21 ([return])
[ These gentlemen were Messrs. Waddington and Hanbury, who, after staying a short time in our camp, returned to Egypt. Mr. Waddington, on his return to England, published an account of his travels on the upper Nile, in which, having been misled by the tongue of some mischievous enemy of mine, he gave an account of me not a little fabulous. On my arrival in London, I wrote to Mr. Waddington what he was pleased to call a "manly and temperate letter," informing him of his error, representing to him the serious injury it might do me, and calling upon him for a justification or an apology. Mr. Waddington, in the manner best becoming an English gentleman, frankly gave me both, concluding with the following expressions—"I feel the most sincere and profound sorrow for the unintentional injustice into which I have been betrayed by too hasty a belief of false information. For this I am as anxious to make you reparation, as I am incapable of doing any person a willful injury. I will therefore cause the note in question to be erased in the following editions of my book; and in the remaining copies of the present, I will instantly insert a new page or sheet, if necessary; or should that be impossible, I will immediately destroy the whole impression." It was impossible for me, after this, to retain any of the angry feelings excited by this affair, excepting towards "the false tongue" that occasioned it, on which I cordially imprecate a plentiful portion of the "sharp arrows of the mighty and coals of juniper.">[
22 ([return])
[ The desperate courage of these wretched peasants was astonishing; they advanced more than once to the muzzles of the cannon, and wounded some of the cannoneers in the act of re-loading their guns. Notwithstanding their efforts, such was the disparity of their arms against cannon and fire-arms, that only one of the Pasha's soldiers was killed, and they are said to have lost seven hundred in the battle and during the pursuit.]
23 ([return])
[ I say "shot down," for the saber was found an unavailing weapon, as these people are so adroit in the management of their shields that they parried every stroke. I have seen upon the field where this battle was fought several shields that had not less than ten or fifteen saber cuts, each lying upon the dead body of the man who carried it, who had evidently died by three or four balls shot into him. The soldiers have told me that they had frequently to empty their carabine and pistols upon one man before he would fall.]
24 ([return])
[ When our troops approached the castle of Malek Zibarra, his daughter, a girl of about fifteen, fled in such haste that she dropped one of her sandals, which I have seen. It was a piece of workmanship as well wrought as any thing of the kind could be even in Europe. The girl was taken prisoner and brought to the Pasha, who clothed her magnificently in the Turkish fashion and sent her to her father, desiring her to tell him to "come and surrender himself, as he preferred to have brave men for his friends than for his enemies." When the girl arrived at the camp of Zibarra, the first question her father asked her was, "My child, in approaching your father, do you bring your honor with you?" "Yes," replied the girl, "otherwise I should not dare to look upon you. The Pasha has treated me as his child, has clothed me as you see, and desires that you would leave war to make peace with him." Zibarra was greatly affected, and did make several efforts to effect a peace with the Pasha, which were traversed and frustrated by the other chiefs of the Shageias.]
25 ([return])
[ Khalil Aga, who has passed the whole of the third Cataract, found in several of the islands there ruins which were probably those of monasteries, as he found there many of the stones covered with Greek inscriptions, one of which he brought to me; I was obliged to abandon it on the route, on the dying of the camel that carried it.]