Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/32

12 pied at Gondar. To him the patriarch gave his first injunctions as to watching the motives of the Naybe, and preventing any ill-usage from him, before the notice of my arrival, at Masuah should reach Abyssinia.

dispatched his messenger, and Mahomet Gibberti repaired that same night to the Naybe at Arkeeko, with such diligence that lulled him asleep as to any prior intelligence, which otherwise he might have thought he was charged to convey to Tigrè; and Mahomet Gibberti; in his conversation that night with Achmet, adroitly confirmed him in all the ideas he himself had first started in council with the Naybe. He told him the manner I had been received at Jidda, my protection at Constantinople, and the firman which I brought from the grand signior, the power of my countrymen in the Red Sea and India, and my personal friendship with Metical Aga. He moreover insinuated, that the coasts of the Red Sea would be in a dangerous situation if any thing happened to me, as both the sherriffe of Mecca and emperor of Constantinople would themselves, perhaps, not interfere, but would most certainly consider the place, where such disobedience should be shewn to their commands, as in a state of anarchy, and therefore to be abandoned to the just correction of the English, if injured.

the 20th, a person came from Mahomet Gibberti to conduct me on shore. The Naybe himself was still at Arkeeko, and Achmet therefore had come down to receive the duties of the merchandise on board the vessel which brought me. There were two elbow-chairs placed in the middle of the market-place. Achmet sat on one of them, while the