340 CHELICUT. 
cccvi, VoL I.), were it not for the additional and decisive contra- 
diction which the following circumstance exhibits, that Abba 
Salama/' who is represented as having attempted to raise the 
populace at the funeral of Signor Balugani/' was executed for 
high treason, according to Mr. Bruce' s own testimony, on the 
24th of December, 1770,* two months before Balugani's actual 
death : so that he could not by any possibility have been guilty 
of the outrage laid to his charge, and, in consequence. Has 
Michael could never have interfered. The dilemma, therefore, 
to which these facts reduce the question in agitation, stands as 
follows ; that, if the relation of this occurrence be correct as to 
time, then all Balug ant s journal, letter, and observations in the 
weather-journal must he forged, since they all relate to circum- 
stances which took place subsequently to the given period of his 
death ; or, if these be true, and the contradiction proceed from an 
error in time, then the whole story respecting Abba Salamas ex- 
citing a tumult among the populace, and Ras MichaeV sinterference 
must be false, since, in that case, Abba Salama must have been 
dead previously to Signor Balugani, and therefore neither he nor 
the Has could have had any thing to do with the transaction. 
Besides, if it coxxXdi possibly be supposed, that from " inatten- 
tion,'' or any other cause, Mr. Bruce could have forgotten alto- 
gether, on his return, the fact of Signor Balugani's having 
attended him during his whole excursion to the Nile, (a circum- 
stance which appears to me absolutely incredible in itself) yet 
can it be believed for a moment, that he should not have been 
* ^This date is fixed both from the printed work and the original memoranda, which in 
this circumstance perfectly agree. 
