These Franciscans were the very men from whom Mr de Maillet would have wished to conceal the sending Poncet with the Jesuit Brevedent; but the secret being now revealed, Ibrahim Hanna was discharged the French service for this mistake; and Hagi Ali departing immediately after with Poncet and Brevedent, no time remained for the Franciscans to take the steps they afterwards did to bring about the tragedy in the person of Poncet, which they completely effected in that of Mr Noir du Roule. Mr Poncet, furnished with a chest of medicines at the expence of the factory, accompanied by father Brevedent, who, in quality of his servant, now took the name of Joseph, joined Hagi Ali, and the caravan destined in the first place, to Sennaar the capital of Nubia. Poncet set out from Cairo on the 10th of June of the year 1698, and, fifteen days after, they came to Monfalout, a considerable town upon the banks of the Nile, the rendezvous of the caravan being at Ibnah, half a league above Monfalout. Here they tarried for above three months, waiting the coming of the merchants from the neighbouring towns. In the afternoon of the 24th of September, they advanced above a league and a half distance, and took up their lodging at Elcantara, or the bridge, on the eastern bank of the Nile. A large calish, or cut, from the Nile stretches here to the east, and, at that season, was full of water, the inundation being at its height. Poncet believes he was on the eastern banks of the Nile; but this is a mistake. Siout and Monfalout, the cities he speaks of, are both on the western banks of that river; nor had the caravan any thing to do with the eastern banks, when their course was for many days to the west, and to the southward of west. Nor was the bridge he passed a bridge over the Nile. There are no bridges upon that river from the Mediterranean till we arrive at the second cataract near the lake Tzana in Abyssinia. The amphitheatre and ruins he speaks of are the remains of the ancient city Isiu; and what he took for the Nile was a calish from the river to supply that city with water. The 2d of October the caravan set out in earnest, and passed, as he says, into a frightful desert of sand, having first gone through a narrow passage, which he does not mention, amidst those barren, bare, and stony mountains which border the valley of Egypt on the west.