Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/580

 S5 6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

the beauty and variety of its plumage. I flopt to make a rough fketch of it, which might be finifhed at more leifure : this was fcarcely done, and we again moving forwards on our journey, when we heard a confufion of fhrill, barbarous cries, and prefently faw a number of horfemen pouring down upon us, with their lances lifted up in a poflure ready to attack us immediately. The ground was woody and uneven, fo they could not make the fpeed they feemed to defire, and we had juft time to put ourfelves upon our defence with our firelocks, mufquets, and blunderbufles in our hands, behind our baggage. Woldo ran feveral paces towards them, knowing them by the cry to be friends, even before he had feen them, which was, Fafil ali, Fafd ali — there is ?ione but Fafil that com?natids here. Upon feeing us with- out any marks of difcompofure, they all flopt with Woldo, and by him we learned that this was the party we had palled commanded by theZa;//Z>, who, after we had left him,' had heard that live Agoxv horfemen had pa/Ted between the army and his party, and from the mot he had feared they* might have attempted fomething againft us, and he had' thereupon come to our aiGftance with all the fpeed pofV fible.

Thus did we fee that this man, who, according to our ideas, feemed in underftanding inferior to moll of the brute- creation, had yet, in executing his orders, a difcernmentf punctuality, activity, and fen fe of duty, equal to any Chris- tian officer who mould have had a like commiffion ; he now appeared to us in a quite different light than when we firft had met him; and his inattention, when we were with him, was the more agreeable, as it left us at our entire liberty, without teazing or moleiling us, when he could be

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