self to his favourite minister, with a promise of a
large present if he could obtain us an audience of leave; he came to us
at night to agree upon the reward, and soon accomplished all we desired,
both getting us a permission to go out of the kingdom, and procuring us
camels to carry our baggage, and that of the Abyssinian ambassadors who
were ordered to accompany us.

We set out from the kingdom of Dancali on the 15th of June, having taken
our leave of the King, who after many excuses for everything that had
happened, dismissed us with a present of a cow, and some provisions,
desiring us to tell the Emperor of AEthiopia his father that we had met
with kind treatment in his territories, a request which we did not at
that time think it convenient to deny.

Whatever we had suffered hitherto, was nothing to the difficulties we
were now entering upon, and which God had decreed us to undergo for the
sake of Jesus Christ. Our way now lay through a region scarce passable,
and full of serpents, which were continually creeping between our legs;
we might have avoided them in the day, but being obliged, that we might
avoid the excessive heats, to take long marches in the night, we were
every moment treading upon them. Nothing but a signal interposition of
Providence could have preserved us from being bitten by them, or
perishing either by weariness or thirst, for sometimes we were a long
time without water, and had nothing to support our strength in this
fatigue but a little honey, and a small piece of cows' flesh dried in the
sun. Thus we travelled on for many days, scarce allowing ourselves any
rest, till we came to a channel or hollow worn in the mountains by the
winter torrents; here we found some coolness, and good water, a blessing
we enjoyed for three days; down this channel all the winter runs a great
river which is dried up in the heats, or to speak more properly, hides
itself under ground. We walked along its side, sometimes seven or eight
leagues without seeing any water, and then we found it rising out of the
ground, at which places we never failed to drink as much as we could, and
fill our bottles.

In our march, there fell out an unlucky accident, which, however, did not
prove of the bad consequence it might have done. The master of our
camels was an old Mohammedan, who had conceived an opinion that it was an
act of merit to do us all the mischief he could; and in pursuance of his
notion, made it his chief emp