Here I Hire A Catre
And Four Boys To Carry Me To Bazaim:
These catres are a kind of
travelling couches, in which you may either lie or sit, which the
boys,
Whose business is the same with that of chairmen in our
country, support upon their shoulders by two poles, and carry a
passenger at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles a day. Here we at
length found the patriarch, with three more priests, like us,
designed for the mission of Aethiopia. We went back to Daman, and
from thence to Diou, where we arrived in a short time.
Chapter III
The author embarks with the patriarch, narrowly escapes shipwreck
near the isle of Socotora; enters the Arabian Gulf, and the Red Sea.
Some account of the coast of the Red Sea.
The patriarch having met with many obstacles and disappointments in
his return to Abyssinia, grew impatient of being so long absent from
his church. Lopo Gomez d'Abreu had made him an offer at Bazaim of
fitting out three ships at his own expense, provided a commission
could be procured him to cruise in the Red Sea. This proposal was
accepted by the patriarch, and a commission granted by the viceroy.
While we were at Diou, waiting for these vessels, we received advice
from Aethiopia that the emperor, unwilling to expose the patriarch
to any hazard, thought Dagher, a port in the mouth of the Red Sea,
belonging to a prince dependent on the Abyssins, a place of the
greatest security to land at, having already written to that prince
to give him safe passage through his dominions.
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