THE SOURGE OF THE NILE. 499 



■conful's letters, telling him that Poncet was come with the 

 caravan for the purpofe of curing him ? 



Besides this, M. de Maillet faw Hagi Ali afterwards at 

 Cairo, where he reproached him with his cruel behaviour, 

 both to Poncet and to friar Juftin, another monk that had 

 come along with him from Ethiopia. Maillet then muft 

 have been fully inftructed of Poncet' s whole life and con- 

 vention in Ethiopia, and needed not the Italian's fuppofed 

 communication to know whether or not he had been in E- 

 thiopia. Befides, Maillet makes ufe of him as the forerun- 

 ner of the other embaffy he was then preparing to Gondar, 

 and to that fame king Yafous, which would have been a 

 very ftrange ftep had he doubted of his having been there 

 before. 



Supposing all this not enough, Hill we know he return- 

 ed by Jidda, and the conful correfponded with him there. 

 Now, how did he get from Bartcho to the Red Sea without 

 pafling the capital, and without the king's orders or know^- 

 ledge ? Who franked him at thofe number of dangerous 

 barriers at Woggora, Lamalmon, the Tacazze, Kella, and 

 Adowa, where, though I had the authority of the king, I 

 could not fometimes pafs without calling force to my af- 

 fiftance? Who freed him from the avarice of the Baharna- 

 gafh, and the much more formidable rapacity of that mur- 

 derer the Naybe, who, we have feen in the hiftory of this 

 reign, attempted to plunder the king's own factor Mufa, 

 - though his mailer was within three days journey at the 

 head of an army that in a few hours could have effaced eve- 

 ry veilige of where Mafuah had flood? All this, then, is a 

 ridiculous fabrication of lies ; the work, as I have before 



3 R 2 faid, 



