Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 1 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 1 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773
Bruce, James
Egypt -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- History; Natural history -- Ethiopia; Nile River
Soon after they went, we heard a great firing, and saw lights all over
the town; and the Rais proposed to me to slip immediately, and set
sail, from which measure I was not at all averse. But, as he said,
we had a better anchoring place under the mosque of the Shekh, and,
besides, that there we would be in a place of safety, by reason of the
holiness of the saint, and that at our own choice might even put to sea
in a moment, or stay till to-morrow, as we were in no sort of doubt of
being able to repel, force by force, if attacked, we got under weigh
for a few hundred yards, and dropt our anchor under the shrine of one
of the greatest saints in the world.
At night the firing had abated, the lights diminished, and the captain
of the port again came on board. He was surprised at missing us at
our former anchoring place, and still more so, when, on our hearing
the noise of his oars, we hailed, and forbade him to advance any
nearer, till he should tell us how many he had on board, or whether he
had soldiers or not, otherwise we should fire upon them: to this he
answered, that there were only himself, his boy, and three officers,
servants to the Aga. I replied, that three strangers were too many at
that time of the night, but, since they were come from the Aga, they
might advance.
All our people were sitting together armed on the forepart of the
vessel; I soon divined they intended us no harm, for they gave us the
salute _Salam Alicum!_ before they were within ten yards of us. I
answered with great complacency; we handed them on board, and set them
down upon deck. The three officers were genteel young men, of a sickly
appearance, dressed in the fashion of the country, in long burnooses
loosely hanging about them, striped with red and white; they wore a
turban of red, green, and white, with ten thousand tassels and fringes
hanging down to the small of their backs. They had in their hand, each,
a short javelin, the shaft not above four feet and a half long, with
an iron head about nine inches, and two or three iron hooks below the
shaft, which was bound round with brass-wire, in several places, and
shod with iron at the farther end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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