Note 25 — CHAP. II. Of bearded Chins.

Mr. M——, in his journey to India by land, met this enthusiast at Bassora, the 15th of August, 1770, who asked Mr. Pyrault, the French consul in that town, for a guide to conduct him through the desert. He was returning from Surat, where he had resided sometime with Mr. Anquetil de Briancourt, likewise a French consul. “This Arphaxad Tinnagelli,” says Mr. M—— in the manuscript account of his journey, “is a young man of about twenty-eight years of age, of middling stature, and seems to have the Lorrain accent. He gives himself out for an Arabian, born at Eliatiff in the gulf of Persia; he has written a romance, in which he has not shewn a more happy invention, than in his Arabian name. Notwithstanding his beard and dress, we soon discovered him to be a Frenchman, which he at length acknowledged. Having made himself pretty well acquainted with Arabic, he has written several things in that language, among others, a catechism called Tinnagellique which begins thus: Who is God? The truth. Who is his Prophet? J. J. Rousseau. It was thought at Bassora,” continues our traveller, “that he had quitted his pranks entirely; and, on his promising to return to India and live as he ought, Messieurs Pyrault and Rousseau (the Persian, cousin to J. James) made him up an European wardrobe: he came with me as far as Mascata; but I could not get him any farther, and I left him quite disposed to go and complete his mission.”