He then gave me the gun sullenly enough; and I continued, “I will this very night present you with one of the handsomest Turkish sashes that Mahomet has to sell. I saw him in the king’s house, with many new ones that he had procured, a little before I went to Emfras.” I cannot pretend to say whether his visage cleared up, for he was still perfectly hid with the carpet, as it began to grow cool as well as dark; but the sight of the lights in the houses of Dara, and the promise of the new cloaths and the sash, had very much softened his voice and expressions. “Sir, says he, bringing his mule close up to mine, now, _you are not in a passion_, one may speak to you. Do you not think that it is tempting Providence to come so far from your own country to seek these d--n’d weeds and flowers, at the risk of having your throat cut every hour of the day, and, what is _worse_, my throat cut too, and of being gelded into the bargain? Are there no weeds, and bogs, and rivers in your own country? what have you to do with that d--n’d Nile, where he rises, or whether he rises at all, or not? What will all those trees and branches do for you when these horrid blacks have done your business, as they were near doing mine? He then made a sign towards his girdle with his fingers, which made me understand what he meant--“Nile, says he, curse upon his father’s head the day that he was born.” “Strates, replied I gravely, he has no father, and was never _born_. _Fertur sine teste creatus_, says the poet.”--“There’s your Latin again; the poet is an ass and a blockhead, let him be who he will, continued Strates; and I do maintain, whether you be angry or not, that at Stanchio and Scio there are finer trees than ever you saw, or will see in Abyssinia. There is a tree, says he, that fifty men like you, spreading all your hands round about, would not be able to grasp it. Nay, it is not a tree, it is but half a tree; it is as old, I believe, as Methuselah: Did you ever see it?”--“I tell you, friend Strates, said I, I never was at Scio in my life, and, therefore, could not see it.”--“Nor at Stanchio?”--Yes, I have been at Stanchio, and have seen the large plane-tree there. I believe it may be about eighteen or twenty feet in circumference.”--“Galen and Hippocrates lived, adds he, there together, 2000 years before our Saviour: Did you ever hear that?”--“I have read, said I, Strates, that, about 500 years before Christ, Hippocrates did live there; but Galen was not born till 200 years after Christ. I do not recollect if he was ever at Stanchio; but, surely, never lived there with Hippocrates.”