THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. $ 



The next day after my arrival I was furprifed by the vifit 

 of my old friend Father Chriftopher ; and, not to detain the 

 reader with ufelefs circumftances, the intelligence of many 

 vifits, which I fhall comprehend in one, was, that there were 

 many Greeks then in Abyffinia, all of them in great power, 

 andfome of them in the firft places of the empire; that they 

 correfponded with the patriarch when occafion offered, and, 

 at all times, held him in fuch refpe<5t, that his will, when 

 fignified to them, was of the greateft authority, and that 

 obedience was paid to it as to holy writ. 



Father Christopher took upon him, with the greateft 

 readinefs, to manage the letters, and we digefted the plan 

 of them ; three copies were made to fend feparate ways, 

 and an admonitory letter to the whole of the Greeks then 

 in Abyffinia, in form of a bull. 



By this the patriarch enjoined them as a penance, upon 

 which a kind of jubileewas to follow, that, laying afide their 

 pride and vanity, great fins with which he knew them much 

 infeEled, and, inftead of pretending to put themfelves on a foot- 

 ing with me when I fhould arrive at the court of Abyffinia, 

 they mould concur, heart and hand, in ferving me ; and 

 that, before it could be fuppofed they had received inftruc- 

 tions from ?ne y they fhould make a declaration before the 

 king, that they were not in condition equal to me, that I was 

 a tree citizen of a. powerful nation, and fervant of a great king; 

 that they were born flaves of the Turk, and, at befl, ranked 

 hut as would my fervants; and that, in fact, one Of their 

 countrymen was in that ftation then with me, 



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