thick pieces of undigested branches; and observed in the tracks through
which they had passed 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
approached by 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 12_l._, 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 farmers of 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
them were 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 the _latrator 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 the air, 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 each other, 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 many places, 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 his head. 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 who had 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
manner truly 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. The river 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, endeavoured to 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 them all, 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 the Nile 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.
Arcanum natura caput non prodidit ulli,
Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre;
Amovitque sinus, et gentes maluit ortus
Mirari, quam nôsse tuos.’”[12]
Footnote 12:
Lucan, Phars. x. 295.
His guide, who, having formerly committed a murder in the village of
Geesh, was afraid to enter it, made a number of lame excuses for not
accompanying him to the fountains, and at length confessed the truth.
His apprehensions, however, were not proof against his vanity and
avarice. He had long been desirous of possessing a rich sash which Bruce
wore about his waist, and was bribed by this article of finery to
approach somewhat nearer to the scene of his past villany. After leading
the traveller round to the south of the church, beyond the grove of
trees which surrounded it, “This,” says he, “is the hill which, when you
were on the other side of it, was between you and the fountains of the
Nile. There is no other. Look at that hillock of green sod in the middle
of that watery spot; it is in that the two fountains of the Nile are to
be found. Geesh is on the face of the rock where yon green trees are. If
you go the length of the fountain, pull off your shoes as you did the
other day; for these people are pagans, and believe in nothing that you
believe, but only in this river, to which they pray every day, as if it
were God; but this, perhaps, you may do likewise.”
“Half-undressed as I was,” says Bruce, “by the loss of my sash, and
throwing off my shoes, I ran down the hill towards the little island of
green sods, which was about two hundred yards distant. The whole side of
the hill was thick grown over with flowers, the large bulbous roots of
which appearing above the surface of the ground, and their skins coming
off on treading upon them, occasioned two very severe falls before I
reached the brink of the marsh. I after this came to the island of green
turf, which was in form of an altar, apparently the work of art, and I
stood in rapture over the principal fountain which rises in the middle
of it.
“It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that
moment, standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry,
and inquiry of both ancients and moderns for the course of near three
thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of
armies, and each expedition was distinguished from the last only by the
difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the
disappointment which had uniformly and without exception followed them
all.... Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here in my own mind
over kings and their armies; and every comparison was leading nearer and
nearer to presumption, when the place itself where I stood, the object
of my vainglory, suggested what depressed my short-lived triumph. I was
but a few minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile, through numberless
dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me but
for the continual goodness and protection of Providence; I was, however,
but then half through my journey, and all those dangers which I had
already passed awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency
gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting the crown of laurels I had too
rashly woven for myself.”
This was extremely natural. He had proposed to himself an object in
itself rather curious than useful, and in all probability had in his
imagination invested these fountains themselves with a magnificent or
mysterious character which the realities were found not to possess, and
that depression of spirit which is occasioned by disappointment ensued.
Besides, he could scarcely seriously disbelieve the fact that Paez had
visited the spot before him; and, therefore, that however great his
pleasure might be, as “a private Briton,” triumphing in his own mind
over kings and their armies, he was not really the first European who
had approached these fountains; that is, was not the discoverer of them.
The talking of kings at the head of armies having made the discovery of
the sources of the Nile their object, and failed, is a mere rhetorical
figure of speech. When Ptolemy Euergetes was at Auxum, what was there to
hinder his proceeding to Geesh? Bruce’s mode of describing his own
achievements is pompous and vain; but he had purchased the right to be a
little vain at so dear a rate that we readily forgive him.
Having by numerous observations discovered that the fountains of the
Nile are situated in latitude 10° 59´ 25´´ N., and in longitude 36° 55´
30´´ E., Bruce, after a stay of six days, prepared to return to Gondar.
While he remained at Geesh, he contrived with his usual address to
acquire the confidence of the inhabitants, with whom he lived in great
familiarity and harmony. These people, as his guide had informed him,
really worship the Nile. Annually, on the first appearance of the
dog-star, or eleven days afterward according to others, the servant, or
priest, of the river assembles the heads of the clans around the
principal fountain and altar. Having sacrificed a black heifer which has
never borne a calf, they plunge the head of the beast into the fountain,
and then draw it out, and wrap it up in the hide, previously sprinkled
on both sides with the water of the river, so as that it may never more
be seen by mortal. The body of the heifer is then divided into two
parts, carefully cleansed, and placed upon the hillock, where it is
washed with water brought in the hollow of the hand, for no dish must be
used by the elders or principal persons of the tribes. The flesh is then
cut into pieces, one for each clan, and eaten raw. They then quench
their thirst with the sacred waters of the Nile, and burn the bones to
ashes on the spot where they have been sitting. When this part of the
ceremony is over, the head is carried into a cavern, which, they assert,
extends under the fountains, and there certain mysterious rites, the
nature of which has never been revealed, are performed. What becomes of
the head is unknown. The Abyssinians, in hatred of their pagan subjects,
assert that the powers of hell unite with the river worshippers in
devouring it; but, however they may dispose of it, they certainly pray
to the spirit residing in the river, whom they address as the
Everlasting God, Light of the World, Eye of the World, God of Peace, the
Saviour, and Father of the Universe.
Relics of serpent-worship, which has in all ages extensively prevailed
in the East, were likewise observed among the Agows, who use them, as
the Romans did their sacred chickens, for purposes of divination.
On the 10th of November Bruce took his leave of the fountains of the
Nile, and returned to Gondar. Here, as the civil war still raged with
unexampled fury, he was during a whole year witness of all those
atrocities which ferocious barbarians exercise towards each other when
excited by ambition or revenge. At the termination of this period,
however, notwithstanding that old law of Abyssinia forbidding strangers
to quit the country, which had a thousand times been broken, he obtained
the king’s permission to depart, though not before he had taken a solemn
oath, which he never intended to fulfil, that, after having visited his
home and friends, he would return.
Leaving Gondar on the 26th of December, 1771, with a numerous suite of
attendants, he proceeded through the northern provinces of Abyssinia,
the country of the Shangalla, and crossing the rivers Rabad, Dender, and
Nile, arrived on the 29th of April, 1772, at Sennaar, the capital of
Nubia. The next morning after his arrival he was summoned into the
presence of the king, whom he found in a small apartment in his vast
clay-built palace, dressed very meanly, and reposing on a mattress
covered with a Persian carpet. He was a “fellow of no mark or
likelihood,” with a “very plebeian countenance;” but he received the
stranger civilly, asked him numerous questions, and furnished him with a
very comfortable dinner of camel’s flesh. The crowds in the streets,
however, were exceedingly insolent; and while they affronted and hooted
at him as he passed, he called to mind with horror that, but a few years
before, this same mob had murdered a French ambassador with all his
attendants.
At this city he was detained by various circumstances until the 8th of
September, and during this period was enabled to make numerous inquiries
into the history of the country, civil and natural, together with the
manners, customs, religions, and character of its inhabitants. But when
the day of departure arrived, he proceeded with indescribable pleasure
on his journey, having the Nile on his right-hand, and the
Bahr-el-Abiad, or White River, which he never approached, on the left.
On the 21st he again crossed the Nile, and after travelling along its
banks for several days, took a long leave of its stream, and plunged
into the vast desert of Nubia. The soil here consisted of fixed gravel,
of a very disagreeable whitish colour, mixed with small pieces of white
marble and pebbles like alabaster, and wholly bare of trees. As they
proceeded, indeed, a few patches of coarse grass, with small groves of
acacia, met and refreshed the eye. On the 14th of November they halted
in a small hollow, called Waadi-el-Halboub, and “were here at once
surprised and terrified,” says Bruce, “by a sight surely one of the most
magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, from west and
to north-west of us we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand, at
different distances, at times moving with great celerity, at others
stalking on with a majestic slowness. At intervals we thought they were
coming in a very few minutes to overwhelm us, and small quantities of
sand did actually more than once reach us. Again they would retreat, so
as to be almost out of sight, their tops reaching to the very clouds.
There the tops often separated from the bodies; and these, once
disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. Sometimes they
were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon-shot.
About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon us,
the wind being very strong at north. Eleven of them ranged alongside of
us about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the
largest appeared to me at that distance as if it would measure ten feet.
They retired from us with a wind at S.E., leaving an impression upon my
mind to which I can give no name, though surely one ingredient in it was
fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was in
vain to think of flying: the swiftest horse or fastest sailing ship
could be of no use to carry us out of this danger, and the full
persuasion of this riveted me as if to the spot where I stood.”
The appearance of these phantoms of the plain, as Bruce terms them, sent
their guide to his prayers, and together with the danger which they were
now in of perishing of thirst, produced in the whole party nothing but
murmuring, discontent, and insubordination. Next day the moving
sand-pillars again appeared. The sublimity of the scene,—a boundless
desert, level as the sea, condemned to eternal desolation, without
sounds or signs of life, animal or vegetable; the arid soil, drained of
every particle of moisture, reduced by perpetual attrition to almost
impalpable atoms, and raised aloft by whirlwinds into prodigious
columns, which, as if instinct with life, glided along with
preternatural rapidity,—all this, I say, no language, however
magnificent, or exalted by metaphor and poetical fervour, could ever
present in its proper terrors to the mind. These pillars on their second
appearance were more numerous, but of inferior dimensions to those seen
at Waadi Halboub. They had probably been careering over the waste in the
darkness and silence of night; as, immediately after sunrise, they were
observed, like a thick wood, reaching to the clouds, and almost
darkening the sun, whose slanting rays, shining through them as they
moved along, like enormous shadows, before the wind, gave them the
appearance of pillars of fire. Our traveller’s attendants now became
desperate: the Greeks shrieked out that the day of judgment was come;
Ismael, a Turk, said it was hell; and the Africans exclaimed that the
world was on fire. Bruce now demanded of their guide whether he had ever
before witnessed such a sight. “Frequently,” replied the man, “but I
have never seen a worse.” He added, however, that from the redness of
the air, he dreaded the approach of something much more terrible than
these fiery columns,—the _simoom_, which almost invariably ensued upon
such a disposition of the atmosphere. This information greatly increased
the apprehensions of the traveller; but he entreated the man to conceal
his suspicions from their companions.
In the forenoon of the next day, being in sight of the rock of Chiggre,
where they expected to refresh themselves with plenty of excellent
water, and were therefore in high spirits, the guide cried out with a
loud voice, “Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom!” Bruce
looked, he says, towards the south-east, and saw “a haze come in colour
like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It
did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high
from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very
rapidly; for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground with my head to
the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face.
We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris (the guide) told
us it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw, was
indeed passed, but the light air that still blew, was of a heat to
threaten suffocation. For my part, I found distinctly in my breast that
I had imbibed a part of it; nor was I free of an asthmatic sensation
till I had been some months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, near two
years afterward.”
The effect of this state of the atmosphere upon his companions was
sudden and extraordinary. They were all seized with an unusual
despondency, ceased to speak to each other, or if they spoke it was in
whispers; from which Bruce conjectured, perhaps without reason, that
some plot was forming against him. He therefore called them together,
reprimanded them for their fears, exhorted them to take courage,
reminded them, that whatever might be their sufferings, his own were not
less than theirs; desired them to look at his swollen face, his neck
blistered by the sun, his feet torn and bleeding, and to observe his
voice nearly lost by the simoom. With respect to the scantiness of
water, of which they had complained, he was so well persuaded that they
had nothing to apprehend on this score, that he would allow each man an
additional gourd-full from their present stock. In fact, if they lifted
up their eyes, they would perceive in the distance, the bare, black, and
sharp point of the rock Chiggre, where there was an abundance of water.
The only point, therefore, was to hasten on in good spirits to this
spot, where all their fears of perishing from thirst in the desert would
immediately vanish. This speech restored the courage of the whole party,
and they continued their march with something like energy. That same
evening they reached Chiggre.
On the 17th of November they left the wells, and resumed their march
through the desert. Having journeyed on during the greater part of the
day, amused rather than terrified by the moving sand-columns, with which
they were now become familiar, they halted late in the afternoon in a
vast plain, “bounded on all sides by low sandy hills, which seemed to
have been transported thither lately. These hillocks were from seven to
thirteen feet high, drawn into perfect cones, with very sharp points,
and well-proportioned bases. The sand was of an inconceivable fineness,
having been the sport of hot winds for thousands of years.” These cones,
in fact, were nothing more or less than the relics of a group of sandy
pillars, which had been perhaps on the previous day in motion; and had
they then advanced so far, might have overwhelmed them in their fall.
Marks of the whirling motion of the pillars were distinctly seen in
every heap.
In the course of the next day they passed by the spot where, but a few
years before, one of the largest caravans that ever came out of Egypt,
amounting to some thousands of camels, and conducted by the Ababdé and
Bishareen Arabs, had been overwhelmed by a sand-storm; and the heaps
which probably had collected over their bodies had somewhat raised the
level of the desert in that place. Here numbers of gray granite rocks
were scattered over the plain. A little beyond this they came to a wood
of dwarf acacia-trees, which furnished a little browsing to their
camels.
In the night of the 19th, while they were encamped at a well, an attempt
was made by a single robber to steal one of their camels. From this
circumstance, which informed them they were come into the neighbourhood
of man, they began to fear that they had approached the camp of some of
those wandering Arabs who extract a scanty subsistence out of these
torrid plains, and dwell all their lives amid simooms and pillars of
moving sand, which form the terror of all other men. In the morning,
however, no Arabs appeared; all was still; but, in diligently
scrutinizing the appearance of the sand, they discovered the track of a
man, by following which they soon came in sight of two ragged, old,
dirty tents, pitched with grass cords. Two of Bruce’s attendants found,
on entering the smaller tent, a naked woman; and our traveller himself,
and Ismael the Turk, saw, on entering the larger one, “a man and a
woman, both perfectly naked; frightful emaciated figures, not like the
inhabitants of this world. The man was partly sitting on his hams; a
child, seeming of the age to suck, was on a rag at the corner, and the
woman looked as if she wished to hide herself.” Upon these miserable
wretches they all immediately rushed like wild beasts, threatening to
murder them; and, in fact, brought them all bound to their encampment,
with the intention, at least on the part of all but Bruce, to put them
to death. However, after terrifying them greatly, and learning from them
some particulars respecting the movements of the tribe to which they
belonged, it was resolved that the man should accompany them in chains,
as a guide; and the women, after their camels had been lamed, left where
they were until the return of their husband. If the man led them into
danger he was to be put to death without mercy; if he served them
faithfully Bruce engaged to clothe both him and his women, to present
him with a camel, and a load of dora for them all.
On the 22d one of the African attendants was seized with a kind of
phrensy, and, their anxiety for their own preservation having
extinguished their humanity, was left to perish among the burning sands.
Their camels were now dropping off one by one; their bread grew scanty;
and the water they found in the wells was so brackish that it scarcely
served to quench their thirst. Languor and inactivity seized upon them
all; all the weighty baggage and curiosities, such as shells, fossils,
minerals, the counter-canes of the quadrant, telescopes, &c., were
abandoned, and inevitable death appeared to stare them in the face.
Their Bishareen prisoner, however, seemed not to be affected in the
least, either by fatigue or the hot winds, and by his ingenuity in
contriving a bandage for Bruce’s feet probably saved the traveller’s
life. Here and there upon the sands, the bodies of men who had been
murdered, and of camels which had perished for want, met their eyes; and
suggested the thought that their own carcasses might shortly increase
the number. Two of their camels, which kneeled down and refused to rise,
they killed, preserving their flesh for food, and taking the water out
of their stomachs, as a precious addition to their stock. One of the
party had lost an eye, and others, more fortunate, perhaps, dropped down
dead by the brink of the well where they had been quenching their
thirst. Still they pushed forward, and at length Bruce announced to his
followers that they were approaching Assuan. “A cry of joy,” says he,
“followed this annunciation. Christians, Moors, and Turks, all burst
into floods of tears, kissing and embracing one another, and thanking
God for his mercy in this deliverance; and unanimously, in token of
their gratitude and acknowledgments of my constant attention to them in
the whole of this long journey, saluting me with the name of Abou Ferege
(Father Foresight), the only reward it was in their power to give.”
About nine o’clock next morning they beheld the palm-trees of Assuan,
and shortly afterward arrived in a small grove in the environs of the
city. The waters of the Nile being now before them, no consideration of
prudence, no fears of the consequences which might possibly ensue, could
check Bruce’s companions from running at once to the stream to drink.
The traveller himself sat down among the trees, and fell asleep,
overcome by heat and fatigue. However, when his arrival was made known
to the Aga of Assuan, he was received and entertained with distinguished
hospitality, and furnished with dromedaries to go in search of the
baggage which he had been compelled to abandon in the desert. He then
paid and discharged his guide; and to the Bishareen, who had faithfully
served him from the day in which he took him prisoner, and was now
become particularly attached to his person, he gave the privilege of
choosing the best of his camels; and having, as he had promised, clothed
him completely, and presented him with dresses for his wives, and a
camel-load of dora, dismissed him. The Arab, whom almost unexampled
misery had reduced to a robber, was so far overcome by his generous
treatment, that he expressed his desires, with tears in his eyes, to
enter Bruce’s service, and follow him over the world, having first
returned into the desert, and provided for the subsistence of his
family. This, however, could not be, and they parted, the Arab to his
desert, and Bruce to his home.
From Syene, or Assuan, Bruce descended the Nile to Cairo, whence, after
a short stay, he proceeded to Alexandria, and took ship for Marseilles.
He remained some time on the Continent, where he was universally
received in the most flattering manner, before he returned to his native
land, which he did not reach until the middle of the summer of 1774,
after an absence of twelve years. In 1776 he married a second time: by
this wife he had two children, a son and a daughter; but he was not
fortunate in his marriages, for in 1785 he again became a widower.
Various causes, among which the principal one appears to have been
disgust at observing that his statements were in many instances thought
unworthy of belief, retarded the composition and publication of his
travels. At length, however, in 1790, seventeen years after his return
to Europe, the result of his labours and adventures was laid before the
world, and prejudice and ignorance united their efforts to diminish, at
least, if they could not destroy, his chance of fame, the only reward
which he coveted for all the hardships and dangers which he had
encountered.
On the 27th of April, 1794, as he was conducting an aged lady from his
drawing-room to her carriage, down the great staircase of his house at
Kinnaird, his foot slipped, and falling with great force down several of
the steps, he pitched upon his head, and was killed. He was buried in
the churchyard of Larbert, in a tomb which he had erected for his wife.
I have carefully avoided interrupting the course of the narrative by
entering into any discussions respecting those points on which Bruce’s
veracity has been called in question. His detractors, without any
exception of which I am aware, consist of men whose authority, in
matters of this nature is no longer respected, or who never, except from
their numbers, possessed any. No man of competent understanding and
knowledge of mankind can read Bruce’s Travels without a thorough
conviction that the writer was a person of the strictest honour and
veracity, who, though as in the case of Paez, he might be hurried by
wounded pride and indignation into the commission of injustice, was
wholly incapable of deliberate falsehood. That the name of Dr. Johnson
is found among those of Bruce’s enemies, is to be regretted on Dr.
Johnson’s own account. But the circumstance can excite no surprise in
any one who recollects that the doctor likewise distinguished himself
among the calumniators of Milton—a name which has long since ranked
among the first which history records, and is the representative, as it
were, of every thing that is most sacred in genius, and most unsullied
in virtue. The other cavillers at Bruce demand no ceremony. Their absurd
rancour has been stimulated by a secret conviction of their own
inferiority in talent and enterprise; and, despairing of raising
themselves to his level, they have endeavoured to bring him down to
their own. Swift explains in two lines the whole philosophy of this
proceeding:—
I have no title to aspire:
Yet, if you sink, _I seem the higher!_
It will be remembered that Marco Polo met with very nearly the same fate
with Bruce, being not only disbelieved during his lifetime, but having
to endure, even on his death-bed, the monstrous incredulity of his
nearest relations, who, pressing around him, conjured him for the love
of Christ, and the salvation of his soul, to retract the fictions which
they imagined he had advanced in his writings. With the noble
intrepidity which Bruce, I doubt not, would have shown under similar
circumstances, he refused to abate a jot of his assertions, which, he
solemnly averred, fell far short of the truth. The persecution of Marco
Polo, however, arose wholly from the ignorance of his contemporaries;
but Bruce had a foible, abundantly visible in his writings, from which
the great Italian traveller was altogether exempt—I mean an arrogant and
intolerable vanity. Even the most charitable of readers must frequently,
in perusing Bruce’s writings, be angered, if not disgusted, at its
perpetual recurrence in the coarsest and most undisguised forms; but
when we reflect, that notwithstanding this foible, or partly, perhaps,
in consequence of it, he was one of the most enterprising, adventurous,
and indefatigable of travellers, we readily consent to overlook this
defect in consideration of the many excellences which accompany it. As a
writer he is slovenly and immethodical, and destitute to a remarkable
degree of the graces of style; but, on the other hand, he is always so
much in earnest, and so natural, in spite of all that has been said to
the contrary, that it would argue nothing short of actual stupidity to
doubt of the truth of what he relates.
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