Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/652

 628 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

Jofeph le Roux, comte de Defneval. This gentleman had" been in the Danifh navy ever fince the year 1721, and in 1739 was raifed to the rank of rear-admiral in that fervice.- He fays, in a publication of his own now lying before me, that the ambafTador of Louis XIV. (M. du Roule) and all thofe fent by the Dutch and Englifh to vifit that country, had perifhed, becaufe they were ignorant of the proper key- to be employed to enter that country, which he flattered., himfelf he had found in Denmark.

In 1739 he refigned his Danifh commiflion, and began his nrfl attempt in Egypt, whilft, for the greater facility of- travelling in thefe mild and hofpitable countries, he took hi-s> wife along with him. The count and the countefs went as far as Cairo, where they wifely began at a feftival to dis- pute upon the etiquette with a Turkifh mob, and this bring- ing the janizaries and guards of police upon them to take- them into cuftody, the grey mare y as they fay, proved the- better horfc ; Madame la comtene de Defneval exerted her-- felf lb much, that fhe defeated the body of janizaries,- wounding feveral of them, armed only with a very femi- nine weapon, a pair of fciffars, which, with full as much- profit, and much more decency, fhe might have been ufing^ ( lurrounded with her family at home.

However well acquainted the count was with the key- for entering into Abyffinia, he had not apparently got the door. In fact, his firfl fcheme was a molt ridiculous one \ he refolved to afcend die Nile in a barge armed with fmall cannon, and all necelFary provifions for himfelf and wife. Some people wifer than himfelf, whom he met at Cairo, iuggelled to him, that, fuppofing government might

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