me something new, I lived in a continual course of gratification;
but as I advanced towards manhood, I lost much of the reverence
with which I had been used to look on my instructors; because when
the lessons were ended I did not find them wiser or better than
common men.

"At length my father resolved to initiate me in commerce; and,
opening one of his subterranean treasuries, counted out ten
thousand pieces of gold. 'This, young man,' said he, 'is the stock
with which you must negotiate. I began with less than a fifth
part, and you see how diligence and parsimony have increased it.
This is your own, to waste or improve. If you squander it by
negligence or caprice, you must wait for my death before you will
be rich; if in four years you double your stock, we will
thenceforward let subordination cease, and live together as friends
and partners, for he shall be always equal with me who is equally
skilled in the art of growing rich.'

"We laid out our money upon camels, concealed in bales of cheap
goods, and travelled to the shore of the Red Sea. When I cast my
eye on the expanse of waters, my heart bounded like that of a
prisoner escaped. I felt an inextinguishable curiosity kindle in
my mind, and resolved to snatch this opportunity of seeing the
manners of other nations, and of learning sciences unknown in
Abyssinia.

"I remembered that my father had obliged me to the improvement of
my stock, not by a promise, which I ought not to violate, but by a
penalty, which I was at liberty to incur; and therefore determined
to gratify my predominant desire, and, by drinking at the fountain