m all parts to take care of
myself. At length, when I was within a few days' journey of the viceroy,
I received a billet in more plain and express terms than anything I had
been told yet, charging me with extreme imprudence in putting myself into
the hands of those men who had undoubtedly sworn to cut me off.

I began, upon this, to distrust the sincerity of the viceroy's
professions, and resolved, upon the receipt of another letter from the
viceroy, to return directly. In this letter, having excused himself for
not waiting for my arrival, he desired me in terms very strong and
pressing to come forward, and stay for him at his own house, assuring me
that he had given such orders for my entertainment as should prevent my
being tired with living there. I imagined at first that he had left some
servants to provide for my reception, but being advertised at the same
time that there was no longer any doubt of the certainty of his revolt,
that the Galles were engaged to come to his assistance, and that he was
gone to sign a treaty with them, I was no longer in suspense what
measures to take, but returned to Fremona.

Here I found a letter from the Emperor, which prohibited me to go out,
and the orders which he had sent through all these parts, directing them
to arrest me wherever I was found, and to hinder me from proceeding on my
journey. These orders came too late to contribute to my preservation,
and this prince's goodness had been in vain, if God, whose protection I
have often had experience of in my travels, had not been my conductor in
this emergency.

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 m