which was our way, or to the right hand or left; so that truly our men
began to be discouraged, and talk of going back again. Nor could we indeed
think of venturing over such a horrid place as that before us, in which we
saw nothing but present death.

I was as much affected at the sight as any of them; but, for all that, I
could not bear the thoughts of going back again. I told them we had marched
700 miles of our way, and it would be worse than death to think of going
back again; and that, if they thought the desert was not passable, I
thought we should rather change our course, and travel south till we came
to the Cape of Good Hope, or north to the country that lay along the Nile,
where, perhaps, we might find some way or other over to the west sea; for
sure all Africa was not a desert.

Our gunner, who, as I said before, was our guide as to the situation of
places, told us that he could not tell what to say to going for the Cape,
for it was a monstrous length, being from the place where we now were not
less than 1500 miles; and, by his account, we were now come a third part of
the way to the coast of Angola, where we should meet the western ocean, and
find ways enough for our escape home. On the other hand, he assured us, and
showed us a map of it, that, if we went northward, the western shore of
Africa went out into the sea above 1000 miles west, so that we should have
so much and more land to travel afterwards; which land might, for aught we
knew, be as wild, barren, and desert as this. And therefore, upon the
whole, he proposed that we should attempt this desert, and perhaps we
should not find it so long as we feared; and however, he proposed that we
should see how far our provisions would carry us, and, in particular, our
water; and we should venture no further than half so far as our water would
last; and if we found no end of the desert, we might come safely back
again.