4 86 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



Poncet, from Jidda, went to Tor, and thence to Mount 

 Sinai, where, after fome ftay, being overtaken by Murat, 

 they both made their entry into Cairo. 



M. de Maillet, the conful, was an old Norman gentleman, 

 exceedingly fond of nobility, consequently very haughty 

 and overbearing to thofe he reckoned his inferiors, among 

 which he accounted thofe of his own nation eftabliihed at 

 Cairo, though a very amiable and valuable fet of men. He 

 was exceedingly telly, choleric, obftinate, and covetous, 

 though fagacious enough in every thing concerning his 

 own intereft. He lived for the moll part in his clofet, fel- 

 dom went out of his houfe, and, as far as I could learn, never 

 out of the city. There, however, he wrote a defcription of 

 all Egypt, which lince has had a confiderable degree of 

 reputation *. 



Maillet had received advice of the miferable flate of 

 this embafly from Jidda, that the Sherriffe of Mecca had ta- 

 ken from Poncet, by force, two female Abymnian flaves, 

 and that the elephant was dead ; which particulars being 

 written to France, he was advifed in a letter from father 

 Fleuriau by no means to promote any embafly to the court 

 of Verfailles ; that a proper place for it was Rome ; but that 

 in France they looked upon it in the fame light as they 

 did upon an embafly from Algiers or Tunis, which did no 

 honour to thofe who fent it, and as little to thofe that re- 

 ceived it ; this, however, was a new light. 



M. de 



* And there he wrote his Teliamede which fuppofes men were firft created fifties, for which 

 !ie was excommunicated. It was an opinion perfectly worthy of alarming the Sorbonne. 



