They asked me where I came from? I said, from Constantinople, last from Cairo; but begged they would put no more questions to me, as I was not at liberty to answer them. They said they had orders from their masters to bid me welcome, if I was the person that had been recommended to them by the Sherriffe, and was Ali Bey’s physician at Cairo. I said, if Metical Aga had advised them of that, then I was the man. They replied he had, and were come to bid me welcome, and attend me on shore to their masters, whenever I pleased. I begged them to carry my humble respects to their masters; and told them, though I did not doubt of their protection in any shape, yet I could not think it consistent with ordinary prudence, to risk myself at ten o’clock at night, in a town so full of disorder as Yambo appeared to have been for some time, and where so little regard was paid to discipline or command, as to fight with one another. They said that was true, and I might do as I pleased; but the firing that I had heard did not proceed from fighting, but from their rejoicing upon making peace.
In short, we found, that, upon some discussion, the garrison and townsmen had been fighting for several days, in which disorders the greatest part of the ammunition in the town had been expended, but it had since been agreed on by the old men of both parties, that no body had been to blame on either side, but the whole wrong was the work of _a Camel_. _A camel_, therefore, was seized, and brought without the town, and there a number on both sides having met, they upbraided the _camel_ with every thing that had been either said or done. The _camel_ had killed men, _he_ had threatened to set the town on fire; the _camel_ had threatened to burn the Aga’s house, and the castle; _he_ had cursed the Grand Signior, and the Sherriffe of Mecca, the sovereigns of the two parties; and, the only thing the poor animal was interested in, _he_ had threatened to destroy the wheat that was going to Mecca. After having spent great part of the afternoon in upbraiding the _camel_, whose measure of iniquity, it seems, was near full, each man thrust him through with a lance, devoting him _Diis manibus & Diris_, by a kind of prayer, and with a thousand curses upon his head. After which, every man retired, fully satisfied as to the wrongs he had received from the _camel_.