The Day Before Our Arrival
At The Place Where We Were To Be Delivered To The Turks, We Met With
Five Elephants, That Pursued Us, And If They Could Have Come To Us
Would Have Prevented The Miseries We Afterwards Endured, But God Had
Decreed Otherwise.
On the morrow we came to the banks of a river, where we found
fourscore Turks that waited for us, armed with muskets.
They let us
rest awhile, and then put us into the hands of our new masters, who,
setting us upon camels, conducted us to Mazna. Their commander,
seeming to be touched with our misfortunes, treated us with much
gentleness and humanity; he offered us coffee, which we drank, but
with little relish. We came next day to Mazna, in so wretched a
condition that we were not surprised at being hooted by the boys,
but thought ourselves well used that they threw no stones at us.
As soon as we were brought hither, all we had was taken from us, and
we were carried to the governor, who is placed there by the Bassa of
Suaquem. Having been told by the Abyssins that we had carried all
the gold out of Aethiopia, they searched us with great exactness,
but found nothing except two chalices, and some relics of so little
value that we redeemed them for six sequins. As I had given them my
chalice upon their first demand, they did not search me, but gave us
to understand that they expected to find something of greater value,
which either we must have hidden or the Abyssins must have imposed
on them. They left us the rest of the day at a gentleman's house,
who was our friend, from whence the next day they fetched us to
transport us to the island, where they put us into a kind of prison,
with a view of terrifying us into a confession of the place where we
had hid our gold, in which, however, they found themselves deceived.
But I had here another affair upon my hands which was near costing
me dear. My servant had been taken from me and left at Mazna, to be
sold to the Arabs. Being advertised by him of the danger he was in,
I laid claim to him, without knowing the difficulties which this way
of proceeding would bring upon me. The governor sent me word that
my servant should be restored to me upon payment of sixty piastres;
and being answered by me that I had not a penny for myself, and
therefore could not pay sixty piastres to redeem my servant, he
informed me by a renegade Jew, who negotiated the whole affair, that
either I must produce the money or receive a hundred blows of the
battoon. Knowing that those orders are without appeal, and always
punctually executed, I prepared myself to receive the correction I
was threatened with, but unexpectedly found the people so charitable
as to lend me the money. By several other threats of the same kind
they drew from us about six hundred crowns.
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