The Viceroy, Hearing That I Was Returned To My Residence, Did Not Discover Any Concern Or Chagrin As At A

Disappointment, for such was his privacy and dissimulation that the most penetrating could never form any conjecture that could be

Depended on, about his designs, till everything was ready for the execution of them. My servant, a man of wit, was surprised as well as everybody else; and I can ascribe to nothing but a miracle my escape from so many snares as he laid to entrap me.

There happened during this perplexity of my affairs an accident of small consequence in itself, which yet I think deserves to be mentioned, as it shows the credulity and ignorance of the Abyssins. I received a visit from a religious, who passed, though he was blind, for the most learned person in all that country. He had the whole Scriptures in his memory, but seemed to have been at more pains to retain them than understand them; as he talked much he often took occasion to quote them, and did it almost always improperly. Having invited him to sup and pass the night with me, I set before him some excellent mead, which he liked so well as to drink somewhat beyond the bounds of exact temperance. Next day, to make some return for his entertainment, he took upon him to divert me with some of those stories which the monks amuse simple people with, and told me of a devil that haunted a fountain, and used to make it his employment to plague the monks that came thither to fetch water, and continued his malice till he was converted by the founder of their order, who found him no very stubborn proselyte till they came to the point of circumcision; the devil was unhappily prepossessed with a strong aversion from being circumcised, which, however, by much persuasion, he at last agreed to, and afterwards taking a religious habit, died ten years after with great signs of sanctity.

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