144 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
firft Englifhman that fhould fall into their hands. I however 
conceived it polTible to pafs undifcovered ; and fo in fad: it hap- 
pened. Having agreed with an Arab for two dromedaries and 
a man, alfo mounted on a dromedary, for all which I was to 
pay fifteen mahbubs, I left Ghenne at one in the morning of 
8th November 1792, and travelling diligently, arrived at Cofsir 
on the I ith before fun-rife. We took the moft northern route, 
which is not that apparently which Bruce travelled, (and which 
feems to be the longeft by two or three hours,) as being the 
lead frequented by robbers. Our courfe on the firft day occu- 
pied twelve hours, the fecond fifteen, and the third thirteen 
hoars ; in all about forty hours. The principal inhabitants of 
Cofsir came fucceflively to compliment us on our arrival. They 
all fcanned me with an eye of fufpicion, and the more fo as I 
could not yet fpeak the Arabic fluently. But none fo much as 
an old Sherif, a confiderable man in the place, who having tra- 
velled to Mecca, Conftantinople, Bakdad, and other parts of the 
Turkifh empire, had become acquainted with the various orders 
of men, and acquired an intuitive difcrimination of charadter 
which very few in that country poffefs. After the common fa- 
lutations had pafTed, " Are you not a Frank ?" faid he. — " No," 
replied I. — " But of Frank origin ?" — " No," faid I, " I am 
a Georgian by birth, but have paffed fo fhort a time in Con- 
ftantinople, that I believe I cannot fpeak Turkifti much better 
than I do Arabic j" (for I knew he fpoke a little, and was be- 
ginning to addrefs me in that language.) My fervant then 
joined the converfatfon, and I efcaped difcovery. The drefs, 
and apparently the language of the people of Cofsir, approach 
more to thofe of the Eaftern Ihore of the Arabian gulph, than 
to 
