DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11638#0019
, and lower egypt. 5
just indemnification did not follow the simple
exposition of my rights, I retired, and spoke no
more on the subject. Better satisfied with a ge-
nerous devotedness to the public service, than
with a recompense which would have detracted
from its merit, I congratulated myself on this,
that, if I had not rendered myself useful, I had at
least endeavoured to do so, and that no view
whatever of personal interest had tarnished my
efforts. My conscience permitted mc to taste, at
the expense of my purse, a pure joy, a content-
ment, which the self-interested mind can never
enjoy. But this character of pride and indepen-
dence at which fortune is intimidated, procured
for me at least some consequence, and I have
often received praises in exchange for my money.
T endeavoured then, at my own private expense,
to open a passage to myself for visiting Abyssinia.
That of the Red Sea appeared to me the least diffi-
cult, by going in the first place to Dsjedda, and from
thence to Souaquem, and to Arkiko. I requested
a French merchant to conduct me into the territo-
ries of the Cophts, who carry on the commerce of
India by way of Suez, and who were the owners
of those miserable vessels, by which men and mer-
chandise are transported, through many delays and
dangers, across those rocks and sands with which
the coast? of Arabia are surrounded, and of which
b 3 ship5
just indemnification did not follow the simple
exposition of my rights, I retired, and spoke no
more on the subject. Better satisfied with a ge-
nerous devotedness to the public service, than
with a recompense which would have detracted
from its merit, I congratulated myself on this,
that, if I had not rendered myself useful, I had at
least endeavoured to do so, and that no view
whatever of personal interest had tarnished my
efforts. My conscience permitted mc to taste, at
the expense of my purse, a pure joy, a content-
ment, which the self-interested mind can never
enjoy. But this character of pride and indepen-
dence at which fortune is intimidated, procured
for me at least some consequence, and I have
often received praises in exchange for my money.
T endeavoured then, at my own private expense,
to open a passage to myself for visiting Abyssinia.
That of the Red Sea appeared to me the least diffi-
cult, by going in the first place to Dsjedda, and from
thence to Souaquem, and to Arkiko. I requested
a French merchant to conduct me into the territo-
ries of the Cophts, who carry on the commerce of
India by way of Suez, and who were the owners
of those miserable vessels, by which men and mer-
chandise are transported, through many delays and
dangers, across those rocks and sands with which
the coast? of Arabia are surrounded, and of which
b 3 ship5