vast desert; and indeed we saw a hundred of them to one of any other kinds.

One evening we were very much surprised; we were most of us laid down on our mats to sleep, when our watch came running in among us, being frightened with the sudden roaring of some lions just by them, which, it seems, they had not seen, the night being dark, till they were just upon them. There was, as it proved, an old lion and his whole family, for there was the lioness and three young lions, besides the old king, who was a monstrous great one: one of the young ones, who were good large well-grown ones too, leaped up upon one of our negroes, who stood sentinal, before he saw him, at which he was heartily frightened, cried out, and ran into the tent: our other man, who had a gun, had not presence of mind at first to shoot him, but struck him with the but-end of his piece, which made him whine a little, and then growl at him fearfully; but the fellow retired, and, we being all alarmed, three of our men snatched up their guns, ran to the tent door, where they saw the great old lion by the fire of his eyes, and first fired at him, but, we supposed, missed him, or at least did not kill him; for they went all off, but raised a most hideous roar, which, as if they had called for help, brought down a prodigious number of lions, and other furious creatures, we know not what, about them, for we could not see them; but there was a noise and yelling, and howling, and all sort of such wilderness music on every side of us, as if all the beasts of the desert were assembled to devour us.

We asked our black prince what we should do with them. Me go, says he, and fright them all. So he snatches up two or three of the worst of our mats, and, getting one of our men to strike some fire, he hangs the mat up at the end of a pole, and set it on fire, and it blazed abroad a good while, at which the creatures all moved off, for we heard them roar, and make their bellowing noise at a great distance. Well, says our gunner, if that will do, we need not burn our mats, which are our beds to lay under us, and our tilting to cover us. Let me alone, says he. So he comes back into our tent, and falls to making some artificial fire-works, and the like; and he gave our sentinels some to be ready at hand upon occasion, and particularly he placed a great piece of

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wildfire upon the same pole that the mat had been tied to, and set it on fire, and that burnt there so long that all the wild creatures left us for that time.

However, we began to be weary of such company, and, to get rid of them, we set forward again two days sooner than we intended. We found now that, though the desert did not end, nor could we see any appearance of it, yet that the earth was pretty full of green stuff, of one sort or another, so that our cattle had no want; and, secondly, that there were several little rivers which ran into the lake, and, so long as the country continued low, we found water sufficient, which eased us very much in our carriage, and we went on still sixteen days more without yet coming to any appearance of better soil. After this we found the country rise a little, and by that we perceived that the water would fail us; so, for fear of the worst, we filled our bladder bottles with water. We found the country rising gradually thus for three days continually, when, on the sudden, we perceived, that though we had mounted up insensibly, yet that we were on the top of a very high ridge of hills, though not such as at first.

CHAPTER VII.

WE REACH THE END OF THE DESERT-A PLEASANT COUNTRY SUCCEEDS ARRIVAL AT THE GOLDEN RIVER-WE AGREE ΤΟ SEARCH FOR GOLD, AND DIVIDE THE WHOLE PROCEEDS EQUALLY-THE WET SEASON COMMENCING, WE ENCAMP ON THE BANKS OF THE RIVER-DESCRIPTION OF OUR CAMP-DANGERS FROM MULTITUDES OF WILD BEASTS -WE STRIKE OUR CAMP, AND TRAVEL THROUGH AN INHOSPITABLE COUNTRY.

WHEN We came to look down on the other side of the hills, we saw, to the great joy of all our hearts, that the desert was at an end; that the country was clothed with green, abundance of trees, and a large river; and we made no doubt but that we should find people and cattle also. And here, by our gunner's account, who kept our computations, we had marched about four hundred miles over this dismal

place of horror, having been four-and-thirty days a-doing of it, and, consequently, were come about eleven hundred miles of our journey.

We would willingly have descended the hills that night, but it was too late. The next morning we saw everything more plain, and rested ourselves under the shade of some trees, which were now the most refreshing things imaginable to us, who had been scorched above a month without a tree to cover us. We found the country here very pleasant, especially considering that we came from; and we killed some deer here also, which we found very frequent under the cover of the woods. Also we killed a creature like a goat, whose flesh was very good to eat, but it was no goat. We found also a great number of fowls, like partridge, but something smaller, and were very tame; so that we lived here very well, but found no people—at least, none that would be seen-no, not for several days' journey; and, to allay our joy, we were almost every night disturbed with lions and tigers. Elephants we saw none here.

In three days' march we came to a river, which we saw from the hills, and which we called the Golden river; and we found it ran northward, which was the first stream we had met with that did so. It ran with a very rapid current, and our gunner, pulling out his map, assured me that this was either the river Nile, or ran into the great lake out of which the river Nile was said to take its beginning; and he brought out his charts and maps, which, by his instruction, I began to understand very well, and told me he would convince me of it, and indeed he seemed to make it so plain to me that I was of the same opinion.

But I did not enter into the gunner's reason for this inquiry-not in the least-till he went on with it further, and stated it thus: If this is the river Nile, why should we not build some more canoes, and go down this stream, rather than to expose ourselves to any more deserts and scorching sands, in quest of the sea, which, when we are come to, we shall be as much at a loss how to get home as we were at Madagascar.

The argument was good had there been no objections in the way, of a kind which none of us were capable of answering; but, upon the whole, it was an undertaking of such a nature that every one of us thought it impracticable,

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and that upon several accounts; and our surgeon, who was himself a good scholar, and a man of reading, though not acquainted with the business of sailing, opposed it, and some of his reasons, I remember, were such as these: first, the length of the way, which both he and the gunner allowed, by the course of the water and turnings of the river, would be at least four thousand miles; secondly, the innumerable crocodiles in the river, which we should never be able to escape; thirdly, the dreadful deserts in the way; and, lastly, the approaching rainy season, in which the streams of the Nile would be so furious, and rise so high, spreading far and wide over all the plain country, that we should never be able to know when we were in the channel of the river and when not, and should certainly be cast away, overset, or run aground so often that it would be impossible to proceed by a river so excessively dangerous.

This last reason he made so plain to us, that we began to be sensible of it ourselves; so that we agreed to lay that thought aside, and proceed in our first course westwards towards the sea: but, as if we had been loath to depart, we continued, by way of refreshing ourselves, to loiter two days upon this river, in which time our black prince, who delighted much in wandering up and down, came one evening, and brought us several little bits of something, he knew not what; but he found it felt heavy, and looked well, and showed it to me, as what he thought was some rarity. I took not much notice of it to him, but stepping out and calling the gunner to me, I showed it to him, and told him what I thought, viz., that it was certainly gold: he agreed with me in that, and also in what followed, that we would take the black prince out with us the next day, and make him show us where he found it; that, if there was any quantity to be found, we would tell our company of it; but, if there was but little, we would keep counsel, and have it to ourselves.

But we forgot to engage the prince in the secret, who innocently told so much to all the rest, as that they guessed what it was, and came to us to see: when we found it was public, we were more concerned to prevent their suspecting that we had any design to conceal it, and openly telling our thoughts of it, we called our artificer, who agreed presently that it was gold; so I proposed, that we should all go with the prince to the place where he found it, and, if any quantity was to be

had, we would lie here some time, and see what we could make of it.

Accordingly, we went every man of us, for no man was willing to be left behind in a discovery of such a nature. When we came to the place, we found it was on the west side of the river, not in the main river, but in another small river or stream which came from the west, and ran into the other at that place. We fell to raking in the sand, and washing it in our hands, and we seldom took up a handful of sand, but we washed some little round lumps as big as a pin's head, or sometimes as big as a grape-stone, into our hands, and we found, in two or three hours' time, that every one had got some, so we agreed to leave off, and go to dinner.

While we were eating, it came into my thoughts, that while we worked at this rate in a thing of such nicety and consequence, it was ten to one if the gold, which was the makebate of the world, did not, first or last, set us together by the ears, to break our good articles and our understanding one among another, and perhaps cause us to part companies, or worse; I therefore told them, that I was indeed the youngest man of the company, but, as they had always allowed me to give my opinion in things, and had been sometimes pleased to follow my advice, so I had something to propose now which I thought would be for all our advantages, and I believed they would all like it very well. I told them we were in a country where we all knew there was a great deal of gold, and that all the world sent ships thither to get it: that we did not indeed know where it was, and so we might get a great deal, or a little, we did not know whether; but I offered it to them to consider, whether it would not be the

best way for us, and to preserve the good harmony and friendship that had been always kept among us, and which was so absolutely necessary to our safety, that what we found should be brought together to one common stock, and be equally divided at last, rather than to run the hazard of any difference which might happen among us, from anyone's having found more or less than another. I told them that, if we were all upon one bottom, we should all apply ourselves heartily to the work; and, besides that, we might then set our negroes all to work for us, and receive equally the fruit of their labour, and of our own, and being all exactly alike sharers, there could be no just cause of quarrel or disgust among us.