426 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
were not much pleafed with the king's fervant going be- fore, as we had every reafon to think he was difaiFecftcd to- wards us.
On the 26th, at fix o'clock in the morning, we fet out from this village of Nuba, keeping fomething to the wcfl- ward of 8. W. our way being ftill acrofs this immenfe plain. All the morning there were terrible llorms of thunder and lightning, fome rain, and one fliower of fo large drops that it wet us to the fkin in an inflant. It was quite calm, and every drop fell perpendicularly upon us. I think I never in my life felt fo cold a rain, yet it was not difa- greeable ; for the day was clofe and hot, and we fliould have wiflied every now and then to have had fo moderate a refrigeration ; this, however, was rather too abundant. The villages of the Nuba were, on all fides, throughout this plain. At nine o'clock we arrived at Baiboch, which is a large collection of huts of thefe people, and has the ap- pearance of a town.
The governor, a venerable old man of about feventy, who was fo feeble that he could fcarcely walk, received us with great complacency, only faying, when I took him by the hand, " O Chriftian ! what dofl thou, at fuch a time, in fuch a country ?" I was furprifed at the politcnefs of his fpeech, when he called me Nazarani, the civil term for Chriftian in the eaft ; whereas Infidel is the general term among thefe brutifli people; but it feems he had been fe- veral times at Cairo. I had here a very clean and comfort- able hut to lodge in, though we were fparingly fupplied with provifions all the time we were there, but never were fuiTercd to faft a whole day together.
Basboch
