500 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
said, of those who were concerned in the affair of the unhappy Du Roule.
Poncet, having lost all credit, retired from Paris in disgrace, without any further gratification than that which he at first received. He carried to Cairo with him, however, a gold watch and a mirror, which he was to deliver to the consul as a present to his companion Murat, whose subsistence was immediately stopped, and liberty given him to return to Ethiopia.
Nor did Maillet's folly stop here. After giving poor Murat all the ill-usage a man could possibly suffer, he entrusted him with a Jesuit[1] whom he was to introduce into Ethiopia, where he would certainly have lost his life had not the bad-treatment he received by the way made him return before he arrived at Masuah.
This first miscarriage seemed only to have confirmed the Jesuits more in their resolution of producing an embassy. But it now took another form. Politicians and statesmen became the aiflors in it, without a thought having been bestowed to diminish the enemies of the scheme, or render their endeavours useless, by a superior knowledge of the manners and customs of the country through which this; embassy was to pass.
No adventurer, or vagrant physician, (like Poncet) was to be employed in this fecond embassy. A minister versed
- ↑ Faiber Dernat, a Frenchman.
