11.Upon parting with Ibrahim, Bruce, enraged at the baseness and treachery of Sidi Hassan, entreated the young chief to revenge his wrongs upon this man, which was solemnly promised. Upon coolly considering the action, when he came to write his travels, he says, “I cannot help here accusing myself of what, doubtless, may be well reputed a very great sin.” Major Head, relating this transaction, quotes the following addition to the above sentence: “the more so, that I cannot say I have yet heartily repented of it.” This would have argued extreme cold-heartedness, to say the least of it; but the words are not found in the original quarto edition, whatever they may be in others of comparatively no authority.
11.Upon parting with Ibrahim, Bruce, enraged at the baseness and treachery of Sidi Hassan, entreated the young chief to revenge his wrongs upon this man, which was solemnly promised. Upon coolly considering the action, when he came to write his travels, he says, “I cannot help here accusing myself of what, doubtless, may be well reputed a very great sin.” Major Head, relating this transaction, quotes the following addition to the above sentence: “the more so, that I cannot say I have yet heartily repented of it.” This would have argued extreme cold-heartedness, to say the least of it; but the words are not found in the original quarto edition, whatever they may be in others of comparatively no authority.
While waiting for a ship bound for Tor, he undertook a short voyage to the Mountains of Emeralds, or Jibbel Zumrud, where he found the ancient pits, and many fragments of a green crystalline mineral substance, veiny, clouded, but not so hard as rock-crystal. This he supposed was thesmaragdusof the Romans, and thesibergetandbilurof the Ethiopians, but by no means identical with the genuine emerald, which is equal in hardness to the ruby. Returning to Kosseir, he forthwith commenced his survey of the Red Sea. Having visited the northern portion of the gulf, he arrived, almost overcome with fatigue, and suffering much from ague, at Jidda, where there were a great number of Englishmen,from whom he very naturally expected a hospitable reception.
It must be acknowledged, however, that on this occasion, as on many others, Bruce’s conduct bordered strongly upon the absurd. His dress and whole appearance were those of a common Turkish sailor, which as long as he remained on board might be very prudent; but when he came to present himself before his countrymen, from whom he expected the treatment due to a gentleman, it would have been decorous either to have improved his costume, or have given two or three words of explanation. He did neither, but desired the servant of theEmir el Bahr, or “harbour-master,” who had run over the names of all the English captains then in port, to conduct him to a relation of his own, who, when they arrived, was accidentally leaning over the rail of the staircase leading up to his own apartment. Bruce saluted him by his name, but without announcing his own; and the captain, no less hasty than himself, fell into a violent rage, called him “villain, thief, cheat,” and “renegado rascal,” declaring that if he attempted to proceed a step farther, he would throw him over the stairs. The traveller went away without reply, followed by the curses and abuse of his polite relative.
“Never fear,” said the servant, shrugging up his shoulders, “I will carry you to the best of them all.” He was now conducted to the apartment of Captain Thornhill, but having entered the room, “I was not,” says Bruce, “desirous of advancing much farther, for fear of the salutation of being thrown down stairs again. He looked very steadily, but not sternly, at me; and desired the servant to go away and shut the door. ‘Sir,’ says he, ‘are you an Englishman? You surely are sick, you should be in your bed: have you been long sick?’ I said, ‘Long, sir,’ and bowed. ‘Are you wanting a passage to India?’ I again bowed. ‘Well,’ says he,‘you look to be a man in distress; if you have a secret I shall respect it till you please to tell it me, but if you want a passage to India, apply to no one but Thornhill of the Bengal Merchant. Perhaps you are afraid of somebody, if so, ask for Mr. Greig, my lieutenant, he will carry you on board my ship directly, where you will be safe.’ ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘I hope you will find me an honest man: I have no enemy that I know, either in Jidda or elsewhere, nor do I owe any man any thing.’ ‘I am sure,’ says he, ‘I am doing wrong in keeping a poor man standing who ought to be in his bed. Here! Philip, Philip!’ Philip appeared. ‘Boy,’ says he, in Portuguese, which, as I imagine, he supposed I did not understand, ‘here is a poor Englishman that should be either in his bed or his grave; carry him to the cook, tell him to give him as much broth and mutton as he can eat. Thefellowseems to have been starved—but I would rather have the feeding of ten to India, than the burying of one at Jidda.’”
Bruce kept up the farce some time longer; despatched the mutton and the broth; and then threw himself at full length upon the mat in the courtyard, and fell asleep. The arrival of the Vizier of Jidda, who, in the traveller’s absence, had opened his trunks, and been terrified at the sight of the grand seignior’s firman, now disclosed Bruce’s rank and consequence to the English factory, and his acting the poor man was laughed at and excused.
His countrymen, when his objects and purposes were explained, did whatever was in their power for the furtherance of his views. Letters to the governor of Masuah, the King of Abyssinia, Ras Michael, and the King of Sennaar, were procured from Metical Aga and other influential persons, and a person who required a few weeks to prepare for the journey was appointed to accompany him. The time which must elapse before this man could be ready,Bruce employed in completing his survey of the Red Sea.
Having been joined at Loheia by Mohammed Gibberti, the person commissioned by the authorities of Jidda to accompany him to Masuah, he sailed from that part of Yemen on the 3d of September, 1769, and on the 19th cast anchor in the harbour of Masuah. This is a small island, lying directly opposite the town of Arkeeko, on the Abyssinian shore; and at the time of Bruce’s visit was under the authority of a governor holding his title by firman from the Ottoman Porte, under condition of paying an annual tribute. The Turkish power having greatly decayed in the Red Sea, this governor, or naybe, had gradually assumed the independent authority of a sovereign; though, in order to command a sufficient supply of provisions from Abyssinia, he had agreed to share with the sovereign of that country the customs of the port. Observing, however, the disorderly state of the government, he had lately withheld from the Abyssinian monarch his portion of the revenue, which had so far irritated Ras Michael, then at the head of the government, that he had caused it to be signified to the naybe “that, in the next campaign, he would lay waste Arkeeko and Masuah, until they should be as desert as the wilds of Samhar!”
While affairs were in this position, the naybe received intelligence that an English prince was about to arrive at Masuah on his way to Abyssinia; and it was forthwith debated by him and his counsellors in full divan, whether he should be hospitably received or murdered immediately upon his arrival. Through the influence of Achmet, the nephew and heir-apparent of the governor, pacific measures were resolved upon.
Being desirous of enjoying one night’s repose to prepare him for the toilsome contentions which he foresaw would arise, Bruce did not land until thenext day; but Mohammed Gibberti went immediately on shore, and contrived to despatch letters to the court of Abyssinia, announcing Bruce’s arrival, and requesting that some one might be sent to protect him from the well-known rapacity and cruelty of the governor. He then waited upon this petty despot and his nephew, and artfully endeavoured to inspire them with very exalted notions of our traveller’s rank and consequence. The way being thus skilfully paved, Bruce himself landed next morning. He was received in a friendly manner by Achmet, who, when they had seated themselves, after the usual salutation, commanded coffee to be brought in, as a sign to the traveller that his life was not in danger. He then observed, with a somewhat serious air, “We have expected you here some time, but thought you had changed your mind, and were gone to India.”—“Since sailing from Jidda,” replied Bruce, “I have been in Arabia Felix, the Gulf of Mokha, and crossed last from Loheia.”—“Are you not afraid,” said he, “so thinly attended, to venture upon these long and dangerous voyages?”—“The countries where I have been,” Bruce replied, “are either subject to the Emperor of Constantinople, whose firman I have now the honour to present you, or to the Regency of Cairo, and Port of Janizaries—here are their letters—or to the Sheriff of Mecca. To you, sir, I present the sheriff’s letters; and, besides these, one from Metical Aga, your friend, who depending on your character, assured me this alone would be sufficient to preserve me from ill-usage, so long as I did no wrong. As for the danger of the road from banditti and lawless persons, my servants are indeed few, but they are veteran soldiers, tried and exercised from their infancy in arms, and I value not the superior numbers of cowardly and disorderly persons.”
To this Achmet made no reply, but returning him the letters, said, “You will give these to the naybeto-morrow. I will keep Metical’s letter, as it is to me, and will read it at home.” He put it accordingly in his bosom; and on Bruce’s rising to take his leave, he was wet to the skin by a deluge of orange-flower water, poured upon him from silver bottles by his attendants. He was now conducted to a very decent house, which had been assigned him, whither his baggage was all sent unopened.
Late in the evening he was surprised by a visit from Achmet, who came alone, unarmed, and half-naked. Bruce expressed his acknowledgments for the civility which had been shown him in sending his baggage unopened; but Achmet, more solicitous to do good than listen to compliments, at once turned the discourse into another channel; and, after several questions respecting his rank and motives for travelling, advised him by no means to enter Abyssinia, and let fall some few hints respecting the character of the people of Masuah. To express his gratitude, and secure a continuance of his good offices, Bruce begged his acceptance of a pair of pistols.
“Let the pistols remain with you,” says Achmet, “till I send you a man to whom you may say any thing; and he shall go between you and me, for there is in this place a number of devils, not men. But,Ullah kerim! (God is merciful.) The person that brings you dry dates in an Indian handkerchief, and an earthen bottle to drink your water out of, give him the pistols. You may send by him to me any thing you choose. In the mean time sleep sound, and fear no evil; but never be persuaded to trust yourself to the Kafro of Habesh at Masuah.”
Next morning the governor returned from Arkeeko, attended by three or four servants miserably mounted, and about forty naked savages on foot, armed with short lances and crooked knives. Before him was beaten a drum, formed of an earthen jar, such as they send butter in to Arabia, coveredover at the mouth with a skin, like a jar of pickles. Bruce’s reception by this ferocious despot was inauspicious. On his presenting to him the firman of the grand seignior, upon seeing which the greatest pacha in the Turkish empire would have risen, kissed it, and lifted it to his forehead; he pushed it back contemptuously, and said, “Do you read it all to me, word for word.” Bruce replied that it was written in the Turkish language, of which he comprehended not a word. “Nor I neither,” said the naybe, “and I believe I never shall.”
The traveller then gave him his letters of recommendation, which he laid down unopened beside him, and said, “You should have brought a moollah along with you. Do you think I shall read all these letters? Why, it would take me a month!” And while he spoke he glared upon his guest with his mouth open, so extremely like an idiot, that it was with the utmost difficulty Bruce kept his gravity. However, he replied, “Just as you please—you know best.”
After a short conversation in Arabic, which the naybe at first affected not to understand, our traveller brought forward his present, which the naybe understood without the assistance of a moollah, and shortly afterward took his leave.
The inhabitants of Masuah were at this time dying so rapidly of the small-pox, that there was some reason to fear the living would not suffice to bury the dead. The whole island was filled with shrieks and lamentations both day and night; and they at last began to throw the bodies into the sea, which deprived Bruce and his servants of the support they had derived from fish, of which some of the species caught there were excellent.
On the 15th of October, the naybe, having despatched the vessel in which Bruce had arrived, began to put out his true colours, and, under various pretences, demanded an enormous present. Bruce,of course, refused compliance. He then sent for him to his house, and after venting his fury in a storm of abuse, concluded by saying, in a peremptory tone, that unless our traveller were ready in a few days to pay him three ounces of gold, he would confine him in a dungeon, without light, air, or food, until his bones should come through his skin for want. To aggravate the affair, an uncle of his, then present, added, that whatever the naybe might determine respecting his own demands, he could in nowise abate a jot from those of the janizaries; which, however, in consideration of the letter he had brought from the port of the janizaries at Cairo, were moderate—only forty ounces of gold.
To all this Bruce replied firmly, “Since you have broken your faith with the grand seignior, the government of Cairo, the pasha at Jidda, and Metical Aga, you will no doubt do as you please with me; but you may expect to see the English man-of-war the Lion before Arkeeko some morning by daybreak.”
“I should be glad,” said the naybe, “to see that man at Arkeeko or Masuah who would carry as much writing from you to Jidda as would lie upon my thumb-nail. I would strip his shirt off first, and then his skin, and hang him up before your door to teach you more wisdom.”
“But my wisdom,” replied Bruce, “has taught me to prevent all this. My letter has already gone to Jidda; and if in twenty days from this another letter from me does not follow it, you will see what will arrive. In the mean time, I here announce to you that I have letters from Metical Aga and the Sheriff of Mecca, to Michael Suhul, governor of Tigrè, and the King of Abyssinia. I therefore would wish that you would leave off these unmanly altercations, which serve no sort of purpose, and let me continue my journey.”
The naybe now muttered in a low voice to himself,“What, Michael too! then go your journey, and think of the ill that’s before you!” Upon which the traveller left him.
Other altercations, still more violent, ensued, and attempts were made by the creatures of the naybe to break into his house and murder him in the night; but these were constantly defeated by the courage and fidelity of his servants. Achmet, too, the nephew of the naybe, exerted whatever influence he possessed in behalf of the traveller; who, in return, was, under Providence, the means of preserving his life; for Achmet at this time falling ill of an intermittent fever, Bruce assiduously attended and prescribed for him, and in the course of a few days had the satisfaction of pronouncing him out of danger.
On the morning of the 6th of November, while at breakfast, Bruce received the agreeable intelligence that three servants had arrived from Tigrè; one from Jamai, the Greek, the other two from Ras Michael, both wearing the royal livery. Ras Michael’s letters to the naybe were short. He said the king’s health was bad, and that he wondered the physician sent to him by Metical Aga from Arabia had not been instantly forwarded to him at Gondar, as he had heard of his having been some time at Masuah. He therefore commanded the naybe to despatch the physician without loss of time, and to furnish him with all necessaries.
To these peremptory orders the naybe felt himself compelled to yield obedience; and accordingly Bruce was at length suffered to depart. In order, however, to make one attempt more at murdering the stranger, for which the old man appeared to have acquired a kind of passion, he furnished him with a guide and several attendants, who, it was suspected by the nephew, had received secret orders to cut him off upon the road. To counteract the designs of this worthy old relative, Achmet removed these attendants, and replaced them by servants ofhis own; and prevailing upon Bruce to proceed by a different route from that recommended by the naybe, for which purpose he supplied him with another guide, he took his leave, saying, “He that is your enemy is mine. You shall hear from me by Mohammed Gibberti.”
Bruce now proceeded over a plain partly covered with groves of acacia-trees, in full flower, towards the mountains, upon the ascent to which he met with considerable numbers of the wild mountain shepherds, descending with their families and flocks to the seashore, drawn thither by the fresh grass which springs up in October and November all along the coast. Their path, from the time they had reached the acclivity, lay over a broken, stony road, along the bed of a mountain torrent; but having reached a small green hill at some distance from the stream, they pitched their tent; and, it being near evening, prepared to pass the night there. The weather, which had hitherto been fine, now seemed to threaten rain. The loftier mountains, and a great portion of the lower ones, were quite hidden by thick clouds; the lightning was very frequent, broad, and deeply tinged with blue; and long peals of thunder were heard at a distance. “The river,” says Bruce, “scarcely ran at our passing it. All on a sudden, however, we heard a noise on the mountains above, louder than the loudest thunder. Our guides upon this flew to the baggage, and removed it to the top of the green hill; which was no sooner done than we saw the river coming down in a stream about the height of a man, and breadth of the whole bed it used to occupy. The water was thickly tinged with red earth, and ran in the form of a deep river, and swelled a little above its banks, but did not reach our station on the hill.”
During this day’s march he first saw the dung of elephants, full of thick pieces of undigested branches; and observed in the tracks through which they hadpassed several trees thrown down or broken in the middle, while the ground was strewed with half-eaten branches. The wild tribes who inhabited these mountains were a small, active, copper-coloured race, who lived in caves, or cages covered with an ox’s hide, and large enough to hold two persons. Though possessed of numerous herds of cattle, they abstained, like the Brahmins, from animal food, and subsisted entirely upon milk.
For some time after leaving this station their road lay through groves of acacia-trees, the prickly branches of which striking against their faces and hands quickly covered them with blood. They then proceeded through grassy valleys, and over mountains, bleak, bare, and desolate, until they arrived at a place called Tubbo, a picturesque and agreeable station, where they pitched their tent, and remained several hours. The mountains were here very steep, and broken abruptly into cliffs and precipices. The trees were thick, in full leaf, and planted so closely together that they seemed to have been intended for arbours, and afforded abundance of dark cool shade. Their boughs were filled with immense numbers of birds, variegated with an infinity of colours, but destitute of song; others, of a more homely and more European appearance, diverted the travellers with a variety of wild notes, in a style of music still distinct and peculiar to Africa; as different, says Bruce, in the composition from that of our linnet and goldfinch as our English language is from that of Abyssinia. Yet, from frequent and attentive observation, he found that the skylark at Masuah sang the same notes as in England.
The whole country between this and Mount Taranta abounded in game, and more particularly in partridges and antelopes, the latter of which, without exhibiting any signs of fear, moved out of the way to let them pass; or stood still and gazed at them. When they arrived at the foot of the mountain,the difficulties which presented themselves were appalling. The road, if it deserved the name, was of incredible steepness, and intersected almost at every step by large hollows and gullies formed by the torrents, and by vast fragments of rock, which, loosened from the cliffs above by the rains, had rolled down into the chasm through which their path lay. To carry Bruce’s telescopes, timekeeper, and quadrant through such a path as this was by the majority of the party declared to be impossible; and the bearers of the quadrant now proposed to drag it along in a way which would have quickly shattered it to pieces. To prevent so undesirable a catastrophe Bruce himself, assisted by a Moor named Yasine, who, being on his way to Abyssinia, had attached himself to our traveller’s party, undertook the task, and after extraordinary exertions, during which their clothes were torn to pieces, and their hands and knees cut in a shocking manner, they succeeded in placing the instrument in safety, far above the stony parts of the mountain. By this means their companions were shamed into exertion, and every one now striving to surpass the rest, all the instruments and other baggage were quickly got up the steep.
Having accomplished their laborious task, they found themselves too much fatigued to attempt the pitching of their tents; though, had it been otherwise, the scantiness of the soil, which was too shallow to hold a tent-pin, would have prevented them; they therefore betook themselves to the caves which they discovered in the rocks, and there passed the night. Next morning they proceeded to encounter the remaining half of the mountain, which, though steeper, was upon the whole less difficult than the part they had already passed; and in two days came in sight of Dixan, a city built on the summit of a hill, perfectly in the form of a sugar-loaf, surrounded on all sides by a deep valley like a trench, and approachedby a road which winds spirally up the hill till it ends among the houses.
The inhabitants of this place enjoyed throughout the country the reputation of superior wickedness, and appeared fully to deserve it; for, whether Christians or Moors, the only traffic in which they were engaged was in children. These were stolen in Abyssinia, frequently by the priests; and being brought to Dixan, were there delivered over to the Moors, who conveyed them to Masuah, from whence they were transported to Arabia or India. Bernier found this trade in active operation in his time; and it has probably subsisted from the earliest ages, since Abyssinian girls have always been in request among the Arabs, while the boys are more valued farther eastward, where they are generally converted into eunuchs.
From Dixan they set forward November 25, and encamped at night under a tree. They had now been joined by about twenty loaded asses and two loaded bulls driven by Moors, who, in consideration of the protection they expected from our traveller, bound themselves by an oath to obey him punctually during the journey, and in case of attack to stand by him to the last. Next morning they proceeded over a plain covered with wheat and Indian corn, and on looking back towards Taranta, beheld its summit capped with black clouds, which emitted vivid streams of lightning, and frequent peals of thunder. Towards noon they encamped at the foot of a mountain, on the top of which was a village, the residence of an Abyssinian nobleman, called the Baharnagash, who, with a very ragged retinue, visited Bruce in his tent. Among the horses of his attendants there was a black one which Bruce desired to possess. When the chief had returned to his village he therefore despatched two persons to him to commence negotiations. The bargain, however, was soon concluded, and the money, about 12l., paid in merchandise;but by the time he had reached the encampment, the black horse had been converted into a brown one, which, if he wanted an eye, had the recommendation of great age and experience. This ancient charger was returned, and, after considerable shuffling and equivocation, the genuine black horse, sixteen and a half-hands high, and of the Dongola breed, was obtained. The noble animal, which had been half-starved by the Baharnagash, was named Mirza, and intrusted to the care of an Arab from the neighbourhood of Medina, a man well versed in all equestrian affairs. “Indeed,” observes Bruce, “I might say I acquired that day a companion that contributed always to my pleasure, and more than once to my safety; and was no slender means of acquiring me the first attention of the king.”
Their road now lying through a country into which the Shangalla, whom Bruce terms the ancient Cushites, were in the habit of making incursions, the whole party carefully examined the state of their firearms, and cleaned and charged them anew. In this day’s journey they passed through a wood of acacia-trees in flower, with which was intermingled another species of tree with large white flowers, yielding a scent like that of the honeysuckle; and afterward another wood, so overgrown with wild oats that, like the jungle grass of Bengal, it covered the men and their horses. This plain was perhaps the most fertile in Abyssinia, but, owing to the inveterate feuds of the villages, had long been suffered to lie waste, or, if a small portion were cultivated, the labours of sowing-time and harvest were performed by the peasantry in arms, who rarely completed their task without bloodshed.
Having crossed this plain, they entered a close country covered with brushwood, wild oats, and high grass, rough with rocks, and traversed by narrow difficult passes. At one of these, called the pass of Kella, they were detained three days by the farmersof the customs, who demanded more than they thought proper to pay. During this delay a kind of fair or bazaar was opened in the caravan, to which hundreds of young women from the neighbouring villages repaired, to purchase beads and other articles of African finery; and so eager were they to get possession of these toys, that they could be restrained from stealing them only by being beaten unmercifully with whips and sticks. Of chastity these Abyssinian beauties had no conception, and abandoned themselves to the desires of strangers without so much as requiring a reward.
The next day, after leaving Kella, they discovered in the distance the mountains of Adowa, which in no respect resemble those of Europe, or of any other country. “Their sides were all perpendicular, high, like steeples or obelisks, and broken into a thousand different forms.” On the 6th of December they arrived at Adowa, having travelled for three hours over a very pleasant road, between hedgerows of jessamine, honeysuckle, and many other kinds of flowering shrubs. This town, which was made the capital of Tigrè by Ras Michael, consisted of about three hundred houses, but each house being surrounded by a fence or screen of trees and shrubs, like the small picturesque homesteads which skirt the Ghauts on the coast of Malabar, the extent of ground covered was very considerable, and from a distance the whole place had the appearance of a beautiful grove. Within, however, were crime and wretchedness. The palace of the governor, which was now occupied by his deputy, stood upon the top of the hill, and resembled a huge prison. Upwards of three hundred persons were there confined in irons, some of whom had been imprisoned more than twenty years, solely, in most instances, for the purpose of extorting money from them; but when they had complied with their captor’s demands, their deliverance by no means followed. Most of themwere kept in cages like wild beasts, and treated with equal inhumanity.
Here he was received in the most hospitable manner by Janni, the Greek officer of the customs, to whom he had been recommended by the patriarch of Cairo. In this town there was a valuable manufacture of coarse cotton cloth, which circulated instead of silver money throughout Abyssinia. The houses were built with rough stone, cemented with mud instead of mortar—which was used only at Gondar,—and had high conical roofs, thatched with a reedy sort of grass, rather thicker than wheat straw.
From this place he proceeded on the 10th of January, 1770, to visit the ruins of the Jesuits’ convent at Fremona, two miles to the north-east of the town. It resembled a vast fortress, being at least a mile in circumference, and surrounded by a wall, the remains of which were twenty-five feet high, with towers in the flanks and angles, and pierced on all sides with holes for muskets.
Leaving Adowa on the 17th, they arrived next morning at the ruins of Axum, which, extensive as they were, consisted entirely of public buildings. Huge granite obelisks, rudely carved, strewed the ground, having been overthrown by earthquakes or by barbarians, one only remaining erect. Colossal statues of thelatrator anubis, or dog-star, were discovered among the ruins, evidently of Egyptian workmanship; together with magnificent flights of granite steps, and numerous pedestals whereon the figures of sphinxes were formerly placed. Axum was watered by a small stream, which flowed all the year, and was received into a magnificent basin of one hundred and fifty feet square, whence it was artificially conveyed into the neighbouring gardens.
Continuing their journey through a beautiful country, diversified with hill and dale, and covered so thickly with flowering shrubs that the odours exhaling from their blossoms strongly perfumed theair, they overtook three men driving a cow, and Bruce had an opportunity of witnessing an operation which, on the publication of his travels, was almost universally treated as a fiction. On arriving on the banks of a river, where it was supposed they were to encamp, the three men, who from their lances and shields appeared to be soldiers, tripped up the cow; and as soon as she had fallen, one of them got across her neck, holding down her head by the horns, another twisted the halter about her fore-feet, while the third, who held a knife in his hand, instead of striking at the animal’s throat, to Bruce’s very great surprise got astride upon her belly, and gave her a very deep wound in the upper part of her buttock. He now of course expected that the cow was to be killed, but, upon inquiring whether they would sell a portion of her, was informed that the beast was not wholly theirs, and that therefore they could not sell her. “This,” says the traveller, “awakened my curiosity. I let my people go forward and staid myself, till I saw, with the utmost astonishment, two pieces, thicker and longer than our ordinary beefsteaks, cut out of the higher part of the buttock of the beast. How it was done I cannot positively say; because, judging the cow was to be killed from the moment I saw the knife drawn, I was not anxious to view that catastrophe, which was by no means an object of curiosity: whatever way it was done, it surely was adroitly, and the two pieces were spread on the outside of their shields.”
After this, the skin which covered the wounded part was drawn together, and fastened by small skewers or pins. A cataplasm of clay was then placed over all, and the poor beast, having been forced to rise, was driven on as before. This mode of cutting beefsteaks from a living animal is no doubt extraordinary, but I can see nothing in it that should render it incredible, particularly to persons who make no difficulty in believing that men eat eachother, or fasten their own bodies on swings, by hooks driven into the muscles of their backs, and thus suspended, whirl round in indescribable agony for the amusement of the bystanders. Yet this is indubitably done every day in Hindostan. The scorn with which Bruce met the incredulity of his critics was natural and just. But the skepticism of the public has now ceased. In fact, to avow it would be to plead guilty of a degree of ignorance of which few persons in the present day would care to be suspected.
Proceeding on his journey, Bruce learned at Siré that Ras Michael had defeated the rebel Fasil, who had long made head against the royal troops, with the loss of ten thousand men; and this intelligence struck terror into the numerous disaffected persons who were found throughout the country.
On the 26th they crossed the Tacazzè, one of the pleasantest rivers in the world, shaded with fine lofty trees, its banks covered with bushes, inferior in fragrance to no garden in the universe; its waters limpid, excellent, and full of fish, while the coverts on its banks abound with game. It was about two hundred yards broad, and about three feet deep; and in the middle of the ford they met a deserter from Ras Michael’s army, with his firelock on his shoulder, driving before him two miserable girls about ten years old, stark naked, and almost famished to death, the part of the booty which had fallen to his share after the battle. From this wretch, however, they could gain no intelligence.
The country through which they now passed was covered with ruined villages, “the marks,” says Bruce, “of Michael’s cruelty or justice, for perhaps the inhabitants had deserved the chastisement they had met with.” The scenery on all sides was now highly picturesque and beautiful. At Addergey, where they encamped near the small river Mai-Lumi, or the “River of Limes,” in a small plain,they were surrounded by a thick wood in form of an amphitheatre, behind which arose a sweep of bare, rugged, and barren mountains. Midway in the cliff was a miserable village, which seemed rather to hang than to stand there, scarcely a yard of level ground being between it and the edge of the precipice. The wood was full of lemons and wild citrons, from which circumstance it derived its name. Before them, towards the west, the plain terminated in a tremendous precipice.
After a series of disputes with the chief of this village, a malignant, avaricious barbarian, who seems to have designed to cut them off, they proceeded towards Mount Lamalmon, one of the highest points of Abyssinia. On the way they discovered on their right the mountains of Waldubba, inhabited by monks and great men in disgrace. The monks are held in great veneration, being by many supposed to enjoy the gift of prophecy and the power of working miracles. To strengthen their virtue, and encourage them in their austere way of life, they are frequently visited by certain young women, who may be called nuns, and who live upon a very familiar footing with these prophets and workers of miracles. Nay, many of these, says Bruce, thinking that the living in community with this holy fraternity has not in it perfection enough to satisfy their devotion, retire, one of each sex, a hermit and a nun, sequestering themselves for months, to eat herbs together in private upon the top of the mountains.
On the 7th of February they began to ascend the mountains which skirt the base of Lamalmon; and on the next day commenced the climbing of that mountain itself. Their path was scarcely two feet wide in any part, and wound in a most tortuous direction up the mountain, perpetually on the brink of a precipice. Torrents of water, which in the rainy season roll huge stones and fragments of rock down the steep, had broken up the path in manyplaces, and opened to the travellers a view of the tremendous abyss below, which few persons could look upon without giddiness. Here they were compelled to unload their baggage, and by slow degrees crawl up the hill, carrying it a little at a time on their shoulders round those chasms which intersected the road. The acclivity became steeper, the paths narrower, and the breaches more frequent as they ascended. Scarcely were their mules, though unloaded, able to scramble up, and fell perpetually. To enhance their difficulty and danger, large droves of cattle were descending, which, as they came crowding down the mountain, threatened to push their whole party into the gulf. However, after vast toil they at length succeeded in reaching the small plain near the summit, where both man and beast halted simultaneously, perfectly exhausted with fatigue.
The air on Lamalmon was pleasant and temperate, and their appetite, spirits, and cheerfulness, which the sultry poisonous atmosphere of the Red Sea coasts had put to flight, returned. Next morning they ascended the remainder of the mountain, which was less steep and difficult than the preceding portion, and found that the top, which seemed pointed from below, spread into a large plain, part in pasture, but more bearing grain. It is full of springs, and seems, says Bruce, “to be the great reservoir from whence arise most of the rivers that water this part of Abyssinia. A multitude of streams issue from the very summit in all directions; the springs boil out from the earth in large quantities, capable of turning a mill. They plough, sow, and reap here at all seasons; and the husbandman must blame his own indolence, and not the soil, if he has not three harvests. We saw in one place people busy cutting down wheat; immediately next to it others at the plough, and the adjoining field had green corn in the ear. A little farther it was not an inch above the ground.”
On the 15th of February he arrived at Gondar, when, to his extreme vexation, he found that not only the king and Ras Michael, but almost every other person for whom he had letters, was absent with the army. Petros, the brother of Janni, his Greek friend at Adowa, to whom he had been in an especial manner recommended, had at the news of his coming been terrified by the priests, and fled to Ras Michael for instructions. A friend, however, of one of the Moors, whom Janni had interested in his favour, received him kindly, and conducted him to a house in the Moorish town, where he might, he said, remain safe from the molestations of the priests, until he should receive the protection of the government.
Late in the evening while our traveller was sitting quietly in his apartment reading the book of the prophet Enoch, Ayto Aylo, the queen’s chamberlain, who probably had never before been in the Moorish town, came, accompanied by a number of armed attendants, to visit him. This man, a zealous protector of strangers, and who was desirous, as he said, to end his days in pious seclusion either at Jerusalem or Rome, after a long contest of civilities and a protracted conversation, informed Bruce that the queen-mother, who had heard of his abilities as a physician, was desirous he should undertake the treatment of a young prince then lying ill of the small-pox at the palace of Koscam. On proceeding thither next morning, however, he learned that the patient had been placed under the care of a saint from Waldubba, who had undertaken to cure him by writing certain mystical characters upon a tin-plate with common ink, and then, having washed them off with a medicinal preparation, giving them to the sick man to drink. Upon Bruce’s second visit to the palace he was presented to the queen-mother, who, after some rambling conversation respecting Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, Mount Calvary, &c.,demanded of him bluntly whether he were not a Frank, by which they mean a Catholic. The traveller, in reply, swore to her by all the truths in the Bible, which she had then on a table before her, that his religion was more different from that of the Roman Catholics than her own. The old lady appeared to be convinced by his asseverations, and he shortly afterward took his leave. That same evening the prince, as well as his daughter, who had likewise been seized by the contagion, died of the small-pox in spite of the saints of Waldubba; and Bruce had to congratulate himself that these honest jugglers had taken the weight of the odium from his shoulders upon their own, for the patients would very probably have died whether they had been under the care of the monks or of the physician.
However, this natural event was the death-blow to the reputation of the saints. Bruce was required to repair immediately to the palace, and the various members of the royal family, as well as of the family of the Ras, who now fell sick, were placed with unbounded confidence under his care. Policy, as well as humanity, rendered his attentions to his numerous patients incessant; and very fortunately for him only one out of the whole number died. Ozoro Esther, the young and beautiful wife of Ras Michael, both of whose children, the one by a former and the other by her present husband, survived, was unbounded in her gratitude to the man whom she regarded as their preserver; and her friendship, which never knew diminution, may be regarded as one of the most valuable acquisitions our traveller ever made in Abyssinia. As a reward for his services he received a neat and convenient house in the immediate vicinity of the palace.
On the 8th or 9th of March Bruce met Ras Michael at Azazo. The old man was dressed in a coarse dirty cloth, wrapped about him like a blanket, while another like a tablecloth was folded about hishead. He was lean, old, and apparently much fatigued. When he had alighted from the mule on which he had been riding, a Greek priest went forward and announced Bruce, who then came up and kissed his hand. “How do you do?” said the Ras; “I hope you are well.” He then pointed to a place where the traveller was to sit down, while a thousand complaints, a thousand orders, came before him from a thousand mouths. The king now passed, and shortly after the traveller and his companions returned to Koscam, very little pleased with the reception they had met with.
Next day the army marched into the town in triumph, the Ras being at the head of the troops of Tigrè. He was bare-headed. Over his shoulder hung a cloak of black velvet ornamented with silver fringe. A boy with a silver wand about five feet and a half in length walked close to his stirrup on his right-hand; and behind him in a body marched all those soldiers who had slain and spoiled an enemy in battle, bearing upon their lances and firelocks small shreds of scarlet cloth, one for every enemy slain.
Behind these came the governors of Amhara and Begunder, wearing, as well as the other governors of provinces, one of the strangest headdresses in the world: a broad fillet bound upon the forehead and tied behind, in the middle of which was a horn, or conical piece of silver, about four inches long and richly gilt. Then followed the king, wearing upon his forehead a fillet of white muslin about four inches broad, which, like that of the provincial governors, was tied behind in a large double knot, and hung down about two feet over his back. Immediately around him were the great officers of state, with such of the young nobility as were without command. The household troops followed. And after these came the military executioners, with a man bearing upon a pole the stuffed skin of a man whohad been flayed alive a short time before. This was suspended as a tasteful ornament upon a tree directly opposite the palace, for the solace and amusement of his majesty.
For some days after this triumphal entry, Bruce, though he daily visited his patients at the palace, was utterly neglected, not only by the Ras, but by Ozoro Esther herself, and every person in Gondar, except the Moors, who were never weary of expressing their gratitude for his successful attention to their children. On the 14th, however, he was once more brought into the presence of Ras Michael, at Koscam. Upon entering he saw the old man sitting upon a sofa, with his white hair dressed in many short curls. His face was lean, his eyes quick and vivid. Bruce thought he greatly resembled Buffon in face and person. His great capacity was clearly discernible in his countenance. Every look conveyed a sentiment, and he seemed to have no occasion for other language, and indeed spoke little. He shook the traveller by the hand, and, after a few moments’ pause, occasioned by the entrance of a messenger from the king, said, gravely, “Yagoube, I think that is your name, hear what I say to you, and mark what I recommend to you. You are a man, I am told, who make it your business to wander in the fields in search after trees and grass in solitary places, and to sit up all night alone looking at the stars of the heavens. Other countries are not like this, though this was never so bad as it is now. These wretches here are enemies to strangers. If they saw you alone in your own parlour, their first thought would be how to murder you; though they knew they were to get nothing by it, they would murder you for mere mischief. Therefore,” says the Ras, “after a long conversation with your friend Aylo, whose advice I hear you happily take, as indeed we all do, I have thought that situation best which leaves you at liberty to follow your own designs,at the same time that it puts your person in safety; that you will not be troubled with monks about their religious matters, or in danger from those rascals that might seek to murder you for money.”
He then informed him that the king had appointed him Baalomaal, and commander of the Korcob horse; and desired him to go and kiss the ground before him on his appointment. Bruce now expressed his acknowledgments, and brought forward his present, which the Ras scarcely looked at; but shortly after observing him standing alone, commanded the door to be shut, and then said to him, in a low voice, “Have you any thing private to say?”—“I see you are busy, sir,” said Bruce, “but I will speak to Ozoro Esther.” His anxious countenance brightened up in a moment. “That is true,” said he; “Yagoube, it will require a long day to settle that account with you. Will the boy live?”—“The life of man is in the hand of God,” replied Bruce; “but I should hope the worst is over.” Upon which he said to one of his servants, “Carry Yagoube to Ozoro Esther.”
After an interview with this lady, towards whom he conducted himself with a degree of familiarity which in any other country would have been fatal to him, he presented himself before the king, who, after various childish questions, and detaining him until a very late hour, dismissed him for the night. He then proceeded, with several other officers of the palace, to the house of a nobleman, where they had that evening been invited to supper. Here a quarrel took place between Bruce and a nephew of Ras Michael, originating in the gasconading character of both parties, the Abyssinian conducting himself like a vain barbarian, and Bruce like a man no less vain, but possessing the advantage of superior knowledge. The only person who appears to any advantage in this affair is Ras Michael, who, quelling his natural feelings, and magnanimously taking upon himself the protection of the weaker party, acted in a mannertruly noble, and, whatever may have been his crimes, stood on this occasion superior to all around him.
This storm having blown over, Bruce assiduously attended to the duties of his office, and by the exercise of considerable prudence, raised himself gradually in the estimation of the court. He had boasted, in his quarrel with the Ras’s nephew, that through his superior skill in the use of firearms, he could do more execution with a candle’s end than his antagonist with an iron ball; and one day, long after that event, he was suddenly asked by the king whether he was not drunk when he made this gasconade. He replied that he was perfectly sober; and offered to perform the experiment at once in presence of the monarch. This, in fact, he did; and having shot through three shields and a sycamore table with a piece of candle, his reputation as a magician,—for, with the exception of the king and the Ras, they all seem to have accounted for the fact by supernatural reasons,—was more firmly established than ever.
About this time he lost his companion Balugani, who had been attacked in Arabia Felix by a dysentery, which put a period to his life at Gondar. Of this young man Bruce has said but little in his travels; but he regretted his death, which threw him for a time into a state of depression and despondency. From this, however, he was roused by the general festivity and rejoicing which took place in Gondar upon the marriage of Ozoro Esther’s sister with the governor of Bergunder. The traveller dined daily, by particular invitation, with the Ras. Feasting, in Abyssinia, includes the gratification of every sensual appetite. All ideas of decency are set aside; the ladies drink to excess; and the orgies which succeed surpass in wantonness and lack of shame whatever has been related of the cynics of antiquity.
Among the patients whom Bruce had attended on his first arrival at Gondar was Ayto Confu, the son of Ozoro Esther by a former husband. The gratitude of this young man for the kind attention of his physician, which had been manifested on numerous occasions, at length procured Bruce to be nominated governor of Ras el Feel, a small unwholesome district on the confines of Sennaar. To this government our traveller never designed to attend in person; but it enabled him to oblige his old friend Yasine, the Moor, whom he appointed to govern the district as his deputy.
Into the details of the civil dissensions which at this period convulsed this barbarous country it is altogether unnecessary to enter. Revolts, conspiracies, rebellions, succeeded each other in the natural course of things, and Bruce’s position compelled him to take a more or less active part in them all. In the spring of 1770, Fasil, the rival of Ras Michael, being once more in motion, the royal army left Gondar, to proceed in search of the rebels, and on entering the enemy’s territory exercised all kinds of barbarities and excesses.
From the king’s army he proceeded in May to visit the cataract of Alata on the Nile. The river, where he first came up with it, was found to run in a deep narrow channel, between two rocks, with great roaring and impetuous velocity. Its banks were shaded by beautiful trees and bushes; and there was no danger from crocodiles, as that animal does not ascend the stream so high. “The cataract itself,” says Bruce, “was the most magnificent sight that I ever beheld. The height has been rather exaggerated. The missionaries say the fall is about sixteen ells, or fifty feet. The measuring is, indeed, very difficult; but by the position of long sticks, and poles of different lengths, at different heights of the rocks, from the water’s edge, I may venture to say it is nearer forty feet than any other measure. Theriver had been considerably increased by rains, and fell in one sheet of water, without any interval, above half an English mile in breadth, with a force and noise that was truly terrible, and which stunned and made me for a time perfectly dizzy. A thick fume or haze covered the fall all round, and hung over the course of the stream both above and below, marking its track, though the water was not seen. The river, though swelled with rain, preserved its natural clearness, and fell, as far as I could discern, into a deep pool or basin in the solid rock, which was full, and in twenty different eddies to the very foot of the precipice, the stream, when it fell, seeming part of it to run back with great fury upon the rock, as well as forward in the line of its course, raising a wave, or violent ebullition, by chafing against each other.”
After contending that the assertion of Jerome Lobo, that he had sat under the curve made by the projectile force of the water rushing over the precipice, could not be true, he adds,—“It was a most magnificent sight, that ages, added to the greatest length of human life, would not efface or eradicate from my memory.” “It seemed to me as if one element had broke loose from, and become superior to, all laws of subordination; that the fountains of the great deep were extraordinarily opened, and the destruction of a world was again begun by the agency of water.”
His curiosity on this point having now been satisfied, he returned to the army, which shortly after, at Limjour, fought a desperate battle with the rebels, in which the latter were defeated. After this, Fasil, their commander, upon making his submission, was received into favour, and appointed governor of Damot and Maitsha. During these transactions, many of the servants of Fasil visited the royal camp, and Bruce, reflecting that the sources of the Nile lay in their master’s government, endeavouredto conciliate their good wishes by his attentions and presents. He likewise in their hearing spoke highly of Fasil, and on their departure gave them, not only a present for their master, but also for themselves. These men, moreover, requested him to prescribe something for a cancer on the lip, with which Welleta Yasous, Fasil’s principal general, was afflicted.
In return for this service, which they rated very high, saying in the presence of the king that Fasil would be more pleased with the cure of this man than with the magnificent appointments which the king’s goodness had bestowed upon him, Bruce only demanded that the village of Geesh, and the source of the Nile, should be given him; and that Fasil, as soon as it might be in his power, should be bound by the king to conduct him to the sources without fee or reward. This request was granted; and Fasil’s servants swore, in the name of their master, that the village and the fountains should belong to Yagoube and his posterity for ever.
On the 28th of October, 1770, Bruce and his party set out from Gondar to explore the sources of the Nile. Having passed by the lake of Tzana, he came up at Bamba with Fasil’s army, which was now once more in motion. Here he had an interview with this rebel chieftain, who was as insolent to strangers as he was undutiful to his sovereign. However, after much blustering and many exhibitions of vanity, in which Bruce, who was never at a loss on such occasions, was fully his equal, he seemed to relapse into what was probably his natural disposition, and promised to afford his guest the most ample protection. He then introduced him to seven chiefs of the Gallas, ferocious savages, who appeared in the eyes of Bruce to be so many thieves; and having informed him that he might pass in the utmost safety through their country, and that, in fact, he would very soon be related to themall, as it was their custom, when visited by any stranger of distinction, to give him the privilege of sleeping with their sisters and daughters. Upon this he put a question to the savages in the Galla language, probably asking them whether it were not so; and they all answered, says Bruce, by the wildest howl I ever heard, and struck themselves upon the breast, apparently assenting.
Fasil, who was fond of hearing the sound of his own voice, now made another long speech, and then turned to the Galla, who now got upon their feet; and the whole party standing round in a circle, and raising the palms of their hands, Fasil and the seven chiefs repeated a prayer about a minute long, the latter apparently with great devotion. “Now,” says Fasil, “go in peace; you are a Galla. This is a curse upon them and their children, their corn, grass, and cattle, if ever they lift their hands against you or yours, or do not defend you to the utmost, if attacked by others, or endeavour to defeat any design they may hear is intended against you.” He then took the traveller to the door of the tent, where there stood a handsome gray horse bridled and saddled, and said, “Take this horse; but do not mount it yourself. Drive it before you, saddled and bridled as it is; no man of Maitsha will touch you when he sees that horse.”
A guide was now given him by Fasil, and he took his leave. The horse was driven before him, and he proceeded towards the mysterious fountains of the Nile, surrounded on all sides by a people ignorant, brutal, and treacherous, and bearing a stronger resemblance in character than any other race of men to the profligate Mingrelians described by Chardin.
On the 3d of November he came in sight of a triple ridge of mountains, disposed one range behind another, nearly in form of three concentric circles, which he supposed to be the Mountains of the Moon, the “Montes Lunæ” of the ancients, near which theNile was said to rise; and on the 4th, about three quarters after one o’clock, “we arrived,” says Bruce, “on the top of a mountain, whence we had a distinct view of all the remaining territory of Saccala, the mountain Geesh, and church of St. Michael Geesh, about a mile and a half distant from St. Michael Saccala, where we then were. We saw immediately below us the Nile itself strangely diminished in size, and now only a brook that had scarce water enough to turn a mill. I could not satiate myself with the sight, revolving in my mind all those classical prophecies that had given the Nile up to perpetual obscurity and concealment. The lines of the poet came immediately into my mind, and I enjoyed here, for the first time, the triumph which already, by the protection of Providence and my own intrepidity, I had gained over all that were powerful and all that were learned since the remotest antiquity.