THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 14$ 



thy traveller had been treated for daring to maintain that 

 he had eat part of a lion, a ftory I have already taken no- 

 tice of in ray introduction. They faid, that, being convin- 

 ced by thefe connoifTeurs his having eat any part of a lion 

 was impofibk, he had abandoned this aflertion altogether, and 

 after only mentioned it in an appendix ; and this was the 

 fartheft I could pombly venture. 



Far from being a convert to fuch prudential reafons, I 

 inuft for ever profefs openly, that I think them unworthy 

 of me. To reprefent as truth a thing I know to be a falfe- 

 hood, not to avow a truth which I know I ought to declare; 

 the one is fraud, the other cowardice ; I hope I am equally 

 diftant from them both ; and I pledge myfelf never to retract 

 the fact here advanced, that the Abyflinians do feed in com- 

 mon upon live flefh, and that I myfelf have, for feveral years, 

 been partaker of that difagreeable and beaftly diet. On the 

 contrary, I have no doubt, when time mail be given to read 

 this hiilory to an end, there will be very few, if they have 

 candour enough to own it, that will not be afhamed of ever 

 having doubted. 



At 1 1 o'clock of the 20th, we pitched our tent in a fmall 

 plain, by the banks of a quick clear running ftream ; the fpot 

 is called Mai-Shum. There are no villages, at lead that we 

 faw, here. A peafant had made a very neat little garden on 

 both fides of the rivulet, in which he had fown abundance 

 of onions and garlic, and he had a fpecies of pumpkin, 

 which I thought was little inferior to a melon. This man 

 guefled by our arms and horfes that we were hunters, and 

 he brought us a prefent of the fruits of his garden, and 

 begged our ailillance againfl-a number of wild boars, which 



Vol. III. T -carried 



