Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/642

 I was exceedingly angry, but weak in health and spirits; besides, I despised the Imam heartily, and was determined to be silent. But directly addressing himself to me, which he hitherto had not done, "I wonder, says he, how a Kafr like you, a man of no more worth than the dust under a mussulman's feet, should dare to wear a white turban, which none are permitted to do but true believers, and men of consideration in learning, or in the law!" I could hold no longer. "Kafr! said I, do you call me? You are a Kafr yourself. I worship God as you do, and Jesus Christ, whom Mahomet calls Rouch Ullah, the Spirit of God. Kafrs worship stones and trees, are ill-bred, and rude in manners, such as you are. Sir, said I to the Aga, I demand of you if the grand signior, whose firman you have in your hand, when writing of me, calls me Kafr? Does Ali Bey, and the Porte of Janizaries, use such opprobrious expressions? If they do not, you suffer me to be affronted in contempt of their orders, in a fortress which you command in the grand signior's name, which is not to your credit either as a mussulman or a soldier."—"He is right," says an old man, who seemed to be a secretary. "Moullah, says the Aga, I did not expect this from you; I did not think you could be so absurd as to ask any man, returning from so dangerous a journey as his, the reason of the colour of his turban."—"I do not refer that to his discretion, said I, there is my firman; I insist upon its being read at the divan, and I will afterwards dress my head and my body in any colour that is permitted me therein, and that I know is every sort of colour, and I insist that my firman may be read in the Divan."