Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/676

 Mahomet Bey being about to depart to give battle to his father-in-law, I thought it was no longer convenient for me to stay at Cairo; I went therefore the last time to the Bey, who pressed me very much to go to the camp with him. I was sufficiently cured, however, of any more Don Quixotte undertakings. I excused myself with every mark of gratitude and profession of attachment; and I shall never forget his last words, as the handsomest thing ever said to me, and in the politest manner. "You won't go, says he, and be a soldier; What will you do at home? You are not an India merchant?" I said, "No." "Have you no other trade nor occupation but that of travelling?" I said, "that was my occupation." "Ali Bey, my father-in-law, replied he, often observed there was never such a people as the English; no other nation on earth could be compared to them, and none had so many great men in all professions by sea and land: I never understood this till now, that I see it must be so, when your king cannot find other employment for such a man as you, but sending him to perish by hunger and thirst in the sands, or to have his throat cut by the lawless barbarians of the desert."

I saw that the march of the Bey was a signal for all Egypt's being presently in disorder, and I did not delay a moment to set out for Alexandria, where I arrived without any thing remarkable. There I found my ship ready; and the day after, walking on the key, I was accosted by a friend of mine, a Turk, a man of some consequence. He told me it was whispered that the Beys had met, and that Ali Bey had been totally defeated, wounded, and taken, "We are friends, says he; you are a Christian; and this connection of the Bey with the Russians has exasperated the