Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/536

 5i2 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

He now put on a look of more complacency. "Look you, Yagoube, fays he, it is true I can do it ; and, for the king's fake who recommended it to me, I would do it; but the Acab Saat, Abba Salama, has fent to me, to defire me not to let you pais further; he fays it is againft the law of the land to permit Franks like you to go about the country, and that he has dreamed fomething ill will befal me if you go into Maitfha." 1 was as much irritated as 1 thought it poffible for me to be. " So fo,faid I,the time of priefts, prophets, and dream- ers is coming on again." " I underfland you, fays he laugh- ing for the firft time ; I care as little for priefts as Michael does, and for prophets too, but I would have you confider the men of this country are not like yours ; a boy of thefe Galla would think nothing of killing a man of your coun- try. You white people are all effeminate ; you are like fo many women ; you are not fit for going into a province where all is war, and inhabited by men, warriors from their cradle."

I saw he intended to provoke me; and he had fucceeded fo effectually that I mould have died, 1 believe, imprudent as it was, if I had not told him my mind in reply. " Sir, faid I, I have paffed through many of the moft barbarous nations in the world ; all of them, excepting this clan of yours, have fome great men among them above tiring a de- fencelefs ftranger ill. But the worft and loweft individual among the moft uncivilized people never treated me as you have done to-day under your own roof, where 1 have come fo far for protection." He afked, " How ?" " You have, in the firft place, faid I, publicly called me Frank, the moll odious name in this country, and fufficient to occafion me to be ftoned to death without further ceremony, by any fet of 3 men