For, Understanding By Some Of My Company
Before How Tripolis And The Said Wood Did Lie One Off Another, By
The
North Star I went forth at adventure, and, as God would have it, I came
right to the place
Where they were, even about an hour before day.
There altogether we rested, and gave our camels provender, and as soon
as the day appeared we rode all into the wood; and I, seeing no wood
there but a stick here and a stick there, about the bigness of a man's
arm, growing in the sand, it caused me to marvel how so many camels
should be loaded in that place. The wood was juniper; we needed no axe
nor edged tool to cut it, but plucked it up by strength of hands, roots
and all, which a man might easily do, and so gathered together a little
at one place, and so at another, and laded our camels, and came home
about seven of the clock that night following: because I fell lame and
my camel was tired, I left my wood in the way.
There was in Tripolis at that time a Venetian whose name was Benedetto
Venetiano, and seventeen captives more of his countrymen, which ran
away from Tripolis in a boat and came inside of an island called Malta,
which lieth forty leagues from Tripolis right north; and, being within
a mile of the shore and very fair weather, one of their company said,
"In dispetto de Dio adesso venio a pilliar terra," which is as much to
say:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 37 of 144
Words from 10120 to 10382
of 42569
