naked people in the plain country before we came to those hills, and we
found them much more tractable and friendly than those devils we had been
forced to fight with; and though we could learn little from these people,
yet we understood by the signs they made that there was a vast desert
beyond these hills, and, as our negroes called them, much lion, much
spotted cat (so they called the leopard); and they signed to us also that
we must carry water with us. At the last of these nations we furnished
ourselves with as much provisions as we could possibly carry, not knowing
what we had to suffer, or what length we had to go; and, to make our way as
familiar to us as possible, I proposed that of the last inhabitants we
could find we should make some prisoners and carry them with us for guides
over the desert, and to assist us in carrying provision, and, perhaps, in
getting it too. The advice was too necessary to be slighted; so finding, by
our dumb signs to the inhabitants, that there were some people that dwelt
at the foot of the mountains on the other side before we came to the desert
itself, we resolved to furnish ourselves with guides by fair means or foul.

Here, by a moderate computation, we concluded ourselves 700 miles from the
sea-coast where we began. Our black prince was this day set free from the
sling his arm hung in, our surgeon having perfectly restored it, and he
showed it to his own countrymen quite well, which made them greatly wonder.
Also our two negroes began to recover, and their wounds to heal apace, for
our surgeon was very skilful in managing their cure.

Having with infinite labour mounted these hills, and coming to a view of
the country beyond them, it was indeed enough to astonish as stout a heart
as ever was created. It was a vast howling wilderness--not a tree, a river,
or a green thing to be seen; for, as far as the eye could look, nothing but
a scalding sand, which, as the wind blew, drove about in clouds enough to
overwhelm man and beast. Nor could we see any end of it either before us,