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Mecca, the Scherif feared, that if they should happen 
to know that he carried on relations with the Christians, 
they might attribute this step to some political motive, 
and that he might suffer by it. On this account he in- 
sisted that I should write myself directly, because he 
said he had an entire confidence in me, that the object 
of his desires was perfectly known to me, and that he 
feared lest the interpreters of the Emperor should not 
be able to translate faithfully the sense of what he should 
write. I combated his reasons, or rather his pretexts, 
and induced him to write himself. 
He wrote also at the same time two letters to the 
governor of the Isle of France, which the Arabs call 
Djezira Mauris, begging him to send back the other 
ship, and both cargoes; but his silence proved the at- 
tention he paid to the letters. 
Notwithstanding the faults of the Scherif, and the 
sort of nullity to which the Wehhabites are daily re- 
ducing him, he still preserves some influence in the 
Arabian ports, as also at Cosseir, by his intercourse 
with the Mamelukes, and the inhabitants of Said, or 
Upper Egypt, fie even possesses some consideration 
upon the coasts of Abyssinia, in the name of the Grand 
Seignior. I observed with astonishment that this prince 
has none of the national prejudices. 
The political situation of this country was very sin- 
gular upon my arrival. The Sultan Scherif was the 
natural and immediate sovereign of it; notwithstanding 
which, the Sultan of Constantinople was acknowledged 
there as supreme monarch; and mention was made of 
him in this quality in the sermon upon Fridays, even 
whilst Saaoud, who was reigning in the country with 
his troops, forbade the priests on the Friday before 
Easter to make use of his name. 
