14 Travels through Turlry^ 



had wc received our boxes from Sclo, and thofc we left at 

 Cyprus. The ambaffador was employed in procuring us a 

 paflage in the Brune to Athens and Corfu, juft at the time 

 of his death. After that event, all our efforts to procure a 

 fafe and direct paOagc to France being ufelefs, \\ti thongiit 

 we fliould be flieltcred from all danger, and free from 

 all reproach, if we proceeded to our illes in the levant, 

 by croffing the ifthmus of Corinth. It was certainly of 

 much importance for us not to fall into the hands of 

 the Englifli, whofe fliips covered the Mediterranean. It 

 would have given us great pain to fee our enemies profit 

 by our labours, and reap the fruit of all our dangers and 

 fatigues. 



We wrote to C. Carra Saint Cyr, charge d'nffairrs of the 

 republic at the Ottoman Porte, to inform him of our plan, 

 and obtain his approbation ; and at the fame time to afk 

 fome pecuniary affiftance, and make him adjuft the Abate- 

 ment of the funis advanced to us fince our arri\al in the 

 Levant. We received a favourable anfwer, and fuch as wa3 

 fuited to our circumftances. 



It may not be fuperfluous here to obfcrve, that we had for 

 a long time reminded the Porte of the fervices we had ren- 

 dered to it in regard to the pozzolana ] a fervice it perhaps 

 thought it had fufficiently rewarded by the flattering letter 

 which the Reis Effendi charged us to deliver to the minifter 

 of foreign affairs, accompanied with a prcfent of 2000 

 piadres. We fliould certainly have rcfufed, from any other 

 government, a fum fo fmall and fo ill proportioned to our 

 labour, expcnces, and the importance of the difcovery, and, 

 in particular, fo far below the promifes made to us; but a 

 government fo little fufceptible of honcft and generous con- 

 du£l, would not have been fenfible of the motive of our 

 refufal. 



We left Confiantlnoplc witli a favourable wind on the 

 30th of April, in a Turkifh boat we had hired ; touched at 

 one ot the caiUes of the Dardanelles, and different points of 



3 tl'^ 



