THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 501 



m languages, negociations, and treaties, accompanied with 

 proper drugomans and officers, was to be fent to Abyffinia 

 to cement a perpetual friendfliip and commerce between 

 two nations that had not a national article to exchange with 

 each other, nor way to communicate by fea or land. The 

 minifter, who mull have known this, very wifely, at giving 

 his fiat, pitched upon the conful M. de Maiilct to be the 

 amabaffador, as a man who was acquainted with the caufes 

 of Poncet's failure, and, by following an oppofite couric, 

 Gould bring this embalTy to a happy conclufion for both 

 nations. 



Maillet confidercd himfelf as a general whofe bufinefs 

 was to dire6l and not to execute. A tedious and trouble- 

 fome journey through dangerous dcferts was out of the 

 •Sphere of his clofet, beyond the limits of which he did not 

 choofe to go. Beyond the limits of this, all was defert ta^ 

 him. He excufed himfelf from the embally, but gave in a: 

 memorial to ferve as a rule for the condu(51: of his fuccellbr 

 in the nomination in a country he had never feen ; but this, 

 being afterwards adopted as a well-confidcred regulation,, 

 proved one of the principal caufes of the niifcarriagc and 

 tragedy that followed.. 



M. NoiR Du RouLE, vice- conful at Damiata, was pitched 

 Upon as the ambaiTador to go to Abyffinia. He was a young 

 man of fome merit, had a confiderable degree of ambition, 

 and a moderate fl^ili in the common languages fpoken ii> 

 tlie caft, but was abfolutely ignorant of that of the country 

 to which he was going, and, what was worfe, of the cuftoms 

 and prejudices of the nations through which he was topafs.. 

 Like moft of his countrymen, he had a violent predilection 

 ^^. fojg- 



