel). It was also at this time that Gama was accurately informed about the Emperor Gelawdewos's true strength: the Ethiopian monarch was living as an outlaw in the south, with only sixty to seventy men in his army. However, the mountain was the major barrier between