Previous to Bruce's landing at Masuah, the ancient port of Abyssinia, it
would seem proper to lay before the reader some account of this country,
and of the continent to which it belongs.
Of Africa in general it may be justly said, that ninety-nine parts of it
are unknown; and that, at several points, a man might travel from the
Mediterranean very nearly to the Cape of Good Hope, and from the Indian
Ocean to the Atlantic, over ground which has never been trodden or seen
by any European traveller.
We have surveyed its coasts; we are acquainted with part of the Nile;
and, in a very few directions, we have attempted to penetrate into the
interior of the country; but it must be confessed that Africa is an
immense blank in geography which remains yet to be filled up. Instead,
therefore, of presuming to offer a map of this continent, we propose to
attempt nothing more than a short verbal description of its general
features, with a few observations thereon; and as Bruce's memoranda on
the topography and history of Abyssinia are, with little attention to
arrangement, scattered over the seven volumes of his travels, and would
alone fill three or four times as many pages as the whole of this little
book contains, we shall merely add to our sketch of Africa a slight
descriptive outline of the kingdom of Abyssinia, and an abstract of its
history up to the time when Bruce landed in that country.
We are but indifferently prepared to do justice to these subjects; but
we feel that it is impossible for the general reader, going merely step
by step, like a man walking in the dark with a lantern, to judge of
Bruce's life in Abyssinia, unless he previously takes into consideration
the general character and history of that country, and the character of
the continent of which it forms a part.
SKETCH OF THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA.
That vast portion of the globe which we call Africa is in length about
five thousand miles, which is about the distance from the line to
Iceland, or from Calcutta to the North Pole: in short, it is about one
thousand miles more than the distance from the earth's centre to its
circumference. The greatest breadth of Africa is very nearly equal to
its length. This immense expanse of country is situated in exactly the
hottest region of the globe; for, from the equator, it is two thousand
five hundred miles to its northern boundary, the Mediterranean Sea, and
about the same distance to its southern extremity, the Cape of Good
Hope. The burning heat of both the torrid zones forms, therefore, the
scorching climate of the middle portion of this continent; and the
northern and southern extremities, its coldest regions, are, as we all
know, nearer to the line than the most southern or hottest parts of
Europe. To describe the climate, it may therefore, in general terms, not
unjustly be observed, that what is marked by Nature upon our European
scale of climate as excess of heat, is all that the African knows of the
luxury of cold, excepting that which is produced by elevation or
evaporation.
Although Africa is thus perpetually exposed to a scorching sun, yet, if
it were well watered, it would be highly productive, and not unlike a
luxuriant garden. But, although heat and water give this exuberant
fertility to any soil, we also know that, without water (the blood of
the vegetable world), the richest land remains a _caput mortuum_--_rudis
indigestaque moles_--an inert, lifeless mass. Water being, therefore, an
element of such vital importance in the production of vegetation, it
becomes necessary to take a very short practical view of the tropical
rains which deluge the centre of Africa.
During the half-yearly visits which the sun pays in succession to the
torrid regions on the north and south of the line, the air, heated by
his presence, becomes rarefied, and flies upward: its place is
immediately filled; and thus a constant rush of air, or, as we call it,
a trade-wind, is produced, which, being also influenced by the diurnal
motion of the sun, is constantly flowing towards the equator. The air,
thus rushing towards the sun, is by heat made capable of absorbing a
greater quantity of water than it could contain in a colder state; and
therefore, as soon as this air and vapour united rise into high and
consequently colder regions, a divorce between the two elements suddenly
takes place; the air now loses its power of retaining the vapour, which,
being immediately condensed, becomes water; and its companion, the dry
air, thus deserted by it, falls to the earth in what we term tropical
rains, which, accompanying the sun from one torrid zone to another, are,
by a most wonderful provision of Nature, perpetually assuaging the
thirst which this immense heating mass tends to create. The rains are
always most violent where the sun is in the zenith; and, as a remarkable
instance of the effect which they produce, it may be stated, that Bruce
observed, when the sun was immediately over Gondar, the capital of
Abyssinia, that the thermometer was invariably about twelve degrees
lower than when he was in the southern tropic, thirty-six degrees from
the zenith of Gondar: so happily does the approach of rain compensate
for the heat of a burning sun! But, while the centre of Africa, or, to
speak more correctly, a belt of about eleven hundred miles on each side
of the line, is thus periodically deluged with water, yet, in the vast
remainder of the continent, it may be said, with very few exceptions,
that it never rains at all. The burning heat and the unequal
distribution of water in Africa being understood, the following picture
of the country is the natural consequence.
Within the limits of the tropical rains, the soil, rank from excessive
heat and moisture, in some places is found covered with trees of most
enormous size, encircled by kossom and other twining shrubs, which form
bowers of a most beautiful description, enlivened by the notes of
thousands of gaudy birds, and perfumed with fragrant aromatic breezes.
These trees are often the acacia vera, or Egyptian thorn. They seldom
grow above fifteen or sixteen feet high, then flatten; and, spreading
wide at the top, touch each other, while the trunks are far asunder: and
thus, under a vertical sun, for many miles together, there is a free
space, in which both men and beasts may walk in a cool, delicious shade.
Other parts of this region produce coarse grass, high enough to cover a
man on horseback, or a jungle, composed of tall underwood and briers,
which would be almost impervious to human beings were it not for the
elephant and other large animals, which, crushing everything in their
progress, form paths in various directions. In many places the land is
highly cultivated, divided into plantations, fenced in as in England,
possessing towns of more than thirty thousand inhabitants, and swarming
with an immense population.
Strangely contrasted with this picture of the wet portion of Africa are
its dry, lifeless deserts, composed either of mountains and plains of
hot stones, or of vast masses of loose, burning sand, which, sometimes
formed into moving pillars by the whirlwind, and sometimes driven
forward, like a mist, by the gale, threaten the traveller with death and
burial, or, rather, with burial and then death; a fate which befell the
army of Cambyses. In some places, however, the sand is found, like a
layer of mortar, firmly cemented on the surface by an incrustation of
salt; and it is in these scorching regions of salt and sand that the
traveller experiences what he has emphatically termed "the thirst of the
desert;" and yet, with all its horrors, the desert parts of Africa are
more healthy, and afford a residence which is often more desirable than
the rank, luxuriant regions; for the excessive rains bring into
existence vast numbers of flies, moschetoes, and ants, which not only
torment the body, but even devour the garments. Denham says (vol. ii.,
p. 91), "After a night of intolerable misery to us all, from flies and
moschetoes, so bad as to knock up two of our blacks, we mounted, &c....
Another night was passed in a state of suffering and distress which
defies description: the buzz from the insects was like the singing of
birds; the men and horses groaned with anguish. I do not think our
animals could have borne another such night." Besides producing these
flies, the rains cover the country with extensive lakes, and, as far as
the eye can reach, with immense miry swamps, which at first drive the
wild beasts among the human race, and then putrify and corrupt the air;
converting a verdant, smiling country into what may be termed a painted
sepulchre. In the desert, on the other hand, there are no flies; the
air is comparatively healthy; and, as the heat penetrates only a few
inches into the ground, a cool bed can always be obtained after sunset
by clearing away the hot sand from the surface.
The moral outline of Africa is far more gloomy than the physical face of
the country. The whole of the interior (as far as Europeans have been
able to judge, or, rather, to conjecture, from their slight acquaintance
with it) may be said to be one scene of incessant civil war. Of all the
various tribes, nations, colours, and races of men who inhabit this
immense country, there is not one which has not its enemy; and the
universal creed of Africa seems to be, that the freedom and happiness of
one tribe rest upon the slavery and misery of another. The Sultan of
Mandara, on the marriage of his daughter, lately made an incursion into
the Kerdy country: three thousand unfortunate wretches were thus dragged
from their homes, and doomed to perpetual bondage.
Across scorching deserts, in which not a living animal, or even an
insect, exists, in various directions are seen one tribe of human beings
driving another to slavery. The unfortunate captives, starting from
their native seats in health, and, strange to say, even in spirits,
gradually decline in both: their bodies become emaciated, their legs
swell, and, as Denham says, "on approaching the wells, they run forward
several miles like things distracted, their mouths open, and eyes
starting from their heads." The water they seek is sometimes brackish,
or the well itself is found to be dry; and around its exhausted source
stand grouped this crowd of disappointed beings, surrounded by the
countless skeletons of those whose captivity and troubles have alike
ended on the same spot; who have perished from thirst and fatigue; and
whose bones the hungry camels of the Cafila are oftentimes seen to chew.
From the northern coast of Africa, where the Christian captive has so
often ended his days in silent misery and anguish, down to the country
of the Hottentots and Caffres, a space of about five thousand miles,
and from the eastern mountains of Abyssinia to the waters of the great
Western Ocean, a distance of nearly four thousand miles, we have every
reason to believe that, throughout the whole of this immense region, the
system of slavery more or less prevails.