Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/247

Rh think of the Armenian." It was finally agreed, that the letters the Greeks had received should be read to the king; that the letters I had from Metical Aga to the Ras should be given to Mahomet Gibberti, and that I should be introduced to the King and the Ras immediately after they were ready.

reader may remember that, when I was at Cairo, I obtained letters from Mark, the Greek patriarch, to the Greeks at Gondar; and particularly one, in form of a bull, or rescript, to all the Greeks in Abyssinia. In this, after a great deal of pastoral admonition, the patriarch said, that, knowing their propensity to lying and vanity, and not being at hand to impose proper penances upon them for these sins, he exacted from them, as a proof of their obedience, that they would, with a good grace, undergo this mortification, than which there could be no gentler imposed, as it was only to speak the truth. He ordered them in a body to go to the king, in the manner and time they knew best, and to inform him that I was not to be confounded with the rest of white men, such as Greeks, who were all subject to the Turks, and slaves; but that I was a free man, of a free nation; and the best of them would be happy in being my servant, as one of their brethren, Michael, then actually was. I will not say but this was a bitter pill; for they were high in office, all except Petros, who had declined all employment after the murder of Joas his master, whose chamberlain he was. The order of the patriarch, however, was fairly and punctually performed; Petros was their spokesman; he was originally a shoemaker at Rhodes, clever, and handsome in his person, but a great coward, though, on such an occasion as the present, forward and capable enough.