Chapter X (2)

"Not long after our losing sight of the ruins of this ancient capital of Abyssinia, we overtook three travellers driving a cow before them; they had black goatskins upon their shoulders, and lances and shields in their hands; in other respects they were but thinly clothed; they appeared to be soldiers. The cow did not seem to be fatted for killing, and it occurred to us all that it had been stolen. This, however, was not our business, nor was such an occurrence at all remarkable in a country so long engaged in war. We saw that our attendants attached themselves in a particular manner to the three soldiers that were driving the cow, and held a short conversation with them. Soon after, we arrived at the hithermost bank of the river, where I thought we were to pitch our tent. The drivers suddenly tripped up the cow, and gave the poor animal a very rude fall upon the ground, which was but the beginning of her sufferings. One of them sat across her neck, holding down her head by the horns; the other twisted the halter about her forefeet; while the third, who had a knife in his hand, to my very great surprise, in place of taking her by the throat, sat astride her just before her hind legs, and gave her a very deep wound in the upper part of her haunch.

"From the time I had seen them throw the beast upon the ground, I had rejoiced, thinking that, when three people were killing a cow, they must have agreed to sell part of her to us; and I was much disappointed upon hearing the Abyssinians say that we were to pass the river to the other side, and not encamp where I intended. Upon my proposing they should bargain for part of the cow, my men answered, what they had already learned in conversation, that they were not then to kill her; that she was not wholly theirs, and they could not sell her. This awakened my curiosity. I let my people go forward, and stayed myself behind, till I saw, with the utmost astonishment, two pieces, thicker and longer than our ordinary beefsteaks, cut out of the higher part of the haunch 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 the 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 upon the outside of one of their shields.

"One of them still continued holding the head, while the other two were busied in curing the wound. This, too, was done not in the ordinary manner: the skin which had covered the flesh that was taken away was left entire, and flapped over the wound, and was fastened to the corresponding part by two or more small skewers or pins. Whether they put anything under the skin between that and the wounded flesh, I know not; but at the river-side where they were, they had prepared a cataplasm of clay, with which they covered the wound; they then forced the animal to rise, and drove it on before them, to furnish them with a fuller meal when they should meet their companions in the evening."

It was upon this fact that Bruce's reputation split, and sunk like a vessel which had suddenly struck upon a rock. His best English friends had warned him of the danger, and earnestly begged him to suppress the publication of a story which, in his conversation, had been universally disbelieved; but, sorely as he felt the insult, even when privately received, it was against his nature to shrink from any unjust degradation which the public might attempt to inflict upon him. A man like Bruce, who had fearlessly looked real danger in the face, was not to be stopped in an honest course by threats of imaginary danger. He therefore unhesitatingly, or, as his friends termed it, "most obstinately," published the fact; and the following observations, with which he accompanied it, plainly show his wounded feelings and his undaunted integrity; his contempt of the world, or, rather, of the narrow-minded faction which opposed him; and his manly confidence that, sooner or later, truth would prevail.

"When first," says Bruce, "I mentioned this in England as one of the singularities which prevailed in this barbarous country, I was told by my friends it was not believed. I asked the reason of this disbelief, and was answered that people who had never been out of their own country, and others well acquainted with the manners of the world (for they had travelled as far as France), had agreed the thing was impossible, and therefore it was so. My friends counselled me farther, that, as these men were infallible, and had each the leading of a circle, I should by all means obliterate this from my journal, and not attempt to inculcate in the minds of my readers the belief of a thing that men who had travelled pronounced to be impossible. They suggested to me, in the most friendly manner, how rudely a very learned and worthy traveller had been treated for daring to maintain that he had ate part of a lion, a story I have already taken notice of in my introduction. They said that, being convinced by these connoisseurs that his having ate part of a lion was impossible, he had abandoned this assertion altogether, and afterward only mentioned it in an appendix; and this was the farthest I could possibly venture. Far from being a convert to such prudential reasons, I must for ever profess openly that I think them unworthy of me. To represent as truth a thing I know to be a falsehood, and not to avow a truth I ought to declare--the one is fraud, the other cowardice: I hope I am equally distant from them both; and I pledge myself never to retract the fact here advanced, that the Abyssinians do feed in common upon live flesh, and that I myself have, for several years, been partaker of that disagreeable and beastly diet. On the contrary, I have no doubt, when time shall be given to read this history to an end, there will be very few, if they have candour enough to own it, that will not be ashamed of ever having doubted."

Bruce, trusting to the justness of this appeal, gave more credit to his readers than they deserved, for they all broke down under the weight of this unusual fact; and all ranks of people, from Dr. Johnson the moralist down to Peter Pindar and the author of Baron Munchausen, disbelieved and ridiculed Bruce's statement, which, indeed, generally speaking, is not credited even at the present day. That to eat raw beef, cut out of a living cow, is not an English custom, is most true; but it is equally true that there is nothing in this statement which an acquaintance with human nature, as developed in various well-known parts of the world, does not strongly and fully corroborate. Its improbability can only be maintained by two arguments; first, the nauseousness of the food; and, secondly, the cruelty of the means of obtaining it.

With respect to raw beef being nauseous, it may, in the first place, be observed, that "de gustibus non est disputandum,"[26] and, consequently, we can only say it would be nauseous _to us_. In fact, even Salt, who was by no means an unprejudiced man, after having eaten raw beef in Abyssinia, says, "I am satisfied it is merely prejudice which deters us from this food." But, admitting it to be nauseous, that forms no proof that it is not likely to be the food of man, for it is well known that there are few animals that feed more grossly than he sometimes does. Captain Parry, for instance, thus describes the appetites of the human beings it became his fortune to visit:

"It is impossible to describe the horribly disgusting manner in which they sat down, as soon as they felt hungry, to eat their raw blubber, and to suck the oil remaining on the skins we had just emptied. I found that Pootooalook had been successful in bringing in a seal, over which two elderly women were standing, armed with large knives, their hands and faces besmeared with blood, and delight and exultation depicted on their countenances. All the loose scraps were put into the pot for immediate use, except such as the two butchers now and then crammed into their mouths, or distributed to the numerous and eager by-standers for still more immediate consumption. Of these morsels the children came in for no small share, every little urchin that could find its way to the slaughter-house running eagerly in, and between the legs of the men and women presenting its mouth for a large lump of raw flesh, just as an English child of the same age might do for a piece of sugar-candy."... "As soon as this dirty operation was at an end, during which the numerous by-standers amused themselves in chewing the intestines of the seal," ... "they dropped their canoes astern to the whale's tail, from which they cut off enormous lumps of flesh, and ravenously devoured it."[27]

A hundred other examples might be given of the nauseous food upon which men in different countries have been found to subsist; but the above extracts are sufficient to refute the first argument against Bruce's statement, while they also afford a very remarkable exemplification of the effect which the criticism of the day may have on the credulity or incredulity of the public: for it is surely more difficult to believe that human beings should eat raw fish-blubber than that they should eat raw beef, the former being so much more nauseous than the latter; and yet the first statement has never for a moment been doubted, while the other is scarcely yet credited; the fact being that the ruling critics of Bruce's time were opposed to his African discoveries, whereas those of the present day have eagerly supported the Northern discoveries, and whatever relates to them. Parry and Bruce, therefore, although equally honourable men, and equally anxious to contribute to our knowledge of the earth, met with very different fates. The one was justly rewarded, the other most unjustly neglected and condemned.

In reply to the second argument against Bruce's account, namely, its cruelty, we may refer, first of all, to the slave-trade, which exists over such a vast portion of the globe, and which indisputably proves that man is cruel even to his fellow-creatures, and, consequently, that it is only to be expected he should be cruel to the beasts of the field; and that it is so, is sufficiently shown by the bullfights of Spain, where animals are subjected to the most horrid torture, merely for the amusement of men, women, and children. In one of Johnson's beautiful allegories, an old eagle is represented as exhorting her brood, whenever they see men assembling together, and fire flashing along the ground, to hurry to the spot, because "the food of eagles is at hand." One of the eaglets, exclaiming against the cruelty of men thus fighting against each other, observes, "I could never kill what I could not eat." But man is less merciful than the young eagle; he will both torture and kill animals merely for amusement; why not suppose him capable, then, of inflicting pain on an animal, by taking a portion of its flesh, when alive, to satisfy his hunger?

Having made these general remarks, we now offer the testimony of different individuals to substantiate the truth of Bruce's account.

It is well known that the celebrated traveller, Dr. Clarke, publicly examined at Cairo an Abyssinian dean respecting such of Bruce's statements as were at that time disbelieved. Dr. Clarke says, vol. iii., p. 61, "Our next inquiry related to the long-disputed fact of a practice among the Abyssinians of cutting from a live animal slices of its flesh as an article of food, without putting it to death. This Bruce affirms that he witnessed in his journey from Masuah to Axum. The Abyssinian, answering, informed us that the soldiers of the country, during their marauding incursions, sometimes maim cows after this manner, taking slices from their bodies, as a favourite article of food, without putting them to death at the time; and that, during the banquets of the Abyssinians, raw meat, esteemed delicious through the country, is frequently taken from an ox or a cow in such a state that the fibres are in motion, and that the attendants continue to cut slices till the animal dies. This answer exactly corresponds with Bruce's narrative: he expressly states that the persons whom he saw were soldiers, and the animal a cow." "Jerome Lobo, who visited Abyssinia a hundred and fifty years before Bruce, page 51, says, 'When they feast a friend, they kill an ox, and set immediately a quarter of him raw upon the table.' Raw beef is their nicest dish, and is eaten by them with the same appetite and pleasure that we eat the best partridges."

Captain Rudland, of the royal navy, who accompanied Salt, says: "The skin was only partly taken off, and a favourite slice of the flesh was brought immediately to table, the muscles of which continued to quiver till the whole was devoured."

Salt himself, in the journal which, in 1810, he writes for Pearce, the English sailor, says, page 295, "A soldier attached to the party proposed cutting out the _shulade_ from one of the cows they were driving before them, to satisfy the cravings of their hunger. This term Mr. Pearce did not at first understand, but he was not long left in doubt upon the subject; for the others having assented, they laid hold of the animal by the horns, threw it down, and proceeded, without farther ceremony, to the operation. This consisted of cutting out two pieces of flesh from the haunch, near the tail, which together, Mr. Pearce supposed, might weigh about a pound. As soon as they had taken these away, they sewed up the wounds, plastered them over with cow-dung, and drove the animal forward, while they divided among their party the still reeking steaks."

(It is very singular that, in 1810, Salt could write these words without offering any apology for having, in his travels with Lord Valentia in 1805, deliberately stated that "his (Bruce's) account of the flesh cut out of living animals was repeatedly inquired into by our party; _and all to whom we spoke denied its ever being done_.")

Mr. Coffin, Lord Valentia's valet, who was left by him in Abyssinia, and who is now in England, has declared to us that he has not only seen the operation which Bruce described performed, but that he has even performed it himself; and that he did so at Cairo, in presence of an English nobleman of high character, whose name he referred to.[28]

Denham, in his Travels in Central Africa, vol. ii., page 36, says: "The best information I had ever procured of the road eastward was from an old hadgi, named El Rashid, a native of the city of Medina; he had been at Waday and at Sennaar at different periods of his life, and, among other things, described to me a people east of Waday, whose greatest luxury was feeding on raw meat cut from the animal while warm."

"Now do not be surprised," writes Sir Stamford Raffles to the Duchess of Somerset, "at what I shall tell you regarding the Battas, for I tell the truth, and nothing but the truth." "The evidence adduced by Mr. Marsden must have removed all doubt from every unprejudiced mind, that, notwithstanding all this in their favour, the Battas are strictly cannibals; but he has not gone half far enough. He tells us that, not satisfied with cutting off pieces and eating them raw, instances have been known where some of the people present have run up to the victim, and actually torn the flesh from the bones with their teeth."

This disgusting subject is now concluded. That it will have shocked the sensibility of the reader is but too certain; but it is equally true that the vindication we have offered is only common justice to Bruce's memory; and that the English public, who have been so cruelly regardless of Bruce's feelings, have no right to complain of those facts which, before the world, repel the charges that have been unjustly brought against the character of an honest man.

On the 21st, Bruce and his party reached the plain of Lelech-lecha, which Poncet compares "to the most beautiful part of Provence." Fine trees of all sizes were everywhere interspersed, and small black grapes and honeysuckles hung in festoons from tree to tree, as if they had been artificially twined, and were intended for arbours.

While Bruce was loitering in this cheerful spot, he heard his servants cry Robbers! robbers! His party had been taken for Mohammedans, and the inhabitants had therefore resolved to attack them; however, Bruce made himself known, and, after being slightly bruised by a pumpkin which was thrown at him, succeeded in restoring peace. Proceeding on his journey, he arrived, late at night on the 22d, at Sire, the largest town in the province of that name; but, although Sire is situated in one of the finest countries in the world, yet putrid fevers of the worst description continually rage there; and as the inhabitants were not very civil to Bruce, he felt no inclination to expose himself to the infection for their sakes. He therefore at once left both them and their fever behind him.

Bruce now learned that on the 10th Ras Michael had come up, at Fagitta, with the rebel Fasil (a man of low birth, who had been made governor of Damot and of the Agows), and had entirely dispersed his army, after killing ten thousand of his men.

Bruce continued his course for some days until he came to the principal ford of the Tacazze, a river about two hundred yards broad and about three feet deep, which forms the boundary of the province of Sire. In the middle of this stream he met a deserter from Ras Michael's army, with a firelock on his shoulder, driving before him two unhappy girls, about ten years old, stark naked, and apparently almost starved to death--his horrid share in the plunder of Maitsha. "He had not," says Bruce, "in my eyes, the air of a conqueror, but rather of a coward, that had sneaked away and stolen these two miserable wretches he had with him."

The banks of the Tacazze were covered to the water's edge with tamarisks. "Beautiful and pleasant, however, as the river is," says Bruce, "like everything created, it has its disadvantages. From the falling of the first rains in March till November, it is death to sleep in the country adjoining to it, both within and without its banks; the whole inhabitants retire and live in villages on the tops of the neighbouring mountains; and these are all robbers and assassins, who descend from their habitations on the heights to lie in wait for and plunder the travellers that pass. Notwithstanding great pains have been taken by Michael, his son, and grandson, governors of Tigre and Sire, this passage had never been so far cleared but that every month people are cut off.

"The plenty of fish in this river occasions more than an ordinary number of crocodiles to resort hither. When the river swells, so as to be passable only by people upon rafts or skins blown up with wind, they are frequently carried off by these voracious and vigilant animals. There are also many hippopotami, which in this country are called gomari. I never saw any of these in the Tacazze; but at night we heard them snort or groan in many parts of the river near us. There are also vast multitudes of lions and hyaenas in all these thickets. We were very much disturbed by them all night. The smell of our mules and horses had drawn them in numbers about our tent; but they did us no farther harm, except obliging us to watch."

After travelling for several days through ruined villages, the monuments of Ras Michael's cruelty, they reached the river of Mai Lumi.

"The hyaenas this night devoured one of the best of our mules. They are here in great plenty, and so are lions; the roaring and grumbling of the latter in the part of the wood nearest our tent greatly disturbed our beasts, and prevented them from eating their provender. I lengthened the strings of my tent, and placed the beasts between them. The white ropes and the tremulous motion made by the impression of the wind frightened the lions from coming near us. I had procured from Janni two small brass bells, such as the mules carry. I had tied these to the storm-strings of the tent, where their noise, no doubt, greatly contributed to our beasts' safety from these ravenous yet cautious animals, so that we never saw them; but the noise they made, and perhaps their smell, so terrified the mules, that in the morning they were drenched in sweat, as if they had been a long journey.

"The brutish hyaena was not so to be deterred. I shot one of them dead on the night of the 31st of January, and on the 2d of February I fired at another, so near that I was confident of killing him. Whether the balls had fallen out, or that I had really missed him with the first barrel, I know not, but he gave a snarl and a kind of bark upon the first shot, advancing upon me as if unhurt. The second shot, however, took effect, and laid him without motion on the ground. Yasine and his men killed another with a pike; and such was their determined coolness, that they stalked round about us with the familiarity of a dog, or any other domestic animal brought up with man."

But they were still more incommoded by a smaller enemy, a black ant about an inch long, which demolished the carpets, cutting them into shreds, also part of the lining of the tent, and every bag or sack they could find. Their bite causes considerable inflammation, and the pain is greater than that which arises from the bite of a scorpion: they are called _gundan_.

On the 1st of February the shum of the place sent his people to value Brace's merchandise, that he might pay custom. "I humoured them," says Bruce, "so far as to open the cases where were the telescopes and quadrant, or, indeed, rather showed them open, as they were not shut, from the observation I had been making. They could only wonder at things they had never before seen.

"On the 2d of February the shum came himself, and a violent altercation ensued. He insisted upon Michael's defeat. I told him the contrary news were true, and begged him to beware lest it should be told to the ras upon his return that he had propagated such a falsehood. I told him also that we had advice that the ras's servants were now waiting for us at Lamalmon, and insisted upon his suffering us to depart."

"He said that I was mad, and held a consultation with his people for about half an hour, after which he came in again, seemingly quite another man, and said he would despatch us on the morrow, which was the 3d, and would send us that evening some provisions. And, indeed, we now began to be in need, having only flour barely sufficient to make bread for one meal next day. The miserable village on the cliff had nothing to barter with us; and none from the five villages about the shum had come near us, probably by his order. As he had softened his tone, so did I mine. I gave him a small present, and he went away repeating his promises. But all that evening passed without provision, and all next day without his coming, so we got everything ready for our departure. Our supper did not prevent our sleeping, as all our provisions was gone, and we had tasted nothing all that day since our breakfast."

The country of the Shangalla lies forty miles to the northwest. All this district from the Tacazze is called Salent in the language of Tigre, and Talent in Amharic.

On the 4th of February, at half past nine in the morning, they left Addergey; "hunger pressing upon us," says Bruce, "we were prepared to do it earlier, and for this we had been up since five in the morning; but our loss of a mule obliged us, when we packed up our tent, to arrange our baggage differently. While employed in making ready for our departure, which was just at the dawn of day, a hyaena, unseen by any of us, fastened upon one of Yasine's asses, and had almost pulled his tail away. I was busied at gathering the tent-pins into a sack, and had placed my musket and bayonet ready against a tree, as it is at that hour and the close of the evening you are always to be on guard against banditti. A boy, who was servant to Yasine, saw the hyaena first, and flew to my musket. Yasine was disjoining the poles of the tent, and, having one half of the largest in his hand, he ran to the assistance of his ass, and in that moment the musket went off, luckily charged with only one ball, which gave Yasine a flesh wound between the thumb and fore-finger of his left hand. The boy instantly threw down the musket, which had terrified the hyaena, and made him let go the ass; but he stood ready to fight Yasine, who, not amusing himself with a choice of weapons, gave him so rude a blow with the tent-pole upon his head, that it felled him to the ground; others, with pikes, put an end to his life.

"We were then obliged to turn our cares towards the wounded. Yasine's wound was soon seen to be a trifle; besides, he was a man not easily alarmed on such occasions. But the poor ass was not so easily comforted. The stump remained, the tail hanging by a piece of it, which we were obliged to cut off. The next operation was actual cautery; but, as we had made no bread for breakfast, our fire had been early out. We therefore were obliged to tie the stump round with whip-cord till we could get fire enough to heat an iron.

"What sufficiently marked the voracity of these beasts, the hyaenas, was, that the bodies of their dead companions, which we hauled a long way from us, and left there, were almost entirely eaten by the survivers the next morning; and I then observed, for the first time, that the hyaena of this country was a different species from those I had seen in Europe, which had been brought from Asia or America."

Bruce did not leave Addergey till near ten o'clock in the morning of the 4th of February. On reaching the river he saw the shum coming from the right, with nine horsemen and fourteen or fifteen beggarly footmen. The shum, preceded by a well-dressed young man carrying his gun, had only a whip in his own hand; the rest had lances, but none of the horsemen had shields. Bruce and his party had no doubt that these people were coming against him, and that there were others ahead ready to join them, for it was clear that nine horses would not venture to do anything.

"Our people," says Bruce, "were now all on foot, and the Moors drove the beasts before them. I got immediately upon horseback, when they were then about five hundred yards below, or scarcely so much. As soon as they observed us drive our beasts into the river, one of their horsemen came galloping up, while the others continued at a smart walk. When the horseman was within twenty yards' distance of me, I called upon him to stop, and, as he valued his life, not to approach nearer. On this he made no difficulty to obey, but seemed rather inclined to turn back. As I saw the baggage all laid on the ground, at the foot of a small round hill, upon the gentle ascent of which my servants all stood armed, I turned about my horse, and with Yasine, who was by my side, began to cross the river. The horseman upon this again advanced; again I cried to him to stop. He then pointed behind him and said, 'The Shum!' I desired him peremptorily to stop, or I would fire upon which he turned round, and the others joining him, they held a minute's counsel together, and came all forward to the river, where they paused a moment, as if counting our number, and then began to enter the stream. Yasine now cried to them in Amharic, as I had done before in Tigre, desiring them, as they valued their lives, to come no nearer. They stopped, a sign of no great resolution; and, after some altercation, it was agreed that the shum, and his son with the gun, should pass the river.

"The shum complained violently that we had left Addergey without his leave, and now we were attacking him in his own government upon the high road. 'A pretty situation,' said I, 'was ours at Addergey, where the shum left the king's stranger no other alternative but dying with hunger or being eaten by the hyaena. Now, pray, shum, tell me what is your business with me; and why have you followed me beyond your government, which is bounded by that river?' He said 'that I had stolen away privately without paying custom.' 'I am no merchant,' replied I; 'I am the king's guest, and pay no custom; but, as far as a piece of red Surat cloth will content you, I will give it you, and we shall part friends.'

"I now gave orders to my people to load the mules. At hearing this, the shum made a signal for his company to cross; but Yasine, who was opposite to them, again ordered them to stop. 'Shum,' said I, 'you intend to follow us, apparently with a design to do us some harm. There is a piece of ordnance,' continued I, showing him a large blunderbuss, 'a cannon that will sweep fifty such fellows as you to eternity in a moment.'

"The conversation lasted about five minutes; and our baggage was now on the way, when the shum said he would make a proposal: since I had no merchandise, and was going to Ras Michael, he would accept of the red cloth, provided we swore to make no complaint of him at Gondar, nor speak of what had happened at Debra Toon; while he likewise would swear, after having joined his servants, that he would not again pass that river. Peace was concluded upon these terms. I gave him a piece of red Surat cotton cloth, and added some cohol, incense, and beads for his wives."

The mountain-range of Hauza was about eight miles distant, and had a very romantic appearance. At one o'clock Bruce alighted about half way between the mountain called Debra Toon and the village of that name. Still farther to the northwest is a desert, hilly district, called Adebarea, the country of the slaves, as being in the neighbourhood of the Shangalla--the whole waste and uninhabited.

The mountains of Waldubba, resembling those of Adebarea, were about four or five miles northward of Waldubba, which signifies the valley of the monks, who, for the sake of penance and mortification, had retired to this unwholesome, hot, and dangerous country. It is also a retreat for great men in disgrace or in disgust. They shave their hair, put on a cowl like the monks, renounce the world, and take vows of solitude and celibacy; but, in process of time, these holy chrysalises return like butterflies to the world, leaving their outward skin, the cowl and sackcloth, in Waldubba.

These monks are held in great veneration. Many believe that they have gifts of prophecy and of working miracles, and they are very active instruments in stirring up the people in times of trouble.

Violent fevers perpetually reign there. The inhabitants are of the colour of a corpse; and their neighbours the Shangalla, by constant inroads, destroy many of them, though lately they have been stopped, as they say, by the prayers of the monks, or, rather, by the smallpox, which has greatly reduced their strength and number, and exterminated to a man whole tribes of them.

The Abyssinians, like all secluded and illiterate people, are highly superstitious. Jerome Lobo says that the whole country so swarms with churches, "that you can hardly sing in one without being heard in another;" and Alvarez states that sub-deaconship and inferior orders in the church are conferred even on infants at the breast.

There is scarcely a monk in the hot, unwholesome monastery of Waldubba, a hermit who passes his life shivering on the bleak, solitary mountains, or a priest who has lived sequestered from society, who does not pretend that he is enabled to see and foretel what is to happen in future, from his perfect ignorance of the present and the past. All women who choose to renounce the society of men are allowed to assume the priestly character: they then wear a scullcap like men; and these priests, male and female, all pretend to possess charms, of a nature both offensive and defensive, the efficacy of which is almost universally believed in. Even the hyaenas, which every night flock around Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, attracted by the smell of carrion, are considered to be the human inhabitants of the neighbouring mountains, transformed by enchantment. The Abyssinians, almost to a man, are afraid of darkness, during which period they conceive that the world belongs to small vindictive genii. In the Synaxar, or history of their saints, one is said to have thrown the Evil One over a high mountain; and another to have had a holy longing for partridges, upon which a brace perched on his plate ready roasted! Salniel, the chief of their rebel angels, is supposed to be in stature "100,700 cubits, angelic measure;" his eyebrows are said to be three days' journey asunder; and it takes him just a week to turn his eyes!

"All the Abyssinians," writes Pearce, the English sailor, after he had given up Mohammedanism, "have a father or confessor, and I myself am obliged to have, or pretend to have, one of these holy fathers, else it would not be allowed that I was a Christian, and perhaps create many enemies that would disturb my dwelling. It is a very unprofitable thing to fall out with these priests, as everything is in their hands; the whole country of Abyssinia is overrun with them. The very smallest church, that is not larger than a small sheep-pen that would not hold more than fifty sheep, built with mud and stone, and thatched over with canes and dry grass, has from fifteen to twenty of these impostors, who devour all the fruits of the poor labouring country people. The larger churches have from fifty to one hundred: Axum, Larlabeller (Lallabella), have some thousands. Waldubba is the most famous for them: where the wretches pretend that, being holy men, they ride upon lions which God has provided for them."

In mentioning the superstitions of Abyssinia, it may here be observed, that there are various kinds of complaints in that country which are supposed to be caused by the Evil One. One of Pearce's wives was afflicted with a disorder of this kind, in describing which, Pearce, in his letter to the Bombay Literary Society, honestly acknowledges that he himself "thinks the devil _must_ have some hand in it;" and most certainly no earthly physician ever met with such a patient as Mrs. Pearce.

"After the first five or six days," says the husband, "she began to be continually hungry, and would eat five or six times in the night--never sleep; and she, like all others troubled with this complaint, called a man 'she' and a woman 'he.'" Indeed, the poor creature was so severely afflicted with her unaccountable disorder, that, in the presence of her friends, she even addressed in the wrong gender Mr. Pearce, calling him "she," or, more probably, "it;" "for," says Pearce, "it vexed me so much that I declared she should not stop in the house."

The remedy for this disorder is about as mysterious as its symptoms. The woman has an unaccountable inclination to run. "The fastest running young man," says Pearce, "that can be found is employed by her friends to run after her, with a matchlock well loaded, so as to make a good report: the moment she starts, he starts with her; but, before she has run the distance, where she drops as if she were dead, he is left half way behind. As soon as he comes up to her, he fires right over her body, and asks her name, which she then pronounces, although during the time of her complaint she denies her Christian name, and detests all priests and churches. Her friends afterward take her to the church, where she is washed with holy water, and is then cured."

It is some comfort, however, to learn that the disorders of Abyssinia are not all of this unearthly, incomprehensible description. "The itch," says Pearce, "is common, from the king to the very lowest subject."

Since passing the Tacazze, Bruce and his party had been in a country wild by nature, and still wilder from having been the theatre of civil war. The whole was a wilderness without inhabitants. They at last reached a plain covered with flowering shrubs, roses, jasmines, &c., and animated by a number of people passing to and fro. Several of these were monks and nuns from Waldubba, two and two together. The women, who were both young and stout, were carrying large burdens of provisions on their shoulders, which showed that they did not entirely subsist upon the herbs of Waldubba. The monks had sallow faces, yellow cowls, and yellow gowns.

After travelling some days Bruce reached Lamalmon, one of the bers or passes at which the customs and other duties are levied with great rigour and violence. An old man and his son had the right of levying these contributions: the former professed a violent hatred to all Mohammedans, a sentiment which seemed to promise nothing favourable to Yasine and his companions; but in the evening, the son, who appeared to be the active man, came to Bruce's tent, and brought a quantity of bread and bouza. He seemed to be much taken with the firearms, and was very inquisitive about them. "I gave him," says Bruce, "every sort of satisfaction, and, little by little, saw I might win his heart entirely, which I very much wished to do, that I might free our companions from bondage.

"The young man, it seems, was a good soldier; and, having been in several actions under Ras Michael as a fusileer, he brought his gun, and insisted on shooting at marks. I humoured him in this; but, as I used a rifle, which he did not understand, he found himself overmatched, especially by the greatness of the range, for he shot straight enough. I then showed him the manner we shot flying, there being quails in abundance, and wild pigeons, of which I killed several on the wing, which left him in the utmost astonishment. Having got on horseback, I next went through the exercise of the Arabs with a long spear and a short javelin. This was more within his comprehension, as he had seen something like it; but he was wonderfully taken with the fierce and fiery appearance of my horse, and, at the same time, with his docility, the form of his saddle, bridle, and accoutrements. He threw at last the sandals off his feet, twisted his upper garment into his girdle, and set off at so furious a rate that I could not help doubting whether he was in his sober understanding.

"It was not long till he came back, and with him a man-servant carrying a sheep and a goat, and a woman carrying a jar of honey-wine. I had not quitted the horse; and, when I saw what his intention was, I put Mirza to a gallop, and, with one of the barrels of the gun, shot a pigeon (a common feat among the Arabs), and immediately fired the other into the ground. There was nothing after this that could have surprised him, and it was repeated several times at his desire; after which he went into the tent, where he invited himself to my house at Gondar. There I was to teach him everything he had seen. We now swore perpetual friendship; and a horn or two of hydromel being emptied, I introduced the case of our fellow-travellers, and obtained a promise that we should have leave to set out together. He would, moreover, take no _awide_, and said he would be favourable in his report to Gondar.

"Our friend likewise sent his own servant to Gondar with the billet to accompany the caravan. But the news brought by his servant was still better than all this. Ras Michael had actually beaten Fasil, and forced him to retire to the other side of the Nile, and was then at Maitsha, where it was thought he would remain with the army all the rainy season. This was just what I could have wished, as it brought me at once to the neighbourhood of the sources of the Nile, without the smallest shadow of fear or danger."

Although Bruce speaks thus lightly and fearlessly of his difficulties, yet to the unprejudiced reader it must be evident how impossible it would have been for him to surmount them, without that general knowledge of mankind, and those various and unusual accomplishments which, for many years previous to commencing his undertaking, he had steadily, strenuously, and painfully exerted himself to acquire.

As we accompany him on his toilsome, rugged course, we cannot but observe his intimate acquaintance with the passions and prejudices of the African character; and although he has been cruelly ridiculed for his occasional frivolity of conduct, contrasted with an abrupt dignity of demeanour, it is but too evident that it was with an aching heart that he assumed this front of haughtiness as his only weapon of defence. In a climate which produces but two characters, he was forced to be either the tyrant or the slave, and was obliged to govern that he might not serve. Yet with what tact and judgment has he already, in many instances, "changed his hand and checked his pride" the moment he found it was impolitic to persevere: though we see him at all times resolutely proceeding towards his goal, yet he is not unfrequently observed to retreat from positions which he had previously declared he would maintain, and to pay duties and make presents which he had for a while obstinately refused.

But, besides his acquaintance with manners and languages, it is curious to observe how, to meet various difficulties, he draws upon his checkered fund of general information.

Sometimes he is a physician, pretending to greater knowledge than he actually possesses; at other times he is seen protesting a total ignorance of the art. We have seen with what success he brought forward his knowledge of astrology at Cairo, and we have now just left him "winning the heart" of a young man by "putting Mirza to a gallop, and with one of the barrels of his gun shooting a pigeon in the air!"

In the harsh judgment of those who gravely make it a rule to disapprove of, and even to ridicule, every thought or action which quiet English domestic life has not stamped as regular and customary, Bruce must be still considered as a mountebank and a juggler, sometimes living by his head, sometimes hanging by his heels; but those who liberally take into consideration the unusual difficulties which opposed his solitary progress, will see, in the many lines and features of his conduct, the noble picture of a brave man successfully struggling with adversity.

On the 9th of February, at seven o'clock, Bruce and his party took leave of the friends whom they had so newly acquired at Lamalmon, all equally joyful and happy at the news. They began to ascend what still remained of the mountain; till, after much labour, they reached the lofty summit of Lamalmon, which is highly cultivated, and is inhabited by the most civilized people in Abyssinia.

After travelling over this extensive and valuable country for some days, and having suffered, with infinite patience and perseverance, the hardships and dangers of this long journey, Bruce, on the 14th of February (ninety-five days having elapsed since he left Masuah), enjoyed the proud and indescribable delight of seeing before him, and within ten miles' distance, Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] _About differences of taste there can be no dispute._

[27] See Polar Seas and Regions, p. 236, Harpers' Family Library.

[28] We had a long conversation with Mr. Coffin on this subject. It ended by our offering him a luncheon, which he ate with great avidity, of _raw beefsteaks_.