THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. S i 



tially engaged Achmer, his uncle the Naybe would have 

 cut our throats. I heard two girls, profefibrs hired for fucii 

 occafions, fing alternately verfe for verfe in reply to each 

 other, in the moil agreeable and melodious manner I ever 

 heard in my life. This gave me great hopes that, in Abyf- 

 finia, I mould find mufic in a Hate of perfection little ex- 

 pected in Europe. Upon inquiry into particulars I was 

 miferably difappointed, by being told thefe muficians were 

 all flrangers from Azab, the myrrh country, where all the 

 people were natural muficians, and lung in a better fHle 

 than that I had heard ; but that nothing of this kind was 

 known in Abyflinia, a mountainous, barbarous ccuntrv, 

 without inftrument, and without fong; and that it was the 

 fame here in Atbara ; a miferable truth, which I afterwards 

 completely verified. Thefe fingers were Cufliites, not Shep- 

 herds. 



I, however, made myfelf mafler of two or three of thefe 

 alternate fongs upon the guitar, the wretched inftrument of 

 that country; and was furprifed to find the words in a lan- 

 guage equally flrange to Mafuah andAbyffinia. I had fre- 

 quent interviews with thefe muficians in the evening ; they 

 were perfectly black and woolly-headed. Being flaves, they 

 fpoke both Arabic and Tigre,but could fmg in neither; and, 

 from every pomble inquiry, I found every thing, allied to 

 counterpoint, was unknown among them. I have fome- 

 times endeavoured to recover fragments of thefe fongs, 

 which I once perfectly knew from memory only, but un- 

 fortunately I committed none of them to writing. Sorrow 

 and various misfortunes, that every day marked my flay in 

 the barbarous country to which I was then going, and the 

 neceffary part I, much againft my will, was for felf-prefer- 



G 2 vation 



