THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. sr 
tially engaged Achmet, his uncle the Naybe would have 
cut our throats. I heard two girls, profeffors hired for fuch 
 occafions, fing alternately verfe for verfe in reply to each 
other, in the moft agreeable and melodious manner | ever 
heard in my life. This gave me great hopes that, in Abyf- 
finia, I fhould find mufic in a ftate of perfection little ex- 
pected in Europe. Upon inqutry into particulars I was 
miferably difappointed, by being told thefe muficians were 
all ftrangers from Azab, the myrrh country, where all the 
people were natural muficians, and fung in a better {tile 
than that I had heard; but that nothing of this kind was 
known in Abyflinia, a mountainous, barbarous country, 
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 Cufhites, not Shep- 
herds. — 
1, HOWEVER, made myfelf mafter 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 ftrange to Mafuah and Abyffinia. I had fre- 
quent interviews with thefe muficians in the evening ; they 
were perfe€tly black and woolly-headed. Being flaves, they 
fpoke both Arabic and Tigre, but could fing in neither ; and, 
from every poffible 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 ftay in 
the barbarous country to which I was then going, and the 
neceflary part J], much againit my will, was for felf-prefer- 
G2 vation 
