From Masuah, Poncet crossed the Red Sea to Jidda, passing the island Dahalac and Korumbal, a high rock, the name of which is not known to many navigators.
Had old Murat, Musa, and Hagi Ah, happened at that time to have been upon some mercantile errand to Cairo, there is no doubt but they would have been presented and become ambassadors to France. They would have gone there, perplexed the minister and the consul with a thousand lies and contrivances, which the French never would have been able to unravel; they would have promised every thing; obtained from the king some considerable sum of money, on which they would have undertaken to fend the embassy in any form that was prescribed, and, after their return home, never been heard of more. But those worthies were, probably, all employed at this time; therefore the only thing Poncet could do was to bring Murat, since he was to procure at all events an ambassador.
He had been a cook to a French merchant at Aleppo; was a maker of brandy at Masuah; and probably his uncle old Murat's servant at the time. But he was not the worse ambassador for this. Old Murat, Hagi Ali, and Musa, had perhaps been also cooks and servants in their time. Prudence, sobriety, and good conduct, skill in languages, and acquaintance, with countries recommended them afterwards to higher trusts. Old Murat probably meant that his nephew should begin his apprenticeship with that embassy to France; and M. Poncet, to increase his consequence, and fulfil, the commission the consul gave him, allowed him to invent all the rest.
