Ethiopia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Lobo, Jerónimo, 1596?-1678 -- Travel -- Ethiopia
About nine the next morning we came to the end of this toilsome and
rugged path, where the way divided into two, yet both led to a well, the
only one that was found in our journey. A Moor with three others took
the shortest, without directing us to follow him; so we marched forwards
we knew not whither, through woods and over rocks, without sleep or any
other refreshment: at noon the next day we discovered that we were near
the field of salt. Our affliction and distress is not to be expressed;
we were all fainting with heat and weariness, and two of the patriarch's
servants were upon the point of dying for want of water. None of us had
any but a Moor, who could not be prevailed upon to part with it at less
than the weight in gold; we got some from him at last, and endeavoured to
revive the two servants, while part of us went to look for a guide that
might put us in the right way. The Moors who had arrived at the well,
rightly guessing that we were lost, sent one of their company to look for
us, whom we heard shouting in the woods, but durst make no answer for
fear of the Galles. At length he found us, and conducted us to the rest;
we instantly forgot our past calamities, and had no other care than to
recover the patriarch's attendants. We did not give them a full draught
at first, but poured in the water by drops, to moisten their mouths and
throats, which were extremely swelled: by this caution they were soon
well. We then fell to eating and drinking, and though we had nothing but
our ordinary repast of honey and dried flesh, thought we never had
regaled more pleasantly in our lives.
We durst not stay long in this place for fear of the Galles, who lay
their ambushes more particularly near this well, by which all caravans
must necessarily pass. Our apprehensions were very much increased by our
suspicion of the camel-drivers, who, as we imagined, had advertised the
Galles of our arrival. The fatigue we had already suffered did not
prevent our continuing our march all night: at last we entered a plain,
where our drivers told us we might expect to be attacked by the Galles;
nor was it long before our own eyes convinced us that we were in great
danger, for we saw as we went along the dead bodies of a caravan who had
been lately massacred, a sight which froze our blood, and filled us with
pity and with horror. The same fate was not far from overtaking us, for
a troop of Galles, who were detached in search of us, missed us but an
hour or two. We spent the next night in the mountains, but when we
should have set out in the morning, were obliged to a fierce dispute with
the old Moor, who had not yet lost his inclination to destroy us; he
would have had us taken a road which was full of those people we were so
much afraid of: at length finding he could not prevail with us, that we
charged the goods upon him as belonging to the Emperor, to whom he should
be answerable for the loss of them, he consented, in a sullen way, to go
with us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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