714 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
Tellez and le Grande, mentioning the two opinions of the father and the fon upon this fubject, give great praife to the fon at the expence of the father, but without reafon.
In the firft place, we have feen that the utmofl exertion Don Emanuel could make was to fend 400 men to afiift the king of Abyffinia, whofe country was then almofl: con- quered by the Turks and Moors. It was not then from India we were to expect the execution of fo arduous an underta- king. And as to the fecond, the younger Albuquerque is mif- taken egregio-ufly in point of fact, for there never was a canal between Coffeir and Kenna, the goods from the Red Sea were tranfported by a caravan, and are fo yet. We have feen, in the beginning of this work, the account of my travelling thither from Kenna ; this intercourse probably was often interrupted by the Arabs in the days he mentions, and fo it is ftill ; but it is the caravan, not the canal, that is ftopt by the Arabs, for no canal ever exilted..
The fum of all this ftory is, a long and violent persecution followed the conqueft of Egypt by the Saracens, who were ac- euftomed to live in tents, which, with their diHike to the Chriflian churches, made them deftroy all the buildings of flone, as alio perfecute the mafons, whom they considered as being employed in the advancement of idolatry : thefe un- happy workmen, therefore, fled in numbers to Lalibala, an Abyffinian prince of their own religion, who employed them in many flupendous works for diverting the Nile into the Red Sea, or the Indian Ocean, which I have already deferibed, and which exift entire to this day*.
This
- Vol.. I. b. ii. cha E . 8.
