to perish with hunger, or of dispatching me at once with their scimeters; but my anxious doubts were very soon removed by the appearance of my master, leading a camel, which being compelled to kneel, I was ordered to mount.

We set forward in an easterly direction, and in consequence of the food with which we had been supplied, travelled with much better spirits than we had done before--a little before sunset, we came to a well of tolerable good water, where were a large company of Arabs, watering their camels; the strangers were all armed with muskets, and were double our number. Our masters were all mounted, but instantly leaped off their camels, and unsheathing their guns, prepared for action, should the strangers prove enemies. They approached us hastily with a horrible shout--I expected now to see a battle; but when they had arrived within half gun-shot of us, they stopped short, and demanded who we were? of what country we (the slaves) were? and where our masters had found us? To which questions my master briefly replied, assuring them that the place where we had been shipwrecked was but a very short distance, not more than two days travel; and that they had left the beach strewed with many articles of inestimable value, which they were unable to bring away with them--this was a stratagem made use of by my master, to prevent the strangers molesting us; for as they lived by stealing, they conceive that property