422 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



love and charity for thofe unfortunate people who were to 

 fall into Facilidas's hands ; and we cannot reafonably fup- 

 pofe but that the conftant butcheries committed by the 

 Turks afterwards upon the Catholic priefts, wild enough 

 to enter at Mafuah and Suakem, were the fruits of the ca- 

 lumnious, intemperate. libeL of the patriarch. 



After the death of the laft miflionary, Bernard Nogeyra, 

 no intelligence arrived of what was doing in Abyffinia, ex- 

 cepting from the Dutch fettlements of Batavia, where Abyf- 

 finian factors, or merchants, had arrived; and where the in- 

 duftrious Mr Ludolf, very much engaged in the hiflory of 

 this country, and who fpared no pains, maintained a cor- 

 refpondence, and thence he was informed that Facilidas had 

 died after a long and profperous reign, and had left his 

 kingdom in peace to his fon. 



This intelligence alarmed the zeal of two great cham- 

 pions of the Jefuits ; the one M. le Grande, late fecretary 

 to the French embafTy to Portugal ; and the other M. Pi- 

 queSj a member of the Sorbonne, a very confufed, dull dif- 

 putant upon the difference of religion. 



These two worthies, without any proof or intelligence 

 but their own warm and weak imaginations, fell violently 

 upon poor Ludolf, accufing him of falfehood, partiality, and 

 prevarication ; and, right or wrong, they would have Facili- 

 plas plunged up to the neck in troubles, wading through 

 labyrinths of misfortunes, confpiracies, and defeats, certain- 

 ly dead, or about to die fome terrible death by the ven- 

 geance of heaven; and this ridiculous report isunjuflly fpread 

 abroad by all the zealots of thofe times. Fata objlant; — truth 

 4 will 



