one sort or other, everywhere; that there were many great rivers, many
lions and tigers, elephants, and furious wild cats (which in the end we
found to be civet cats), and the like.

When we asked them if any one had ever travelled that way, they told us
yes, some had gone to where the sun sleeps, meaning to the west, but they
could not tell us who they were. When we asked for some to guide us, they
shrunk up their shoulders as Frenchmen do when they are afraid to undertake
a thing. When we asked them about the lions and wild creatures, they
laughed, and let us know that they would do us no hurt, and directed us to
a good way indeed to deal with them, and that was to make some fire, which
would always fright them away; and so indeed we found it.

Upon these encouragements we resolved upon our journey, and many
considerations put us upon it, which, had the thing itself been
practicable, we were not so much to blame for as it might otherwise be
supposed; I will name some of them, not to make the account too tedious.

First, we were perfectly destitute of means to work about our own
deliverance any other way; we were on shore in a place perfectly remote
from all European navigation; so that we could never think of being
relieved, and fetched off by any of our own countrymen in that part of the
world. Secondly, if we had adventured to have sailed on along the coast of
Mozambique, and the desolate shores of Africa to the north, till we came to
the Red Sea, all we could hope for there was to be taken by the Arabs, and
be sold for slaves to the Turks, which to all of us was little better than
death. We could not build anything of a vessel that would carry us over the
great Arabian Sea to India, nor could we reach the Cape de Bona Speranza,
the winds being too variable, and the sea in that latitude too tempestuous;
but we all knew, if we could cross this continent of land, we might reach