THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 569 



feveral defigns or neceflities required. Thefe v/cre Jaheleen 

 Arabs, thofe cruel, barbarous fanatics, that deliberately (hed 

 fo much blood during the time they were eftablifliing the 

 Mahometan religion. Their prejudices had never been re- 

 moved by any mixture of ftrangers, or foftened by fociety, 

 even with their own nation after they were poliflied ; but 

 buried, as it were, in thefe wild deferts, if they were not 

 grown more favage, they had at leaft preferved, in their 

 full vigour, thofe murdering principles which they had 

 brought with them into that country, under the brutal and 

 inhuman butcher Kaled Ibn el Waalid, impioufly called 

 n^be Sword of God. If it fliculd be our lot to fall among thefe 

 people, and it was next to a certainty that we were at that 

 very inftant furrounded by them, death was certain, and 

 our only comfort was, that we could die but once, and that 

 to die like men was in our own option. Indeed, without 

 confidering the bloody character which thefe wretches na- 

 turally bear, there could be no reafon for letting us live.: 

 We could be of no fervice to them as flaves ; and to have 

 fent us into Egypt, after having firfl rifled and deftroyed our 

 goods, could not be done by them but at a great expence, 

 to which well-inclined people only could have been induced 

 from charity, and of thatlaft virtue they had not even heard 

 .the name. Our only ciiance then remaining was, that their 

 number might be fo fmall, that, by our great fuperiority in 

 fire-arms and in courage, we might turn the misfortune 

 upon the aggreiTors, deprive them of their camels and 

 means of carrying water, and leave them fcattered in the 

 defert, to that death which either they or we, without al- 

 ternative, mufl: fuifer. 



¥0L. IV. 4 G I EXPLAINED 



