5i2 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



He now put on a look of more complacency. "Look you, 

 Yagoube, fays he, it is true I can do it ; and, for the king's 

 fake who recommended it to me, I would do it; but the 

 Acab Saat, Abba Salama, has fent to me, to defire me not to 

 let you pais further; he fays it is againft the law of the land 

 to permit Franks like you to go about the country, and that 

 he has dreamed fomething ill will befal me if you go into 

 Maitfha." 1 was as much irritated as 1 thought it poffible for 

 me to be. " So fo,faid I,the time of priefts, prophets, and dream- 

 ers is coming on again." " I underfland you, fays he laugh- 

 ing for the firft time ; I care as little for priefts as Michael 

 does, and for prophets too, but I would have you confider 

 the men of this country are not like yours ; a boy of thefe 

 Galla would think nothing of killing a man of your coun- 

 try. You white people are all effeminate ; you are like fo 

 many women ; you are not fit for going into a province 

 where all is war, and inhabited by men, warriors from their 

 cradle." 



I saw he intended to provoke me; and he had fucceeded 

 fo effectually that I mould have died, 1 believe, imprudent 

 as it was, if I had not told him my mind in reply. " Sir, 

 faid I, I have paffed through many of the moft barbarous 

 nations in the world ; all of them, excepting this clan of 

 yours, have fome great men among them above tiring a de- 

 fencelefs ftranger ill. But the worft and loweft individual 

 among the moft uncivilized people never treated me as you 

 have done to-day under your own roof, where 1 have come fo 

 far for protection." He afked, " How ?" " You have, in the firft 

 place, faid I, publicly called me Frank, the moll odious 

 name in this country, and fufficient to occafion me to be 

 ftoned to death without further ceremony, by any fet of 

 3 men 



