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
I there saw the Shekh of the tribe, who being in peace with the Bey of
Bengazi, and also with the Shekh of Ptolometa, after many questions
ordered me a plentiful supper, of which all my servants partook, none
of them having perished. A multitude of consultations followed on
their complaints, of which I freed myself in the best manner I could,
alledging the loss of all my medicines, in order to induce some of them
to seek for the sextant at least, but all to no purpose, so that,
after staying two days among them, the Shekh restored to us all that
had been taken from us, and mounting us upon camels, and giving us a
conductor, he forwarded us to Bengazi, where we arrived the second day
in the evening. Thence I sent a compliment to the Shekh, and with it
a man from the Bey, intreating that he would use all possible means
to fish up some of my cases, for which I assured him he should not
miss a handsome reward. Promises and thanks were returned, but I never
heard further of my instruments; all I recovered was a silver watch
of Ellicot, the work of which had been taken out and broken, some
pencils, and a small port-folio, in which were sketches of Ptolemeta;
my pocket-book too was found, but my pencil was lost, being in a common
silver case, and with them all the astronomical observations which I
had made in Barbary. I there lost a sextant, a parallactic instrument,
a time-piece, a reflecting telescope, an achromatic one, with many
drawings, a copy of M. de la Caille’s ephemerides down to the year
1775, much to be regretted, as being full of manuscript marginal notes;
a small camera obscura, some guns, pistols, a blunderbuss, and several
other articles.
I found at Bengazi a small French sloop, the master of which had been
often at Algiers when I was consul there. I had even, as the master
remembered, done him some little service, for which, contrary to the
custom of that sort of people, he was very grateful. He had come there
laden with corn, and was going up the Archipelago, or towards the
Morea, for more. The cargo he had brought was but a mite compared to
the necessities of the place; it only relieved the soldiers for a
time, and many people of all ages and sexes were still dying every day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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