THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 479 



the mimonaries at the head of whom he was, to believe 

 that it was pomble for a private man, fuch as Poncet, with- 

 out language, without funds, without prefents, or without 

 power or poffibility of giving them any fort of protection 

 in the way, to prevail upon 26 or 28 perfons, on the word 

 of an adventurer only, to attempt the traverfmg countries 

 where they ran a very great rifk of falling into flavery — to 

 do what ? why, to go to France, a nation of Franks whofe 

 -very name they abhorred, that they might be inftrueted in 

 a religion they equally abhorred, to meet with certain death 

 if ever they returned to their own country ; and, unlefs 

 they did return, they were of no fort of utility whatever. 



M. de Mail let mould have informed himfelf well in the 

 beginning, if it was poilible that the nobility in Abyffinia 

 could be fo contemptible as to fuffer twelve of their chil- 

 dren to go to countries unknown, upon the word of a ftran- 

 ger, at leaft of fuch a doubtful character as Poncet. I fay 

 doubtful, becaufe, if he was fuch a man as M. de Maillet re- 

 prefents him, a drunkard, a liar, a thief, a man without re- 

 ligion, a perpetual talker, and a fuperficial practitioner of 

 what he called his own trade, furely the Abymnians mull 

 have been very fond of emigration, to have left their homes 

 under the care of fuch a patron as this. When did M. de 

 Maillet ever hear of an Abyffinian who was willing to leave 

 his own country and travel to Cairo, unlefs the very few 

 pricfts who go for duty's fake, for penances or vows, to Je~ 

 rufalem? When did he ever hear of an Abyffinian layman, 

 noble, or plebeian, attending even the Abuna though the firft 

 dignitary of the church? We mail feeprefently a poor nave, 

 a Chriftian Abyffinian boy, immediately under the protection 

 of M, de Maillet, and going directly from him into the pre- 



fence 



