330 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
their feet feen by ftrangers; and their arms and hands are 
_ concealed even to their nails. A curious circumftance there- 
fore it would have been for the king to be fo liberal of his 
queen’s charms, while he covers his own face with blue taf- 
feta ; but to imagine that the Abuna, a coptifh monk bred ia 
the defert of St Macarius, would expofe himfelf naked a- 
mong naked women, contrary to the ufual cuftom of the 
celebration. he obferves in his own church, is monftrous, and 
mut exceed all belief whatever. As the Abuna Mark too 
was of the reafonable age of 110 years, he ‘might, I think, 
have difpenfed at that time of life with a bathing: gown,, 
efpecially as it was _/ro/. 
Tue old man in the pond repeated the formula, “ I bape 
tife you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghoft,’ in his own language; and Alvarez, it is plain,, 
underftood not one word of Abylflinian.. Yet, on the other 
hand, he {peaks Latin to the king, who wonderfully undez- 
ftands him, and anfwers as decifively on the merits of 
the difpute as if he had been educated in the Sorbonne, 
“ Confiteor unum baptizma’ fays Alvarez *, was a conflitu- 
tion of the Nicene council under Pope Leo. Right, fays the 
king, whofe church, however, anathematized Leo and the: 
council he prefided at, which both the king and Alvarez: 
fhould have knowa was not the Nicene council, though. 
the words of the fymbol quoted are thought to be part of a: 
eonfeffion framed by that afflembly.. 
* Vid.. Alvarez, hoc loso.. 
