TRAVELS OF LE NOIR DU ROULE

and without money and the means of making gifts, and without

the power of giving or affording any sort of protection, to prevail

upon the king of Abyssinia to send a party of from twenty to

thirty people to France, on the word of a mere travelling physician,

was the very height of ignorance and folly. The Abyssinians at

that time hated the French, and they had already shown with

considerable force what their opinion of their religion was, and it

is quite certain that if any Abyssinians had been foolish enough to

leave their own country, and to receive instruction in the religion

which their countrymen abhorred, they would have been put to

death on their return. The Abyssinian embassy, then, demanded

from France, and recommended by M. de Maillet, was a pre-

sumptuous, vain, impracticable scheme, which must have ended

in disappointment, and which never could have closed more

innocently than it did.^ Now, although the Mission of Poncet had failed from the point

of view of the Jesuits, those who were interested in forcing the

Abyssinians to send a mission, which was to consist of twenty-

eight persons, of whom twelve were to be the sons of nobles,

determined not to let the matter drop. They therefore decided

to despatch a second envoy to Abyssinia, but no adventurer or

vagrant physician was to be employed in this second embassy.

" A minister versed in languages, negociations, and treaties, "accompanied with proper dragomans and officers, was to be sent " to Abyssinia to cement a perpetual friendship and commerce " between two nations that had not a national article to exchange

*' with each other, nor way to communicate it by sea or land." "

The man chosen by the minister who had to decide the matter was M. de Maillet, the French Consul, who, knowing all the

causes which led to failure, was held by him to be the right

person to bring the proposed mission to a successful issue. This

selection, however, was by no means to M. de Maillet's liking, and the idea of a long and toilsome journey through waterless

deserts and under a burning sun did not commend itself to him

in any way, for he rarely went out of his house, and was never known to go outside the city, and for a man of such habits of life

^ Bruce, Travels, vol. iii., p. 497 (Edinburgh edition, 1813).

2 Ibid^ vol. iii., p. 515.

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