Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/256

148 told you Shekh already, says he, Cursed be the man who lifts his hand against you, or even does not defend and befriend you, to his own loss, were it Ibrahim my own son."

told him I was bound to Cosseir, and that if I found myself in any difficulty, I hoped, upon applying to his people, they would protect me, and that he would give them the word, that I was yagoube, a physician, seeking no harm, but doing good; bound by a vow, for a certain time, to wander through deserts, from fear of God, and that they should not have it in their power to do me harm.

old man muttered something to his sons in a dialect I did not then understand; it was that of the Shepherds of Suakem. As that was the first word he spoke, which I did not comprehend, I took no notice, but mixed some lime-water in a large Venetian bottle that was given me when at Cairo full of liqueur, and which would hold about four quarts; and a little after I had done this the whole hut was filled with people.

were priests and monks of their religion, and the heads of families, so that the house could not contain half of them. The great people among them came, and, after joining hands, repeated a kind of prayer, of about two minutes long, by which they declared themselves, and their children, accursed, if ever they lifted their hands against me in the Tell, or Field in the desert, or on the river; or, in case that I, or mine should fly to