2^0 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



CHAP. L. 



Treachery of a Co phi — Character of the vien of that 

 nation — Dangerous underhand dealings which oh- 

 Jige the Author to give up the voyage of the Red 

 Sea — fVasp — Neiv war in Upper Egypt — Western 

 side of the ancient city of Thehes — Gournei — 

 Wicked men hy whom that village is inhabited — 

 Fragments of antiquity — Disagreeable night passed 

 at Gournei — A sick man — Physician of the country 

 — Route from Gournei to Neguade, 



An inconceivable fatality seemed to detain me in 

 Egypt whenever I attempted to leave it. Already 

 had my journey into Abyssinia miscarried at the 

 moment in which I was entering on it^ and similar 

 motives again obliged me to give up my voyage 

 to the Red Sea. I found myself surrounded by 

 villains who conspired to make me their dupe 

 and their victim. The Catholic Copht of Kous, 

 Mallilm Poctor, who had so often promised to see 

 me conducted to Cosseir, and who had welcomed 

 me at first vvith the appearance of cordiality, was, 

 like all his fellow-citizens, nothing else but a 

 traitor, and the more dangerous from inveterate 

 habits of perfidy and dissimulation. The Mameluc 

 who commanded at Ko2is often cautioned me to 



be 



