ABSTRACT
Lord Danvers had given me an Italian servant from his houshold, to serve me as an interpreter in my expedition. Mine was to be the intellect to conduct the affair; his was the mouth by which my communications were to be carried on. He was kept in the dark as to the purpose of my voyage; I intrusted him from moment to moment with the questions to be asked; and he knew about as much of their use, as a boy at grammar-school knows of the use of his declensions and conjugations, before he has been set a single sentence, to render the meaning of the original into his vernacular tongue.
