Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/589

 Subordination, if now not entirely gone, was expiring, so that I scarcely expected to have interest enough with my own servants to help me to set up my large quadrant: Yet I was exceedingly curious to know the situation of this remarkable place, which Idris the Hybeer declared to be halfway to Assouan. But it seems their curiosity was not less than mine; above all, they wanted to prove that Idris was mistaken, and that we were considerably nearer to Egypt than we were to Barbar. While Idris and the men filled the skins with water, the Greeks and I set up the quadrant, and, by observation of the two bright stars of Orion, I found the latitude of Chiggre to be 20° 58' 30" N.; so that, allowing even some small error in the position of Syene in the French maps, Idris's guess was very near the truth, and both the latitude and longitude of Chiggre and Syene seemed to require no further investigation.

During the whole time of the observation, an antelope, of a very large kind, went several times round and round the quadrant; and at the time when my eyes were fixed upon the star, came so near as to bite a part of my cotton cloth which I had spread like a carpet to kneel on. Even when I stirred, it would leap about two or three yards from me, and then stand and gaze with such attention, that it would have appeared to by-standers (had there been any) that we had been a long time acquainted. The first idea was the common one, to kill it. I easily could have done this with a lance; but it seemed so interested in what I was doing, that I began to think it might perhaps be my good genius which had come to visit, protect, and encourage me in the desperate situation in which I then was.