Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/308

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TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

in the least, the import of the terms, I give it to the reader that he may know by what description he is to buy an excellent sabre. It is called Suggaro Tabanne Haresanne Agemmi, for Sidi Hassan of Furshout.

Although pretty much used to stifle my resentment upon impertinences of this kind, I could not, after the trick he had played me with the Ababdé, carry it indifferently; I threw the billet before the Bey, saying to Hassan, "A sword of that value would be useless and misemployed in the hand of a coward and a traitor, such as surely you must be sensible I know you to be." He looked to the Bey as if appealing to him, from the incivility of the observation; but the Bey, without scruple, answered, "It is true, it is true what he says, Hassan; if I was in Ali Bey's place, when you dared use a stranger of mine, or any stranger, as you have done him, I would plant you upon a sharp stake in the market-place, till the boys in the town stoned you to death; but he has complained of you in a letter, and I will be a witness against you before Hamam, for your conduct is not that of a Mussulman."

While I was engaged with the Ababdé, a vessel was seen in distress in the offing, and all the boats went out and towed her in. It was the vessel in which the twenty-five Turks had embarked, which had been heavily loaded. Nothing is so dreadful as the embarkation in that sea; for the boats have no decks; the whole, from stern to stem, being filled choak-full of wheat, the waste, that is the slope of the vessel, between the height of her stem and stern, is filled up by one plank on each side, which is all that is above the surface of the waves. Sacks, tarpaulins, or mats, are strowed along

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