“Now, after the drugs I sent you by Ibrahim, tell me, and tell me truly, upon the _faith_ of an _Arab_, would your people, if they met me in the _desert_, do me any wrong, more than _now_, as I have eat and drank with you to-day?”
The old man Nimmer, on this rose from his carpet, and sat upright, a more ghastly and more horrid figure I never saw. “No, said he, Shekh, cursed be those men of _my people_, or _others_, that ever shall lift up their hand against you, either in the _Desert_ or the _Tell_, _i. e._ the part of Egypt which is cultivated. As long as you are in this country, or between this and Cosseir, my son shall serve you with heart and hand; one night of pain that your medicines freed me from, would not be repaid, if I was to follow you on foot to Messir, that is Cairo.”
I then thought it a proper time to enter into conversation about penetrating into Abyssinia that way, and they discussed it among themselves in a very friendly, and at the same time in a very sagacious and sensible manner.
“We could carry you to _El Haimer_, (which I understood to be a well in the desert, and which I afterwards was much better acquainted with to my sorrow.) We could conduct you so far, says old Nimmer, under God, without fear of harm, all that country was Christian once, and _we_ Christians like yourself[137]. The _Saracens_ having nothing in their power there, we could carry you safely to Suakem, but the Bishary are men not to be trusted, and we could go no farther than to land you among them, and they would put you to death, and laugh at you all the time they were tormenting you[138]. Now, if you want to visit Abyssinia, go by Cosseir and Jidda, there _you Christians_ command the country.”
“I told him, I apprehended, the _Kennouss_, about the second cataract, above Ibrim, were bad people. He said the Kennouss were, he believed, bad enough in their hearts, but they were wretched slaves, and servants, had no power in their hands, would not wrong any body that was with his people; if they did, he would extirpate them in a day.”
“I told him, I was satisfied of the truth of what was said, and asked him the best way to Cosseir. He said, the best way for me to go, was from Kenné, or Cuft, and that he was carrying a quantity of wheat from Upper Egypt, while Shekh Hamam was sending another cargo from his country, both which would be delivered at Cosseir, and loaded there for Jidda.”