Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/376
266 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
tained, and had abundance of time, Captain Thornhill, and' fomc other of the gentlemen trading thither, wifhed me to make a furvey of the harbour, and promifed me the afliilance of their officers, boats, and crews. I very wil- lingly undertook it to oblige them. Finding afterwards, however, that one of their number, Captain Newland, had, undertaken it, and that he would be hurt by my interfering,, as he was in fome manner advanced in the work, I gave up all further thoughts of the plan. He was a man of real ingenuity and capacity, as well as very humane, well beha- haved, and one to whom I had been indebted for every fort of attention.
God forgive thofe who have taken upon them, very lately, to ingraft a number of new foundings upon that miferable bundle of errors, that Chart of the upper parr of the Gulf from Jidda to Mocha, which has been toffed about the Red Sea thefe twenty years and upwards. One of thefe, fince my return to Europe, has been fent to me new dreffed like a bride, with all its original and mor- tal fins upon its head. I would beg leave to be under- ftood, that there is not in the world a man more averfe than I am to give offence even to a child. It is not in the fpirit of criticifm I fpeak this. In any other cafe, I would not have made any observations at all. But, where the lives and properties of fo many are at flake yearly, it is a fpecies of treafon to conceal one's fentiments, if the publishing of them can any way contribute to fafety, whatever offence it may give to unreafonable individuals.
Of all the veffels in Jidda, two only had their log 1 properly divided, and yet all were fo fond of their fuppofe
accur;
