The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller Part 4

It is with painful reluctance that we have paused for a moment in Bruce's history to make the above observations; but the advice which was given to poor Denham and his gallant companions may be again given to others; and as the proper mode of penetrating Africa is a most important problem, in which the lives of future travellers are involved, we only beg the reader henceforward to observe the effect which Bruce's plan of getting along produces, and then to judge for himself whether the traveller who wishes to penetrate Africa should publicly proclaim himself "a Briton and a Christian," or not. That he should inwardly be both, no one, we hope, will deny; yet religion, like loyalty, need not be vauntingly displayed; and as we know that the African abhors and despises both our religion and our dress, why should we irritate his prejudices by wilfully unfurling these flags of defiance? Most particularly as regards the useless fas.h.i.+on of our dress, which is so very badly adapted to the climate, it may at least be maintained that English breeches, stockings, and "coats cut to the quick," are far better relished by the phlebotomizing moschetoes of Africa than by its human inhabitants. Within the tropics, even the sheep wears hair instead of wool. Why, then, should "a Briton" insist on carrying his fleecy hosiery to the Line?

Bruce being within a day of the cataracts of Syene, called by the Arabs a.s.suan, sailed on the 20th for that town, and had scarcely arrived when an unarmed janisary, dressed in long Turkish clothes, and holding in his hand a white wand, came to tell him that Syene was a garrison town, and that the aga was at the castle ready to give him an audience, having received a most particular letter from the Bey of Cairo. "I found the aga," says Bruce, "sitting in a small kiosk or closet, upon a stone bench with carpets. As I was in no fear of him, I was resolved to walk according to my privileges. I sat down upon a cus.h.i.+on below him, after laying my hand on my breast, and saying, in an audible voice, 'Salam alic.u.m!' (Peace be between us); to which he answered, without any of the usual difficulty, 'Alic.u.m salum!' (There _is_ peace between us). After sitting down about two minutes, I again got up, and stood in the middle of the room before him, saying, 'I am bearer of a hatesheriffe, or royal mandate to you, Mohammed Aga!' and took the firman out of my bosom and presented it to him. Upon this he stood upright, and all the rest of the people, before sitting with him, likewise; he bowed his head upon the carpet, then put the firman to his forehead, opened it, and pretended to read it: but he knew well the contents, and, I believe, besides, he could neither read nor write any language. I then gave him the other letters from Cairo, which he ordered his secretary to read in his ear.

"All this ceremony being finished, he called for a pipe and coffee. I refused the first, as never using it, but I drank a dish of coffee, and told him that I was bearer of a confidential message from Ali Bey of Cairo, and wished to deliver it to him without witnesses, whenever he pleased. The room was accordingly cleared without delay, excepting his secretary, who was also going away, when I pulled him back by the clothes, saying, 'Stay, if you please, we shall need you to write the answer.' We were no sooner left alone, than I told the aga that, being a stranger, and not knowing the disposition of his people, or what footing they were on together, and being desired to address myself only to him by the bey and our mutual friends at Cairo, I wished to put it in his power (as he pleased or not) to have witnesses of delivering the small present I had brought him from Cairo. The aga seemed very sensible of this delicacy; and particularly desired me to take no notice to my landlord, the schourbatchie, of anything I had brought him.

"All this being over, and a confidence established with government, I sent his present by his own servant that night, under the pretence of desiring horses to go to the cataract next day. The message was returned, that the horses were to be ready by six o'clock next morning.

On the 21st, the aga sent me his own horse, with mules and a.s.ses for my servants, to go to the cataract."

Having thus judiciously cleared the way before him, Bruce proceeded to the small villages of the cataract, which are about six miles from a.s.suan; and on arriving at what is called the cataract, he was much surprised to find that vessels could sail up it, the river being there not half a mile broad, but divided into a number of small channels.

During the whole of the 22d, 23d, and 24th of January, he was occupied with his instruments, besides which he made many other observations and memoranda; and on the 25th of January, 1769, he prepared to descend the river.

Fain would he have continued to stem the torrent, and it was with secret pain and silent reluctance that Bruce turned his back upon the sources of the Nile. Yet the advice he had received, and the course which had been recommended to him, he had firmly resolved to pursue; and accordingly, on the 26th of January, he embarked at Syene, from the very spot where he again took boat more than three years afterward.

To his bold, enterprising mind, there was now a melancholy change in the picture. The canja was no longer to be seen proudly striding over the opposing element; but, with her prodigious mainsail lowered, and even her masts uns.h.i.+pped, she was carried broadside down the stream in helpless captivity. From her deck no longer resounded those exclamations of eager delight and sudden surprise which had ushered each new object into view: the scene had lost its freshness and its bloom--the magic charm of novelty!

In pa.s.sing Sheikh Amner, Bruce called upon his patient Nimmer (the Tiger), Sheikh of the Ababde, who was better, and as thankful as ever.

Bruce renewed his prescriptions, and he his offers of service.

On the 2d of February he again took up his quarters at Badjoura, in the house which had formerly been a.s.signed to him. "As I was now," says Bruce, "about to enter on that part of my expedition in which I was to have no farther intercourse with Europe, I set myself to work to examine all my observations, and put my journal in such forwardness by explanations where needful, that the labour and pains I had hitherto been at might not be totally lost to the public if I should perish in the journey I had undertaken, which, from all information I could procure, every day appeared to be more and more desperate. Having finished these, at least so far as to make them intelligible to others, I conveyed them to my friends Messrs. Julian and Rosa, at Cairo, to remain in their custody till I should return, or news came that I was otherwise disposed of."

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Plin., lib. v., cap. 9.

[13] Plin., lib. x.x.xvi., cap. 12.

[14] Diod. Sic., p. 45, -- 50.

[15] Shaw's Travels, chap. 4, p. 298.

[16] Lib. ii., p. 141, 168, 105, 103.

[17] Strabo, lib. vii., p. 944.

[18] _Things not existing and those not appearing to exist we may account the same._

[19] The part of Egypt which is cultivated.

[20] Cairo.

CHAPTER V.

Bruce crosses the Desert to the Red Sea.--Meets with the Arabs Ababde at Cosseir.--His Adventures in the Red Sea.--Arrives at Ma.s.suah, the ancient Harbour of Abyssinia.

It was on Thursday, the 16th of February,[21] 1769, that Bruce joined the caravan which was setting out from Kenne, the _Coene Emporium_ of antiquity. They pa.s.sed through a few dirty villages of the Azaizy, a poor, inconsiderable tribe of Arabs, who live by furnis.h.i.+ng cattle for the caravans, and by attending on them. The huts of these poor people, which are made of clay in one piece, in the shape of a beehive, are seldom above ten feet high and six feet in diameter. After travelling nearly the whole day, Bruce pitched his tent at Gabba, about a mile from the borders of the desert, and here he pa.s.sed the night.

On the 17th, at eight o'clock in the morning, he ordered his servants to mount their horses, in order to take charge of their camels, for there was an indescribable confusion in the caravan, which was to be guarded by two hundred lawless, cowardly fellows, armed with firelocks, and on horseback. When all was ready, the whole party, at a funereal pace, slowly advanced into the gloomy region of the desert. There was nothing in the prospect to excite the mind or arouse the feelings. Men, camels, and horses, drooping as they went, seemed to be alike aware that the courage they had now to exert was wholly of a pa.s.sive character; that all that was required of them was--to suffer! Anger, hatred, and the other vengeful pa.s.sions, which, like intoxicating draughts, often make men thoughtless and insensible to danger, afforded no excitement here.

They had not the savage pleasure even of contending with human enemies; and the burning sand and burning sun it was out of their power to injure.

"Our road," says Bruce, "was all the way in an open plain, bounded by hillocks of sand and fine gravel, perfectly hard, and not perceptibly above the level of the plain country of Egypt. About twelve miles distant there is a ridge of mountains, of no considerable height, perhaps the most barren in the world. Between these our road lay through plains never three miles broad, but without trees, shrubs, or herbs.

There are not even the traces of any living creature; neither serpent nor lizard, antelope nor ostrich, the usual inhabitants of the most dreary deserts. There is no sort of water on the surface, brackish or sweet. Even the birds seem to avoid the place as pestilential, not having seen one of any kind so much as flying over. The sun was burning hot, and, upon rubbing two sticks together, in half a minute they both took fire and flamed; a mark how near the country was reduced to a general conflagration."

In the evening the caravan was joined by twenty Turks from Caramania, in Asia Minor. They were mounted on camels, and armed with swords, a short gun, and a brace of pistols in their girdles. Having been informed that the large tent belonged to an Englishman, they came to it without ceremony. They told Bruce that they were pilgrims going to Mecca; that they had been very badly treated in travelling from Alexandria; that one of the swimming thieves of the Nile had boarded their vessel, and carried off a portmanteau containing about two hundred sequins in gold; that the Bey of Girge had given them no redress; and, therefore, hearing that an Englishman was in the caravan, they had come to him to propose they should join in defending each other against all common enemies. "I cannot conceal," says Bruce, "the secret pleasure I had in finding the character of my country so firmly established among nations so distant, enemies to our religion, and strangers to our government. Turks from Mount Taurus, and Arabs from the desert of Libya, thought themselves unsafe among their own countrymen, but trusted their lives and their little fortunes implicitly to the direction and word of an Englishman whom they had never before seen!"

The caravan was detained at Legeta the whole of the 18th by the arrival of these Turks; but early in the morning of the 19th they proceeded along a narrow plain, hemmed in by barren hills, of a brown, calcined colour, like the cinders on the sides of Vesuvius. Pa.s.sing some mountains of green and red marble, they came into a plain called Hamra, where they first observed the red sand; and on the morning of the 20th, after having mounted some hills of porphyry, they began to descend. At noon they came to a few single acacia-trees, which, after rain, form a station for the Atouni Arabs, and at night they encamped on a small barren plain. On the 21st, in pa.s.sing some defiles, they were alarmed by a false report that the Arabs were approaching. At noon they encamped at Mesag el Terfowey, where they obtained the first fresh water which they had tasted since they left the Nile. Next morning, before daybreak, the caravan was again in motion, having learned that, only two days before, three hundred of the Atouni had watered at Terfowey.

"It has been a wonder," says Bruce, "among all travellers, and with myself among the rest, where the ancients procured that prodigious quant.i.ty of fine marble with which all their buildings abound. That wonder, however, among many others, now ceases, after having pa.s.sed, in four days, more granite, porphyry, marble, and jasper than would build Rome, Athens, Corinth, Syracuse, Memphis, Alexandria, and half a dozen more such cities. About ten o'clock, descending very rapidly, with green marble and jasper on each side of us, but no other green thing whatever, we had the first prospect of the Red Sea."

To the eye which has for a length of time viewed nothing but fertile land, the sight of the sea is always delightful: it roams with pleasure over the wide expanse of moving waters, revelling in the freedom and freshness of a new element. But to the parched, thirsting, and weary traveller, who has journeyed over the scorched, arid, lifeless desert of Africa, in whose imagination water is wealth, the sudden view of the great ocean creates ecstatic feelings which it is utterly impossible to describe.

Cosseir is a small mud-walled village, built on the sh.o.r.e of the Red Sea. It is defended by a square fort, containing a few pieces of cannon, just sufficient to terrify the Arabs from plundering the town, which is often filled with corn going to Mecca. Bruce had an order from Sheikh Haman to lodge in the castle; but, a few hours before he arrived, Hussein Bey, landing from Mecca and Jidda, had taken possession of the apartments. This bey, however, hearing that the English traveller had the firman of the grand seignior, with letters from the Bey of Cairo, and that he had, moreover, furnished the stranger Turks with water in the desert, of his own accord made himself acquainted with Bruce, treating him with attention and respect; and no sooner was this observed by his fellow-travellers, the Turks, than they complained to Hussein Bey that one of the Arabs had attempted to rob them in the desert.

"What is the reason," said this great man, very gravely, to Bruce, "that, when you English people know so well what good government is, you did not order his head to be struck off when you had him in your hands, before the door of the tent?" "Sir," replied Bruce, with the real feelings of a "Briton and a Christian," "I know well what good government is, but, being a stranger and a Christian, I have no sort of t.i.tle to exercise the power of life and death in this country: only in this one case, when a man attempts my life, then I think I am warranted to defend myself, whatever may be the consequence to him. My men took him in the fact, and they had my orders, in such cases, to beat the offenders, so that they should not steal these two months again. They did so: that was punishment enough in cold blood." "But my blood,"

interrupted the bey, "never cools with regard to such rascals as these.

Go! (he called one of his attendants) tell Ha.s.san, the head of the caravan, from me, that, unless he hangs that Arab before sunrise to-morrow, I will carry him in irons to Furshoot."

While Bruce was at Cosseir, the caravan from Syene arrived, escorted by four hundred Ababde, armed with javelins, and mounted on camels, two on each, sitting back to back: they conducted a thousand camels laden with wheat. The whole town was in terror at the influx of so many barbarians; and even Bruce sent all his instruments, money, books, and baggage to a chamber in the castle. The following morning, as he was loitering in dishabille on the sh.o.r.e, looking for seash.e.l.ls, one of his servants came to him in great alarm, to say that the Ababde had been told that Bruce's Arab, Abd-el-gin, was an Atouni, their enemy, and that they had therefore dragged him away to cut his throat. Bruce, dressed as he was, with a common red turban on his head, vaulted on his servant's horse, and galloping through the townspeople, who fancied, with alarm, that the Ababde were pursuing him, reached the sands, and proceeding as hard as he could go for nearly two miles, he saw a crowd of Arabs before him.

Desirous to save the life of the poor wretch his servant, he had totally forgotten his own safety.

"Upon my coming near them," says Bruce, "six or eight of them surrounded me on horseback, and began to gabble in their own language. I was not very fond of my situation. It would have cost them nothing to thrust a lance through my back and taken the horse away; and, after stripping me, to have buried me in a hillock of sand, if they were so kind as to give themselves that last trouble. However, I p.r.i.c.ked up courage, and, putting on the best appearance I could, said to them steadily, without trepidation, 'What men are these before?' The answer, after some pause, was, 'They are men;' and they looked very queerly, as if they meant to ask each other 'What sort of spark is this?' 'Are those before us Ababde?' said I; 'are they from Sheikh Amner?' One of them nodded, and grunted sullenly rather than said, 'Ay, Ababde, from Sheikh Amner.'

'Then, salum alic.u.m!' said I, 'we are brethren. How does the Nimmer? Who commands you here? Where is Ibrahim?' At the mention of the Nimmer (the Tiger) and Ibrahim, their countenance changed, not to anything sweeter or gentler than before, but to a look of great surprise. They had not returned my salutation, 'Peace be between us;' but one of them asked me who I was. 'Tell me first,' said I, 'who is that you have before?' 'It is an Arab, our enemy,' says he, 'guilty of our blood.' 'It is not so,'

replied I; 'he is my servant, a Howadat Arab; his tribe lives in peace at the gates of Cairo, in the same manner yours of Sheikh Amner does at those of a.s.souan. I ask you, where is Ibrahim, your sheikh's son?'

'Ibrahim,' says he, 'is at our head; he commands us here. But who are you?' 'Come with me, and show me Ibrahim,' said I, 'and I will show you who I am.'

"I pa.s.sed by these and by another party of them. They had thrown a hair rope about the neck of Abd-el-gin, who was almost strangled already, and cried out most miserably to me not to leave him. I went directly to the black tent, which I saw had a long spear thrust up in the end of it, and met at the door Ibrahim and his brother, and seven or eight Ababde. He did not recollect me, but I dismounted close to the tent door, and had scarcely taken hold of the pillar of the tent, and said 'Fiarduc!' when Ibrahim and his brother both knew me. 'What!' said they, 'are you Yagoube, our physician and our friend? 'Let me ask you,' replied I, 'if you are the Ababde of Sheikh Amner, that cursed yourselves and your children if you ever lifted a hand against me or mine, in the desert or in the ploughed field? If you have repented of that oath, or sworn falsely on purpose to deceive me, here I am come to you in the desert.'

'What is the matter?' said Ibrahim; 'we are the Ababde of Sheikh Amner--there are no other; and we still say, Cursed be he, whether our father or child, that lifts his hand against you in the desert or in the ploughed field.' 'Then,' said I, 'you are all accursed in the desert and in the field, for a number of your people are going to murder my servant. They took him, indeed, from my house in the town; perhaps that is not included in your curse, as it is neither in the desert nor the ploughed field.' I was very angry. 'Whew!' said Ibrahim, with a kind of whistle, 'that is downright nonsense. Who are those of my people that have authority to murder and take prisoners while I am here? Here, one of you, get upon Yagoube's horse and bring that man to me.' Then turning to me, he desired I would go into the tent and sit down. 'For G.o.d renounce me and mine,' says he, 'if it is as you say, and one of them hath touched the hair of his head, if ever he drinks of the Nile again!'

A number of people, who had seen me at Sheikh Amner, now came all around me; some with complaints of sickness, some with compliments, more with impertinent questions that had no relation to either. At last came in the culprit Abd-el-gin, with forty or fifty of the Ababde who had gathered round him, but no rope about his neck."

Upon inquiring why the Ababde wished to murder Abd-el-gin, Bruce was informed that the captain of his caravan, Ha.s.san, had insidiously persuaded them to kill this man, against whom he had long entertained a great enmity. "I cannot help here," continues Bruce, "accusing myself of what, doubtless, may be well reputed a very great sin, the more so that I cannot say I have yet heartily repented of it. I was so enraged at the traitorous part which Ha.s.san had acted, that, at parting, I could not help saying to Ibrahim, 'Now, sheikh, I have done everything you have desired, without ever expecting fee or reward; the only thing I now ask you, and it is probably the last, is, that you revenge me upon this Ha.s.san, who is every day in your power.' Upon this he gave me his hand, saying, 'He shall not die in his bed, or I shall never see old age.'"

The above anecdote clearly proves (what, indeed, requires no demonstration) that Bruce was by no means a faultless man; and for this act he has been very severely and justly condemned.

While Bruce was thus engaged on the sands with the Ababde Arabs, a vessel was seen in distress, and all the boats went to tow her in.

Nothing can be more dangerous than the corn-trade as it is carried on in the Red Sea: the vessels have no decks, are filled full of wheat, and are continually lost; but scarcely have they sunk out of sight when their fate is equally out of mind. The people are deaf alike to experience, reason, and advice, and crying Ullah Kerim! (G.o.d is great and merciful!) they launch and despatch other vessels, trusting that by some miracle they shall be saved.

Bruce having determined to attempt making a survey of the Red Sea down to the Straits of Babelmandel (which means the gate of affliction), took pa.s.sages for himself and his party in a vessel that was shortly to be ready to receive him. The rais or captain was thought to be a saint; and he gravely a.s.sured Bruce, that any rock which stood in the way of his vessel would either jump aside, or else turn quite soft like a sponge.

Previous to sailing with this man, Bruce embarked in a small boat, the planks of which, instead of being nailed, were sewn together; and, with the a.s.sistance of a sort of straw mattress as a sail, he departed on the 14th of March from the harbour of Cosseir, with an Arab guide, to go to Gibel Zurmud, the emerald mines described by Pliny and other writers. On the 16th he landed on a desert point, and at last came to the foot of these mountains. Inquiring of his guide the name of the spot, the fellow told him it was called "Saiel." "They are never," says Bruce, "at a loss for a name; and those who do not understand the language always believe them. He knew not the name of the place, and perhaps it had no name; but he called it Saiel, which signifies a male acacia-tree, merely because he saw one growing there." Near the foot of the mountain Bruce found five small pits or shafts, from which the ancients are supposed to have drawn emeralds; and then, without having seen a living creature of any sort, he returned to his boat, and proceeded to the islands of Gibel Macowar, to one of which he gave his own name. He was anxious to have sailed still farther towards the south; but signs of an approaching storm obliged him to turn and make for Cosseir. A most violent tempest of wind and rain overtook them; and the rais being completely overcome by fear, Bruce, unable to lower the yard, proposed to cut the straw mainsail to pieces. The rais, terrified at the storm, instantly turned towards Bruce with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, and began muttering to him something about the mercy and merits of Sidi Ali el Genowi.

"Confound Sidi Ali el Genowi," said Bruce, "you beast, cannot you give me a rational answer?" and, getting the mainsail in his arms, with a large knife he cut it into shreds. On the 19th of March, a little before sunset, they reached the harbour of Cosseir, where they learned that three vessels had perished in the night, with all their hands.

Having determined the lat.i.tude and longitude of Cosseir, and also completed a long series of other observations, Bruce embarked on the 5th of April to continue his survey of the Red Sea, concerning the climate of which Captain Tuckey, of the royal navy, who, with most of his officers and men, perished in 1810 in attempting to trace the course of the Niger, thus wrote from Bombay: "It may surprise you to hear me complain of heat after six years broiling between the tropics; but the hottest day I ever felt, either in the East or West Indies, was winter to the coolest one we had in the Red Sea; the whole coast of 'Araby the Blessed,' from Babelmandel to Suez, for forty miles inland, is an arid sand, producing not a single blade of gra.s.s, nor affording one drop of fresh water."

Crossing the gulf, Bruce arrived in four days at Tor, a small straggling village at the foot of Mount Sinai. On the 11th of April he again sailed, coasting along the eastern sh.o.r.e, and landing for a short time at Yamboo; and then continuing his course towards the south, he arrived on the 1st of May at the extensive port of Jidda, which is in Arabia Deserta, and about half way between the Isthmus of Suez and the Straits of Babelmandel.

From Yambo to Jidda Bruce slept but little; having been constantly occupied with memoranda which he was desirous to complete. He was, besides, suffering and shaking from his Bengazi ague; and, burned and weatherbeaten, he was in his neglected garb so like a galiongy or Turkish seaman, that the captain of the port was astonished at hearing his servants, as they were conducting his baggage to the custom-house, say that the traveller was an Englishman.