Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/482

. He seems indeed to me to have been a copy of the famous Peter Paez, who first gave an appearance of feasibility to the Portuguese conversion of Abyssinia; like him he was a Jesuit, but of a better nation, and born in a better age.

here likewise take notice of what I have already hinted, that in Abyssinia the character of ambassador is not known. They have no treaties of peace or commerce with any nation in the world: But, for purposes already mentioned, factors are employed; and, Abyssinia being everywhere surrounded by Mahometans, these of course have the preference; and, as they carry letters from their masters, the custom of the East obliges them to accompany these with presents to the sovereigns of the respective kingdoms through which they pass, and this circumstance dignifies them with the title of ambassador in the several courts at which they have business. Such was Musa, a factor of the king, whom we have seen detained, and afterwards delivered by the Naybe of Masuah, not many years before, in this king's reign; and such also was Hagi Ali, then upon his master's business at Cairo, when M. de Maillet was consul there, and had received his instructions from father Fleuriau at Paris, to bring about this embassy from Abyssinia.

his other business, Hagi Ali had orders to bring with him a physician, if possible, from Cairo; for Yasous and his eldest son were both of a scorbutic habit, which threatened to turn into a leprosy. Hagi Ali, in former voyages, had been acquainted with a capuchin friar Paschal; and, having received medicines from him before, lie now applied to Paschal to return with him into Abyssinia,