Ixxiv INTRODUCTION 



in not applying in proper time, fometimes by the abfenceoF 

 merchants, who were all Mahometans, eonitantly engaged 

 in bufmefs and in journies, and more efpecially on the king's 

 retiring to Tigre, after the battle of Limjour, when I was 

 abandoned during the ufurpation of the unworthy Socinios. 

 -It was then I had recourfe to Petros and the Greeks, but 

 more for their convenience than my own, and very feldomt 

 from neceffity. This opulence enabled me to treat upon 

 equal footing, to do favours as well as to receive them. 



Every mountebank-trick was a great accomplishment 

 there, fuch as making fquibs, crackers, and rockets. There 

 was no flation in the country to which by thefe accomplifli- 

 ments I might not have pretended, had I been mad enough 

 to have ever directed my thoughts that way ; and I am cer- 

 tain, that in vain I might have folicited leave to return, 

 had not a melancholy defpondency, the amor patria, feized 

 me, and my health fo far declined as apparently to 

 threaten death ; but I was not even then permitted to 

 leave Abyflinia till under a very foiemn oath I promifed to 

 return. 



This manner of conducting myfelf had likewife its dis- 

 advantages. The reader will fee the times, without their 

 being pointed out to him, in the courfe of the narrative. It 

 had very near occafioned me to be murdered at Mafuah,. 

 but it was the means of preferring me at Gondar, by putting 

 me above being infulted or queftioned by priefts, the fatal 

 rock upon which all other European travellers had fplit : It 

 would have occafioned my death at Sennaar, had I not been. 

 fo prudent as to difguife and lay afide the independent car- 

 i riage 



