Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (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
Petros was returned when I arrived, and waited for me at Hagi Saleh’s
house. Although he shewed all the signs of my being welcome, yet it was
easy to read in his countenance he had not succeeded according to his
wish, in his interview with Michael, or that he had met something that
had ruffled and frightened him anew. And, indeed, this last was the
case, for going to the Ras’s tent, he had seen the stuffed skin of the
unfortunate Woosheka, with whom he was well acquainted, swinging upon a
tree, and drying in the wind. He was so terrified, and struck with such
horror, at the sight, that he was in a kind of hysteric fit, cried,
started, laughed hideously, and seemed as if he had in part lost his
senses.
I was satisfied by the state I saw him in, though he had left Ibaba
three days, that, as the first sight of Woosheka’s stuffed skin must
have been immediately before he went to the Ras, he could not have had
any distinct or particular conversation with him on my account; and
it turned out after, that he had not spoken one word upon the subject
from fear, but had gone to the tent of Negadè Ras Mahomet, who carried
him to Kefla Yasous; that they, too, seeing the fright he was in, and
knowing the cause, had gone without him to the Ras, and told him of my
arrival, and of the behaviour of Abba Salama, and my fear thereupon,
and that I was then in the house of Hagi Saleh, in the Moorish town.
The Ras’s answer was, “Abba Salama is an ass, and they that fear him
are worse. Do I command in Gondar only when I stay there? My dog is of
more consequence in Gondar than Abba Salama.” And then, after pausing a
little, he said, “Let Yagoube stay where he is in the Moors town; Saleh
will let no priests trouble him there.” Negadé Ras Mahomet laughed,
and said, “We will answer for that;” and Petros set out immediately
upon his return, haunted night and day with the ghost of his friend
Woosheka, but without having seen Ras Michael.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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