THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN murder is clear from the following facts :—Before du Roule started for Sennaar, the French Consul in Cairo, M. de Maillet, sent an Armenian called Elias to Abyssinia, with orders to proceed to Gondar by way of the Red Sea and Masawa, so that he might reach the king before du Roule, and so prepare lyasus for his coming. When lyasus had received this letter, he readily gave permission for du Roule to enter his country, and he sent one of his own men to Sennaar with orders to escort him to Gondar, and to pay the expenses of his journey.

It is a pity that de Maillet had not warned the king of Sennaar that he had in his country numbers of friars who were disseminating lies broadcast, and poisoning the minds of the lowest of his people, who were naturally barbarous, brutal, and jealous.

There is little doubt that the murder of du Roule was due to a plot which was hatched by the Franciscan friars, who would rather see the Abyssinians remain, from their point of view, heathen, than that their conversion should be brought about by the Jesuits, i "With the above facts before us, which have been taken from the detailed narrative of Bruce, who obtained his information in Abyssinia and Egypt, it is hard to conceive how Cailliaud could write as he did of the circumstances which led up to the murder of du Roule. In the Preface to his Voyage a Meroe he claims for France the honour of having been the first to direct the attention of the learned to Egypt, and to have opened the mine whereout men have been able ever since to draw treasure by the handful. He then goes on to say that more than one hundred and twenty years ago Louis XIV. conceived the project of sending out learned men to make discoveries, and that they went so far as Sennaar. We have seen that the missions on which Poncet and du Roule were sent were not scientific missions in any sense of the word, and that their real object was the conversion of Abyssinia. Nor is Cailliaud more correct in the cause which he assigns for du Roule's murder. He declared that it was cupidity, coupled with a stupid credulity, which led the king of Sennaar to commit such an atrocious act of treachery, and ' '* II est glorieux pour la France d'avoir, la premiere, dirigt? leurs pas vers "cette terre classique, et d'avoir ouvert la mine ou Ton a puis6 depuis k pieines '' mains."

| 12