Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/402

292 Dahalac * is a large island, depending upon Masuah, but which has a separate firman, or commission, renewed every two years. This man was a Moor, a servant of the Naybe of Masuah, and he had been at Jidda to procure his firman from Metical Aga, while Mahomet Gibberti was to come with me, and was to bring it to the Naybe. This Abd el cader no sooner was arrived at Masuah, than, following the turn of his country for lying, he spread a report, that a great man, or prince, whom he left at Jidda, was coming speedily to Masuah; that he had brought great presents to the Sherriffe and Metical Aga; that, in return, he had received a large sum in gold from the Sherriffe's Vizir, Yousef Cabil; besides as much as he pleased from the English, who had done nothing but feast and regale him for the several months he had been at Jidda; and that, when he departed, as this great man was now going to visit the Imam in Arabia Felix, all the English ships hoifted their colours, and fired their cannon from morning to night, for three days successively, which was two days after he had sailed, and therefore what he could not possibly have seen. The consequence of all this was, the Naybe of Masuah expected that a man with immense treasures was coming to put himself into his hands. I look therefore upon the danger I escaped there as superior to all those put together, that I have ever been exposed to: of such material and bad consequence is the most contemptible of all weapons, the tongue of a liar and a fool!


 * The island of the Shepherds.