3JO TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



their feet feen by ftrangers ; and their arms and hands ara 

 concealed even to their nails. A curious circumflance there- 

 fore it would have been for the king to be fo liberal of his 

 queen's charms, while he covers his own face with blue taf- 

 feta ; but to imagine that the Abuna, a coptiih monk bred in 

 the defert of St Macarius, would expofe himfelf naked a- 

 mong naked women, contrary to the ufual cuftom of the 

 celebration he obferves in his own church, is monftrous, and 

 mufl exceed all belief whatever. As the Abuna Mark too 

 was of the reafonable age of no years, he 'might, I think,., 

 have difpenfed at that time of life with a bathing gown, 

 efpecially as it vms/raft. 



The old man in the pond repeated the formula, " I bap- 

 tife you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the 

 Holy Ghoit," in his own language; and Alvarez, it is plain,, 

 underftood not one word of Abyflinian. Yet, on the other 

 hand, he fpeaks Latin to the king, who wonderfully undei- 

 itands' him, and anfwers as decifively on the merits of 

 the difpute as if he had been educated in the Sorbonne. 

 " Confiteor unum baptizma" fays Alvarez *, was a conilitu- 

 tion of the Nicene council under Pope Leo. Right, fays the 

 king, whofe church, however, anathematized Leo and the 

 council he prefided at, which both the king and Alvarez 

 fhould have known was not the Nicene council, though 

 the words of the fymbol quoted are thought to be part of a 

 confeiiion framed by that ailembly. 



Qui 



* Vid. Alvaxez, hoc loco. 



