The following papers would perhaps have been something less imperfect, if what was originally committed to writing had been altogether within the reach of the writer, when he began to prepare them for publication. Two accidents, however, both equally unforeseen, rendered abortive his hope of compensating in some measure for the general failure in his design, by greater exactness and detail as to the particulars of what he had actually seen.
The losses he had sustained in Soudân, were not very important, comprising only some specimens of minerals, vegetables, and other cumbrous materials, which he designed to have brought with him. On his arrival in Kahira, he thought it would be an impediment, in his journey through Syria, to transport all he possessed thither, and therefore caused the greater part of his baggage to be sent to Alexandria; among which were copies of such papers as he thought least unfit for the use of a third person. In the number he regrets a register of the caravans which had arrived in Kahira from Fûr since the year of Hejira 1150, containing an account of their numbers, and many other curious particulars; copied from a book belonging to the shech of the slave-market in Kahira.
A kind of general itinerary, in the hand-writing of a Jelab of his acquaintance, containing the roads of Eastern Africa.
A vocabulary of the Fûrian language, compiled by himself.
Some remarks on natural history.
List of names of places both in Egypt and Fûr, written by an Arab.
The detail of particulars relating to the time and manner of his observations in Astronomy, with other remarks tending to illustrate the geography of his route.
To return to a few considerations on the present intercourse between Egypt and Abyssinia.
Towards the close of the year 1796, I was told by the Coptic patriarch, that for the preceding nine years or more, no communication had taken place between Egypt and Abyssinia. Two men pretending to be priests of that country, came in 1793 to Kahira, but it was afterwards discovered that they were either not Abyssins, or fugitives, and without authority or commission. The interception of their intercourse by land might be caused by the unsettled state of Sennaar and Nubia. Slaves from Abyssinia are usually brought by the Red Sea from Mâsuah to Jidda, and many of them are sold in Mecca, though but few reach Kahira by way of Cossîr and Suez. Gold sometimes comes to market by the same route, and the Abyssins are thence supplied with such foreign commodities as they stand in need of.
To the slaves of Habbesh no very marked preference is shewn in Egypt. They are more beautiful than those of Soudân; but the price of the two kinds, cæteris paribus, is nearly the same.