Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/218

202 Nur was brought to him. This prince was of a temper never to avoid a challenge; and if he did not march against Nur immediately, he staid no longer than to complete his army as far as possible. He then began his march for Adel, very much, as it is said, against the advice of his friends.

such advice should be given, at this particular time, appears strange; for till now he had been constantly victorious, and his kingdom was perfectly obedient, which was not the case when any one of the former battles had been fought. But many prophecies were current in the camp, that the king was to be unfortunate this campaign, and was to lose his life in it. These unfortunate rumours tended much to discourage the army, at the same time that they seemed to have a contrary effect on the king, and to confirm him in his resolution to fight. The truth is, the clergy, who had seen the country delivered by him from the Mahometans, in a manner almost miraculous, and the constancy with, which he withstood the Romish patriarch, and frustrated the designs of his father against the Alexandrian church, and who had experienced his extreme liberality in rebuilding the churches, had wrought his young mind to such a degree of enthusiasm that he was often heard to say, he preferred a death in the middle of an army of Infidels to the longest and most prosperous life that ever fell to the lot of man. It needed not a prophet to have foretold the likely issue of a battle in these circumstances, where the king, careless of life, rather fought death than victory; where the number of Portuguese was so small as to be incapable, of themselves, to effect any thing; where, even of that number, those that were attached to the king were looked upon as traitors by those of the party of the patriarch; and where