was determined to wait himself for Captain Rudland's arrival, though it might cost him his life."
He had now only four servants left, but even with this small number to provide for, he was reduced to great extremity, and conceived that he should have been actually starved, had it not been for the arrival of a dow, which touched at the port: the master of which, named Adam Mahomed, humanely supplied the party with at few dollars worth of juwarry and dates, in exchange for a bill on Mocha, saying "that he could not bear to see an Englishman in distress for provisions."[1] Some day's after this, when all hope began to be given up of an arrival from Mocha, Mr. Pearce was warned by a Somauli; then trading on the coast, "to take care of his life," and shortly after he discovered, through his interpreter, that Kudoo, the Dola of the place, instigated by Alli Manda, had laid a plan to murder him, and, that it was proposed afterwards to sell the Abyssinians who had accompanied him for slaves; each of whom, it was said, would have fetched an hundred dollars in Arabia. In consequence of this information, Mr. Pearce kept continually on his guard, and by his alertness fortunately frustrated an actual attempt that was made to destroy him.
One rainy night, after he had retired to rest, and was supposed to be asleep, he heard the footsteps of a man cautiously moving near the place where he lay, and in a moment afterwards he observed the glimmering of a spear pointed at his breast; but before the person who held it had time to strike, he rushed forward, and caught hold of it by the shaft, and drawing his own knife at the same time, was on the point of plunging it into the body of the assassin, when the intreaties of his attendants, alarmed by his moving, fortunately restrained his intentions. On a light being struck, it was discovered that the vil-
- ↑ This feeling appears to be very general among the Arabs: the high respect they entertain for the English character makes them feel ashamed to see a person belonging to this nation in difficulties. During my stay at Mocha, Hadjee Salee, an Arab trader, brought two Englishmen to that place whom he had picked up at Lamo, where, but for his charitable assistance, they must have starved. These men had run away from an East Indiaman at Johanna, and had gained a passage to the African coast in a native boat.
