Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/430

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318
TRAVELS TO DISCOVER


just before him, and said, Eh owah Azab Tybe, still with a representation of drinking.

I debated with myself, whether I should not take this savage prisoner. He had three short javelins in his hand, and was mounted upon a camel. I was on foot, and above the ancles in sand, with only two pistols, which, whether they would terrify him to furrender or not, I did not know; I should, otherwise, have been obliged to have shot him, and this I did not intend. After having invited him as courteously as I could, to the boat, I walked towards it myself, and, in the way, took up my firelock, which was lying hid among the sand. I saw he did not follow me a step, but when I had taken the gun from the ground, he set off at a trot as fast as he could, to the westward, and we presently lost him among the trees.

I returned to the boat, and then to dinner on the island, which we named Traitor's Island, from the suspicious behaviour of that only man we had seen near it. This excursion lost me the time of making my observation; all the use I made of it was to gather some sticks and camel's dung, which I heaped up, and made the men carry to the boat, to serve us for firing, if we should be detained. The wind was very fair, and we got under weigh by two o'clock.

About four we passed a rocky island with breakers on its south end, we left it about a mile to the windward of us. The Rais called it Crab-island. About five o'clock we came to an anchor close to a cape of no height, in a small bay, in three fathom of water, and leaving a small island just on our stern. We had not anchored here above ten minutes,

before