Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/626

598 duct them. These were all to be thrown away, with other not less valuable papers, and, with my quadrant, telescopes, and time-keeper, abandoned to the rude and ignorant hands of robbers, or to be buried in the sands. Every memorandum, every description, sketch, or observation since I departed from Badjoura and passed the desert to Cosseir, till I reached the present spot, were left in an undigested heap, with our carrion-camels, at Saffieha, while there remained with me, in lieu of all my memoranda, but this mournful consideration, that I was now to maintain the reality of these my tedious perils, with those who either did, or might affect, from malice and envy, to doubt my veracity upon my ipse dixit alone, or abandon the reputation of the travels which I had made with so much courage, labour, danger, and difficulty, and which had been considered as desperate and impracticable to accomplish for more than 2000 years.

I be understood not to mean by this, that my thoughts were at such a time in the least disturbed with any reflection on the paltry lies that might be propagated in malignant circles, which has each its idol, and who, meeting, as they say, for the advancement of learning, employ themselves in blasting the fame of those who must be allowed to have surpassed them in every circumstance of intrepidity, forethought, and fair achievement. The censure of these lion-faced and chicken-hearted critics never entered as an ingredient in my sorrows on that occasion in the sadness of my heart; if I had not possessed a share of spirit enough to despise these, the smallest trouble that occurred in my travels must have overcome a mind so feebly armed. My sorrows were of another kind, that I should, of course, be deprived of a considerable part of an offering I meant