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of high-minded, proud, hereditary, punctilious nobility. It was impoiible, therefore, too much lowliness and humility could please there.

"Mr Murray, the ambaffador at Constantinople, in the firman obtained from the grand signior, had qualified me with the distinction of BeyAdze, which means, not an English nobleman (a peer) but a noble Englishman, and he bad added likewise, that I was a servant of the king of Great Britain. All the letters of recommendation, very many and powerful, from Cairo and Jidda, had constantly echoed this to every part to which they were addressed. They announced that I was not a man, such as ordinarily came to them, to live upon their charity, but had ample means of my own, and each professed himself guarantee of that fact, and that they themselves on all occafions were ready to provide for me, by answering my demands.

"The only request of these letters was fafety and protection to my perfon. It was mentioned that I was a phyfician, to introduce a conciliatory circumstance, that I was above practising for gain. That all I did was from the fear of God, from charity, and the love of mankind. I was a physician in the city, a soldier in the field, a courtier every where, demeaning myself, as confcious that I was not unworthy of being a companion to the first of their nobility, and the king's stranger and guest, which is there a character, as it was with eaft. ern nations of old, to which a certain fort of confideration is due. It was in vain to compare myfelf with them in any kind of learning, as they have none; music they have as little; in eating and drinking they were indeed infinitely my superiors; but in one, accomplishment that came naturally into comparifon, which was housemanship, I studicusly established my fuperiority.

66

My long refidence among the

Arabs had given me more than ordinary facility in managing the horse; I had brought my own saddle and bridle with me, and, as the reader will find, bought my horse of the Baharnagash in the first days of my journey, such a one as was necessary to carry me, and him I trained carefully, and studied from the beginning. The Abyssinians, as the reader will hereafter see, are the worst horfemen in the world. Their horfes are bad, not equal to our Welsh or our Scotch galloways. Their furniture is worse. They know not the use of fire-arnts on horfeback; they had never feen a double-barrelled gun, nor did they know that its effect was limited to two discharges, but that it might have been fired on to infinity. All this gave me an evident superiority.

"To this I may add, that, being in the prime of life, of no ungracious figure, having an accidental knack, which is not a trifle, of putting on the dress, and speaking the language easily and gracefully, I cultivated with the utmost affiduity the friendship of the fair sex, by the most modeft, respectful distant attendance, and obfequiousness in public, abating just as much of that in private as fuited their humour and inclinations. I soon acquired a great fupport from these at court; jealousy is not a passion of the Abyssinians, who are in the contrary extreme, even to indifference.

"Befides the money I had with me, I had a credit of L. 400 upon Yousef Cabil, governor of Jidda. I had another upon a Turkish merchant there. I had strong and general recommendations, if I should want supplies, upon Metical Aga, first minifter to the sherriffe of Mecca. This, well managed, was enough, but when I met my countrymen, the captains of the English ships from India, they added additional strength to my finances; they would have poured gold upon me to facilitate a journey they fo much defired upon feveral accounts. Captain

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Captain Thornhill of the Bengal Merchant, and Captain Thomas Price of the Lion, took the conduct of my money-affairs under their direction. Their Saraf, or broker, had in his hands all the commerce that produced the revenues of Abyffinia, toge gether with great part of the correfpondence of the east; and, by a lucky accident for me, Captain Price staid all winter with the Lion at Jidda; nay, so kind and anxious was he as to send over a fervant from Jidda on purpose, upon a report having been raised that I was flain by the ufurper Socinios, though it was only one of my fervants, and the fervant of Metical Aga, who were murdered by that monster, as is faid, with his own hand. Twice he sent over filver to me whan I had plenty of gold, and wanted that metal only to apply it in furniture and workmanship. I do not pretend to say but sometimes these supplies failed me, often by my neg. ligence in not applying in proper time, sometimes by the absence of merchants, who were all Mahometans, constantly engaged in business and in journies, and more especially on the king's retiring to Tigre, after the battle of Limjour, when I was abandoned during the ufurpation of the unworthy Socinios. It was then I had recourse to Petros and the Greeks, but more for their convenience than my own, and very feldom from necessity. This opulence enabled me to treat upon equal footing, to do favours as well as to receive them. "Every mountebank-trick was a great accomplishment there, fuch as making squibs, crackers, and rockets. There was no station in the country to which by these accomplishments I might not have pretended, had I been mad enough to have ever directed my thoughts that way; and I am certain, that in vain I might have folicited leave to return, had not a melancholy,

me, and my health so far declined as apparently to threaten death; but I was not even then permitted to leave Abyffinia till under a very folemn oath I promised to return.

"This manner of conducting myself had likewife its difadvantages. The reader will fee the times, without their being pointed out tơ him, in the course of the narrative. It had very near occafioned me to be murdered at Mafuah, but it was the means 'of preferving me at Gondar, by putting me above being insulted or questioned by priests, the fatal rock upon which all other European travellers had split: It would have occafioned my death at Sennaar, had I not been so prudent as to disguise and lay afide the independent carriage in time. Why should I not now speak as I really think, or why be guilty of ingratitude which my heart disclaims. I escaped by the providence and protection of heaven; and fo little store do I set upon the advantage of my own experience, that I am satisfied, were I to attempt the fame journey again, it would not avail me a straw, or hinder me from perishing miferably, as others have done, though perhaps a different way.

" I have only to add, that, were it probable, as in my decayed state of health it is not, that I should live to fee a fecond edition of this work, all well-founded, judicious remarks suggested should be gratefully and carefully attended to; but I do folemnly declare to the public in general, that I never will refute or answer any cavils, captious, or idle objections, fuch as every new publication feems unavoidably to give birth to, nor ever reply to those witticisms and criticisms that appear in news-papers and periodical writings. What I have written I have written. My readero have before them, in the present volumes, all that I shall ever say, direct

despondency, the amor patria, seized ly or indirectly, upon the fubject; and

and I do, without one moment's anxiety, trust my defence to an impar

tial, well - informed, and judicious public."

IT

Account of Cairo, and the

was in the beginning of July (1768) we arrived at Cairo, recommended to the very hospitable house of Julian and Bertran, to whom I imparted my resolution of pursuing my journey into Abyssinia.

The wildness of the intention seem. ed to strike them greatly, on which account they endeavoured all they could to perfuade me against it, but, upon seeing me refolved, offered kindly their most effectual services.

As the government of Cairo hath always been jealous of this enterprise

I had undertaken, and a regular pro

hibition had been often made by the Porte, among indifferent people, I pretended, that my destination was to India, and no one conceived any thing wrong in that.

Author's reception there*.

merchants of that nation live toge. ther. It is shut at one end, by large gates, where there is a guard, and these are kept constantly close in the time of the plague.

I have always confidered the French at Cairo, as a number of honest, polished, and industrious men, by some fatality condemned to the gallies; and I must own, never did a set of people bear their continual vexations with more fortitude and manlie ness.

But a more brutal, unjust, tyrannical, oppreffive, avaricious set of infer

nal mifcreants, there is not on earth, than are the members of the government of Cairo.

The government of Cairo is much

This intention was not long kept praised by some. It may perhaps have

Secret, (nothing can be concealed at Cairo): All nations, Jews, Turks, Moors, Cophts, and Franks, are constantly upon the inquiry, as much after things that concern other peoples

business as their own.

The plan I adopted was to appear in public as seldom as possible, unless difguifed; and I foon was confidered as a Fakir, or Dervich, moderately skilled in magic, and who cared for nothing but study and books.

This reputation opened me, priwately, a channel for purchasing many Arabic manuscripts, which the knowledge of the language enabled me to chuse, free from the load of trash that is generally imposed upon Christian purchafers.

The part of Cairo where the French are fettled is exceedingly commodious, and fit for retirement. It confits of one long street, where all the

merit when explained, but I never could understand it, and therefore cannot explain it,

The Beys are understood to be vested with the sovereign power of the country; yet sometimes a Kaya commands abfolutely, and, though of an inferior rank, he makes his fere vants, Beys or Sovereigns.

There are perhaps four hundred ine habitants in Cairo, who have absolute power, and administer what they call justice, in their own way, and according to their own views.

Fortunately in my time this many. headed monster was no more, there was but one Ali Bey, and there was neither inferior nor superior jurifdiction exercised, but by his officers only.

The instant that I arrived at Cairo was perhaps the only one in which I ever could have been allowed, single and

*From the fame.

and unprotected as I was, to have made my intended journey.

Ali Bey, lately known in Europe by various narratives of the last tranfactions of his life, after having undergone many changes of fortune, and been banished by his rivals from his capital, at last had enjoyed the fatisfaction of a return, and of making himself absolute in Cairo.

The Porte had constantly been adverse to him, and he cherished the strongest resentment in his heart. He wished nothing so much as to contribate his part to rend the Ottoman emp're to pieces.

A favourable opportunity presented itself in the Ruffian war, and Ali Bey was prepared to go all lengths in fupport of that power. But never was there an expedition so successful and so diftant, where the officers were less instructed from the cabinet, more ignorant of the countries, more given to useless parade, or more intoxicated with pleasure, than the Ruffians on the Mediterranean then were.

After the defeat, and burning of the Turkish squadron, upon the coast of Afia Minor, there was not a fail appeared that did not do them hom age. They were properly and advantageoufly situated at Paros, or rather, I mean, a squadron of thips of one half their number, would have been properly placed there.

The number of Bashas and Governors in Caramania, very feldom in their allegiance to the Porte, were then 'in actual rebellion; great part of Syria was in the same situation, down to Tripoli and Sidon; and thence Shekh Daher, from Acre to the plains of Efdraclon, and to the very frontiers of Egypt.

With circumstances so favourable, and a force fo triumphant, Egypt and Syria would probably have fallen difmembered from the Ottoman empire. But it was very plain, that the Ruffian commanders were not provided with instructions, and had no idea VOL. XI. No. 65.

Tt

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how far their victory might have carried them, or how to manage those they had conquered.

They had no confidential correspondence with Ali Bey, though they might have fafely trufted him as he would have trusted them; but neither of them were provided with proper negotiators, nor did they ever understand one another till it was too late, and till their enemies, taking advan-. tage of their tardiness, had rendered the first and great scheme impoffible.

Carlo Rozetti, a Venetian merch ant, a young man of capacity and intrigue, had for fome years governed the Bey abfolutely. Had such a man been on board the fleet with a commiffion, after receiving instructions from Petersburgh, the Ottoman eme pire in Egypt was at an end..

The Bey, with all his good sense and underslanding, was still a mamaluke, and had the principles of a flave. Three men of different religions pofsefied his eonfidence and governed his councils all at a time. The one was a Greek, the other a Jew, and the third an Egyptian Copht, his fecretary. It would have required a great deal of difcernment and penetration to have determined which of these was the most worthless, or most likely to betray him.

The secretary, whose name was Rifk, had the address to supplant the other two at the time they thought themselves at the pinnacle of their glory; over-awing every Turk, and robbing every Chriftian, the Greek was banished from Egypt, and the Jew bastinadoed to death. Such is the tenure of Egyptian ministers.

Rifk profeffed aftrology, and the Bey, like all other Turks, believed in it implicitely, and to this folly he facrificed his own good understanding; and Risk, probably in pay to Coustantinople, led him from one wila scheme to another, till he undid him --by the stars.

The apparatus of instruments that

were

were opened at the custom-house of Alexandria, prepossessed Risk in favour of my fuperior knowledge in astrolo

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The Jew, who was master of the custom-house, was not only ordered to refrain from touching or taking them out of their places (a great mortification to a Turkish custom-house, where every thing is handed about and shewn) but an order from the Bey alfo arrived that they should be sent to me without duty or fees, because they were not merchandise,

I was very thankful for that favour, not for the sake of saving the dues at the custom-house, but because I was excused from having them taken out of their cases by rough and violent hands, which certainly would have broken fomething.

Risk waited upon me next day, and let me know from whom the favour came; on which we all thought this was a hint for a present; and accordingly, as I had other business with the Bey, I had prepared a very handfome one.

But I was exceedingly aftonished when, defiring to know the time when it was to be offered, it not only was refused, but some few trifles were fent as a present from the secretary with this message: " That, when I had " repofed, he would visit me, defire " to fee me make use of these in"struments; and, in the mean time, " that I might rest confident, that " nobody durst any way moleft me "while in Cairo, for I was under " the immediate protection of the " Bey."

He added also, " That if I wanted " any thing I should send my Arme"nian servant, Arab Keer, to him, " without troubling myself to com"municate my necessities to the " French, or trust my concerns to their " Dragomen."

Although I had lived for many years in friendship and in constant good understanding with both Turks

and Moors, there was fomething more polite and confiderate in this than I could account for.

I had not seen the Bey, it was not therefore any particular address, or any prepossession in my favour, with which these people are very apt to be taken at first sight, that could account for this; I was an absolute stranger; I therefore opened myself entirely to my landlord, Mr Bertran.

I told him my apprehenfion of too much fair weather in the beginning, which, in these climates, generally leads to a storm in the end; on which account, I suspected some design; Mr Bertran kindly promised to found Risk for me.

At the same time, he cautioned me equally against offending him, or trufting myself in his hands, as being a man capable of the blackest designs, and merciless in the execution of them.

It was not long before Rifk's cu rioficy gave him a fair opportunity. He inquired of Bertran as to my knowledge of the flars, and my friend, who then saw perfectly the drift of all his conduct, so prepossessed him in favour of my fuperior science, that he communicated to him in the instant the great expectations he had formed, to be enabled by me to foresee the destiny of the Bey ; the success of the war; and, in particular, whether or not he should make him. felf master of Mecca; to conquer which place, he was about to dispatch his slave and fon-in-law, Mahomet Ley Abou Dahab, at the head of an army conducting the pilgrims.

Bertran communicated this to me with great tokens of joy: for my own part, I did not greatly like the pro fession of fortune-telling, where bastinado or impaling might be the reward of being mistaken.

But I was told I had most credulous people to deal with, and that there was nothing for it but escaping as long as poilible, before the iffue of apy

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