THE SOURCE OF THE NILE 35 



The next day after my arrival I was furprifed by the viik 

 of my old friend Father Chriftopher ; and, not to detain the 

 reader with ufelefs circumftances, the intelligence of many 

 vifits, which I mail comprehend in one, was, that there were 

 many Greeks then in Abyflinia, all of them in great power, 

 and fome of them in the firft places of the empire ; that they 

 correfponded with the patriarch when oceafion offered, and, 

 at all times, held him in fuch refpect, that his will, when 

 dignified to them, was of the greateft authority, and that 

 obedience was paid to it as to holy write 



Father Christopher took upon him, with the greateft 

 readinefs, to manage the letters, and we digefted the plan 

 of them ; three copie were made to fend feparate ways, 

 and an admonitory letter to the whole of the Greeks then 

 in Abyflinia, in form of a bull. 



By this the patriarch enjoined them as a penance, upon 

 ^hich a kind of jubilee was to follow, that, laying afide their 

 pride and vanity, great fins with which he knew them much 

 infeEled, and, inftead of pretending to put themfelves on a foot- 

 ing with me when I mould arrive at the court of Abyflinia, 

 they mould concur, heart and hand, in ferving me ; and 

 that, before it could be fuppofed they had received inftruc- 

 tions from me, they fhould make a declaration before the 

 king, that they were not in condition equal to me, that I was 

 a free citizen of a powerful nation, and fervant of a great king; 

 that they were born flaves of the Turk, and, at belt, ranked 

 but as would my fervant s; and that, in fact, one of their 

 countrymen was in that flation then with me. 



E z After 



