THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. tay 
thy traveller had been treated for darmg to maintain that 
he had eat part of a lion, a ftory I have already taken no- 
tice of in my introduction. They faid, that, being convin- 
ced by thefe connoiffeurs his having eat any part of a lion 
‘was impofible, he had abandoned this affertion.altogether, and 
-after only mentioned it in an appendix; and this*was the 
fartheft I could pofflibly venture. 
Far from being a convert to fuch prudential reafons, ‘I 
amuft 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 f 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, thatthe Aby/flinians 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 fhall be given to read 
‘this hiftory 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. 
Ar-11 o'clock of the 20th, we pitched our tent ina fmail 
plain, by the banks of a quick clear running ftream; the'fpot 
is called Mai-Shum. There are no villages, at leaft 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 
Degged our ailiftance againft.a number of wild boars, which 
Vet. Ill. I carried 
