journey, a few weeks, in this place, where you are to consider
yourself as sovereign. My occupation is war; I have, therefore, chosen
this obscure residence, from which I can issue unexpected, and to which
I can retire unpursued. You may now repose in security: here are few
pleasures, but here is no danger.' He then led me into the inner
apartments, and seating me on the richest couch, bowed to the ground.
His women, who considered me as a rival, looked on me with malignity;
but, being soon informed that I was a great lady, detained only for my
ransome, they began to vie with each other in obsequiousness and
reverence.

"Being again comforted with new assurances of speedy liberty, I was, for
some days, diverted from impatience by the novelty of the place. The
turrets overlooked the country to a great distance, and afforded a view
of many windings of the stream. In the day, I wandered from one place to
another, as the course of the sun varied the splendour of the prospect,
and saw many things which I had never seen before. The crocodiles and
river-horses, are common in this unpeopled region, and I often looked
upon them with terrour, though I knew that they could not hurt me. For
some time I expected to see mermaids and tritons, which, as Imlac has
told me, the European travellers have stationed in the Nile, but no such
beings ever appeared, and the Arab, when I inquired after them, laughed
at my credulity.

"At night the Arab always attended me to a tower, set apart for
celestial observations, where he endeavoured to teach me the names and
courses of the stars. I had no great inclination to this study, but an
appearance of attention was necessary to please my instructer, who
valued himself for his skill; and, in a little while, I found some
employment requisite to beguile the tediousness of time, which was to be
passed always amidst the same objects. I was weary of looking in the
morning, on things from which I had turned away weary in the evening. I,
therefore, was, at last, willing to observe the stars, rather than do
nothing, but could not always compose my thoughts, and was very often
thinking on Nekayah, when others imagined me contemplating the sky. Soon
after the Arab went upon another expedition, and then my only pleasure
was to talk with my maids, about the accident by which we were carried
away, and the happiness that we should all enjoy at the end of our
captivity."

"There were women in your Arab's fortr