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
I soon came up with them, and was more surprised than I had been for
several days, to see them both lie extended on the ground; Strates
bleeding at a large wound in his forehead, speaking Greek to himself,
and crying out his leg was broken, whilst he pressed it with both his
hands below the knee, seemingly regardless of the gash in his head,
which appeared to me a very ugly one, so that I, of course, thought his
leg was still worse. Sebastos was lying stretched along the ground,
scarcely saying any thing, but sighing loudly. Upon my asking him
whether his arm was broken? he answered feebly, that he was a dying
man, and that his legs, his arms, and his ribs were broken to pieces.
I could not for my life conceive how this calamity had happened so
suddenly, for I had not been half an hour absent talking to Kefla
Yasous’s servant; and, what seemed to me still stranger, every body
around them were bursting out into fits of laughter.
Ali Mahomet’s servant, who was the only person that I saw concerned,
upon my asking, told me that it was all owing to prince George, who
had frightened their mules. I have already hinted that this prince was
fond of horsemanship, and rode with saddle, bridle, and stirrups, like
an Arab; and, though young, was become an excellent horseman, superior
to any in Abyssinia. The manner that two Arabs salute one another, when
they meet, is, the person inferior in rank, or age, presents his gun at
the other, about 500 yards distance, charged with powder only; he then,
keeping his gun always presented, gallops these 500 yards as fast as he
can, and, being arrived close, lowers the muzzle of his gun, and pours
the explosion just under the other’s stirrups, or horse’s belly. This
they do, sometimes twenty at a time, and you would often think it was
impossible somebody should escape being bruised or burnt.
The prince had learned this exercise from me, and was very perfect at
the performance of it. We had procured him a short gun, with a lock and
flint instead of a match, and he shot not only justly, but gracefully
on horseback. He had been out after the deer all the morning; and
hearing that I was arrived, and seeing the two Greeks riding on their
mules, he came galloping furiously with his gun presented, and, not
seeing me, he fired a shot under the belly of Strates’s mule, upon the
ground, and wheeling as quick as lightning to the left, regardless of
the mischief he had occasioned, was out of sight in a moment, before he
knew the consequences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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