Having past the perverstnesse of this calamity, upon the seaventh day, wee rancountred with another soyle, The Tribe of the Hagans or Jamnites.and worser tribe of the Hagans or Jamnites, most part whereof were white Moores, a people more uglye then the Nigroes, yet some of the better sort had their members covered, but of condition farre more wicked then the former.
They are ruled by a Seriff, whose Guard is composed of women, and young Balars, pages; seeming rather to live without Religion, then acknowledging any kinde of Deity. Here my Dragoman, doubting of his passage, and the difficilnesse of the Countrey, which arose from his ignorantnesse thereof, was inforced to hyre a Hagan guide, to bring us to the province of Abadud, bordering with Æthiopia. But by your leave, our guide having led us for five dayes together South-eastward, and almost contrary to our purpose: in the sixt night of our Repose, he stole away, eyther for feare or falshood, mistaking our journey, or deceiving us for despight, the halfe of his Wages being payed him before. Well, the Villaine gone, [VIII. 374.]and my Dragoman the next day continuing our faces, in the same Arte, wee were long or night involved in a dis-inhabited Country, being Desartuous and dangerous for Wilde beasts, and full of Mountaynes. Pitching our Tent neare to a Rocke, we burnt all that night shrubs of Tara, to affright the Beasts of all kinds, and so did we every night of that wofull wandring, which flaming light [VIII. 375.]their nature cannot abide. Day come, and our comfort yet fresh, we sought further in, thinking to finde people and Tents to relieve us with Victuales, and informe us of the Countrey, but we found none, neither seven daies thereafter. The matter growing hard, and our victuals and water done, we were forced to relye upon Tobacco, and to drinke our owne wayning pisse, for the time aforesayd.
The Soyle we daily traced, was covered with hard and soft Sands, and them full of Serpents, being interlarded with Rockey heights, faced with Caves and Dens: the very habitacle of Wilde beasts, whose hollow cryes, as we heard in the night, so we too often sighted their bodies in the The Wilde Beasts of the Libian Desarts.day, especially Jackals, Beares, and Boares, and sometimes Cymbers, Tygers, and Leopards, agaynst whom in the day time if they approached us, we eyther shot off a Harquebuse, or else flashed some powder in the Ayre; the smell whereof, no ravenous beast can abide.
This vast Wildernesse is a part of the Berdoans Countrey, one of the foure tribes of the olde Lybians, the Sabuncks, the Carmines, and the Southerne Garolines, being the other three. And now to helpe the expression of my grievous distresse and miseries, my Muse must lament the rest.
The Author in the Libyan Desart
Ah! sightlesse desarts! fil’d with barren Sands!
And parched plaines; where huge and hilly lands
Have stone-fac’d scurrile bounds: O monstrous feare!