THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 619 



all confiimcd, and likewife fome rice, if they had any. Uoon 

 the Arab's firil delivering his mcffage the fathers treated him 

 as an irapollor, declaring that they knew from good au- 

 thority that I was drowned in the Red Sea, which another 

 of them contradidled, being equally pofuive, from the fame 

 good.^uthority, that my death had-happened from robbers 

 in Abyffinia. The Barbarin {a ihrewd fellow) defired the 

 fathers to obferve, that, if I had been drowned in the Red 

 Sea, it was not poffible I could be flain by robbers on land 

 two years afterwards ; therefore, as oi)e report was certainly 

 falfe, both might be fo, and he allured them this was the 

 cafe, and that I was at How ; but they laughed him to fcorn, 

 and threatened to carry him to Shekh Hamam to puniflr him. 

 The poor fellow anfwered very pertinently. If I had come 

 in Yagoube's name for gold or fdver, then you might have 

 diftrufted me ; but fure it is not v/orth my v/hile to hire a 

 camel to come here from How, and go back again to cheat 

 you out of two loaves of bread and a pound of rice, Vv^hich I 

 never tailed myfelf till I was with Yagoube, who made us 

 partake of every thing that he ate as long as it lafled, and 

 failed with us when our meat was exhaufced." They con- 

 tinued to allc him, where he had found me ? The fellow 

 faid, At Ras el Feel ; and not being able to dcfcribe where 

 that was, a frefli altercation began, in which it v/as con- 

 cluded betwixt the two reverend difputants, that I had been 

 drowned three years before in the Red Sea, and therefore all 

 the flory of Ras el Feel muft be a lie. 



It happened, as indeed was often the cafe in thcfe mat- 

 ters, that my Greek fervant Michael had been more orovi- 

 dent than I. He had thought fomethingof this kind might 

 be poffible, and therefore had defircd the Barbarin, if fo it 



4^2 happened, 



