This is to be understood of his travels to Abyssinia, his journey in returning being much more inaccurate and incomplete, the reason of which we have in his own words: "I have not, says he, exactly noted down the places through which we passed, the great weakness I then lay under not permitting me to write as I could have wished." I shall, therefore, say little upon his return, as the deficiency will be carefully supplied by the history of my own journey from Masuah, the road by which he left the country being very nearly the same as that by which I entered.
It was on the 2d of May of the year 1700 that Poncet left Gondar and took his journey to the town of Emfras. Here there is a mistake in the very beginning. Emfras[1], at which place I staid for several weeks, is in lat. 12° 12' 38", and long. 37° 38' 30", consequently about 22 miles from Gondar, almost under the same meridian, or south from it; so that, as he was going to the east, and northward of east, this must have been so many miles out of his way; for, going towards Masuah, his first station must have been upon the river Angrab.
The same may be said of his next to Coga. It was a royal residence indeed, but very much out of his way. He has forgot likewise, when he says, that, in the way from Gondar to Emfras, you must go over a very high mountain. The way from Gondar to Emfras is the beaten way to Begemder, Foggora, and Dara, and so on to the second cataract of the Nile. It is on that plain the armies were encamped
- ↑ It is plain Poncet had no instruments for observation with him, nor was he probably acquainted with the use of them.
