and Kaffa communicate with the
west coast of Africa, and that one of the articles of merchandise
brought from that coast to these places was salt.

NARRATION OF CERTAIN UNCOMMON THINGS THAT DID FORMERLY HAPPEN TO ME,
HERBERT WILLIS, B.D.

It had pleased Heaven in the year 1672, when I had finished my studies
in Magdalen College, Oxford, whereof I was a Demy, and had taken my
degree of bachelor of arts in the preceding term, to visit me with so
severe an affliction of fever, which many took at first for the
commencement of the small-pox, that I was recommended by the physicians,
when the malady had abated, to return to my father's house and recover
my strength by diet and exercise. This I was fain to do; and having
hired a small horse of Master John Nayler in the corn market, to take me
as far as to the mansion of a gentleman, an ancient friend of my
father's, who had a house near unto Reading in Berkshire, and in those
troubled times, when no man knew whereunto things might turn from day to
day, did keep himself much retired. I bade adieu to the university with
a light heart but a weakened habit of body, and turned my horse's head
to the south. I performed the journey without accident in one day; but
the exertion thereof had so exhausted my strength, that Mr Waller,
(which was the name of my father's friend, and of kin to the famous poet
Edmund Waller, Esquire, who hath been ever in such favour with our
governors and kings,) perceiving I was nigh discomfited, did press me to
go to my chamber without delay. He was otherwise very gracious in his
reception of me, and professed great amity to me, as being the son of
his fast friend and companion; but yet I marked, as it were, a cloud
that lay obscure behind his external professions, as if he was uneasy in
his mind, and was not altogether pleased with having a stranger within
his gates. Howbeit I thanked him very heartily for his hospitality, and
betook myself to the chamber that was assigned for my repose. It was a
pretty, small room, whereof I greatly admired the fashion; and the
furnishing thereof was extreme gay, for the bed hangings were of bright
crimson silk, and on a table was placed a mirror of true Venetian glass.
Also, there were chests of mahogany wood, and other luxurious devices,
which my weariness did not hinder me from observing; but finally I was
overcome by my weakness, and I threw myself on the bed without removing
my apparel, and sustained as I