Page:Monthly scrap book, for October.pdf/5

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SCRAP BOOK
5

"In the month of August, a small caravan prepared to set out from Berber to Daraou. They consisted of five merchants and about thirty slaves, with a proportionate number of camels. Afraid of the roboer Naym, who at that time was in the habit of waylaying travellers about the well of (illegible text)edjeym, and who had constant intelligence of the departure of every caravan from Berber, they determined to take a more eastern road, by the well Owareyk. They had hired an Ababde guide, who conducted them in safety to that place, but who lost his way from thence northward, the route being very unfrequented. After five days' march in the mountains their stock of water was exhausted, nor did they know where they were. They resolved, therefore, to direct their course toward the setting sun, hoping thus to reach the Nile, after two days' thirst; fifteen slaves and one of the merchants died; another of them, an Ababde, who had ten camels with him, thinking that the camels might know better than their masters where water was to be found, desired his comrades to tie him fast upon the saddle of his strongest camel, that he might not fall down from weakness; and thus be parted from them, permitting his camels to take their own way: but neither the man nor his camel were ever heard of afterwards. On the eighth day after leaving Owareyk, the survivors came in sight of the mountains of Shigre, which they immediately recognized; but their strength was quite exhausted, and neither men nor beasts were able to move any farther. Lying down under a rock they sent two of then servants, with the