Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/644

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TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

All now was confusion. I cried, "Hagi Ismael, for God's sake forbear." Every body spoke, no body heard. The Moullah had crossed the room and sat down beside the Aga, who said to him very sternly, "What Yagoube may do, and what he may not do, in Syene, has never been confided to you, though it has been to me, and I have not thought it necessary to take your advice upon it. This man is the servant of a king. Were you to insult him in Constantinople, his complaint would cost a much greater man than you his life, even this day before sun-set. Who taught you to call him Kafr whom you had never before seen, and then abuse the janizary, who, besides, is a sherriffe, and an aged man, whose hand better men than you kiss when they meet him in the street? Go home and learn wisdom, since you cannot teach it; at least, don't make the grand signior's castle the scene of your abuse and folly." The Moullah upon this rebuke departed, very much humbled.

As Michael had brought the drawings, I turned to the trees and flowers. The Aga was greatly pleased with them, and laughed, putting them up to his nose as if smelling them. They did not offend him, as they were not the likeness of any thing that had life. I then shewed him a fish, and reached the book to an old man with a long beard, but who had a very chearful countenance. He looked at it with great surprise. The Aga had several times called him his father. "Do not be angry, says he to me, if I ask you a question. I am not such a man as the Moullah that is gone." "I will answer all your questions with pleasure, said I, and, in your turn, you must not take the answer ill." "No, no, said two or three of them, Hagi Soliman knows better." Soliman. "Do you not believe, says he, that that fish will rise