Arabic Gulf. Before they had been a month at sea, Abdulla died, as did Hamet Ali seven days after they arrived at Suez. They had been on sea three months and six days from Jidda to that port, because they sailed against the monsoon.
It was the 25th of June that Theodorus arrived at Cairo, delivered the king's present, the account of the Abuna's death, and the king's desire of having speedily a successor. The patriarch, having called together all his bishops, priests, and deacons, conferred the dignity on a monk of the Order of St Anthony, the only Order of monks the Coptic church acknowledges. These pass a very austere life in two convents in a dreary desert, never tasting flesh, but living on olives, salt sardines[1], wild herbs, and the worst of vegetables. Yet so attached are they to this solitude, that, when they are called to be ordained to this prelature of Abyssinia, a warrant from the basha, and a party of Turks, is necessary to bring this elect one to Cairo in chains, where he is kept in prison till he is ordained; guarded afterwards, and then forced on board a vessel which carries him to Abyssinia, whence he is certain never to return.
The Abuna departed from Suez the 20th of September; the beginning of November he arrived at Jidda; in February 1745 he sailed from Jidda, taking with him Abdelcader, now freed from prison; he arrived at Masuah the 7th of March, and immediately sent an express to notify his arrival to the king and queen, and to Ras Welled de l'Oul. Con-
- ↑ This is a fish common in the Mediterranean, of the kind of anchovies, the common food of the galley-slaves, and lower sort of people.
