Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/130

30 vantage of their tardiness, had rendered the first and great scheme impossible.

, a Venetian merchant, a young man of capacity and intrigue, had for some years governed the Bey absolutely. Had such a man been on board the fleet with a commission, after receiving instructions from Petersburgh, the Ottoman empire in Egypt was at an end.

Bey, with all his good sense and understanding, was still a mamaluke, and had the principles of a slave. Three men of different religions possessed his confidence and governed his councils all at a time. The one was a Greek, the other a Jew, and the third an Egyptian Copht, his secretary. It would have required a great deal of discernment and penetration to have determined which of these was the most worthless, or most likely to betray him.

secretary, whose name was Risk, had the address to supplant the other two at the time they thought themselves at the pinnacle of their glory; over-awing every Turk, and robbing every Christian, the Greek was banished from Egypt, and the Jew bastinadoed to death. Such is the tenure of Egyptian ministers.

professed astrology, and the Bey, like all other Turks, believed in it implicitely, and to this folly he sacrificed his own good understanding; and Risk, probably in pay to Constantinople, led him from one wild scheme to another, till he undid him—by the stars.