Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/45

Rh swer him, he again said, "The first time it was visible it brought the small-pox, which has killed above 1000 people in Masuah and Arkeeko. It is known you conversed with it every night at Loheia; it has now followed you again to finish the few that remain, and then you are to carry it into Abyssinia. What have you to do with the comet?"

giving me leave to speak, his brother Emir Achmet then said, That he was informed I was an engineer going to Michael, governor of Tigré, to teach the Abyssinians to make cannon and gunpowder; that the first attack was to be against Masuah. Five or six others spoke much in the same strain; and the Naybe concluded by saying, That he would send me in chains to Constantinople, unless I went to Hamazen, with his brother Emir Achmet, to the hot-wells there, and that this was the resolution of all the janizaries; for I had concealed my being a physician.

not yet opened my mouth. I then asked, If all these were janizaries; and where was their commanding officer? A well-looking, elderly man answered, "I am Sardar of the janizaries."—"If you are Sardar, then," said I, "this firman orders you to protect me. The Naybe is a man of this country, no member of the Ottoman empire." Upon my first producing my firman to him, he threw it aside like waste-paper. The greatest Vizir in the Turkish dominions would have received it standing, bowed his head to the ground, then kissed it, and put it upon his forehead. A general murmur of approbation followed, and I continued,—"Now I must tell you my resolution is, never to go to Hamazen, or elsewhere, with Emir Achmet. Both he and the Naybe have shewed themselves my enemies; and, I be-