Chapter IX: Part 9

Having remained a full month at Kabul, he hired one side of a camel, on which a pannier was suspended for his accommodation, and on the 1st of September joined a party proceeding to Kandahar. The mode of travelling which he had now adopted is peculiar to that part of the world, and deserves to be particularly described. The camel appropriated to the service of passengers, he observes, carries two persons, who are lodged in a kind of pannier laid loosely on the back of the animal. The pannier, in Persian _kidjahwah_, is a wooden frame, with the sides and bottom of netted cords, of about three feet long and two broad. The depth likewise is generally about two feet. The provisions of the passengers are conveyed in the kidjahwah, and, the journey being commonly performed in the night, this swinging nest becomes his only place of rest; for on the kafilah’s arrival at its station he must immediately exert himself in procuring provisions, water, and fuel, as well as in keeping an eye over his property.

Forster soon found reason to regret his ill-timed abjuration of the prophet. The camel upon which he was stowed like a bale of merchandise was the worst conditioned of the whole drove; and to comfort him during his ride, a shrill-tongued old woman and a crying child took up their quarters in the opposite pannier, and contrived, the one by shrieking, the other by scolding, effectually to chase away his dreams. An old Afghan lady, with a very handsome daughter and two grandchildren, occupied the panniers of another camel. The rest were loaded with merchandise. This old dame soon began a contest with Dowran, the conductor of the kafilah, respecting the mode in which the movements of the caravan should be regulated; and after some desperate skirmishes, in which the force of her lungs and the piercing shrillness of her voice stood her in good stead, victory declared on her side, and the party fell under petticoat government.

Being now a declared infidel, and regarded by every person as an unclean beast, whom it would be pollution to touch, and worse than adultery to oblige by any kind offices, our traveller enjoyed many of the preliminaries of martyrdom, was hourly abused, laughed at, mocked, and derided; and still further to enhance the contempt which every person already entertained for him, Dowran maliciously insinuated that he was not even a Christian, but a Jew. When the party arrived at their halting-place no one could be tempted to assist him, not even for money; imagining, I presume, that the gold which had lurked beneath his “Jewish gaberdine,” like that derived by Vespasian from a tax on urinaries, which his son Titus jocosely smelled in order to discover its scent, must be accompanied by an unsavoury odour, which might cleave to a true believer, and exclude him after death from the arms of the houries. He was therefore daily compelled to go himself in search of water and dried camels’ dung to boil his tea-kettle, and, what was much worse, to endure the smoke which it emitted when first lighted, which entered his eyes, and made him think that some Mohammedan devil had transformed himself into smoke for the purpose of tormenting him.

In the midst of this _gehannum_, which gave him the more pain from its being of his own creating, he received some consolation from the protection of the Afghan lady, whose good-will he had won by fondling the children and giving them sugar. Thus fortified, he began by degrees to laugh at Dowran’s beard; and if he did not return him the compliment of being of the race of Abraham, it was more from want of reflection than from apprehension of danger.

On the 26th of September they arrived at Ghizni, the residence of the munificent and magnanimous Mahmood, the patron of Firdoosi, and one of the splendid princes whose actions adorn the annals of the East. But “the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples” of Ghizni had long been trodden under foot by time; and, save some scattered masses of misshapen ruins, not a trace was to be seen of its former grandeur. The tomb of Mahmood, however, still remains in the neighbourhood of the city; and to this resting-place of genius numerous pilgrims resort from distant lands to say their prayers. The surrounding country is interspersed with low hills, and, excepting in some few cultivated spots, produces little else than a prickly aromatic weed, which, with balls of unsifted barley-paste, constitutes the common food of the camel.

The kafilah arrived on the 5th of October at Kandahar, a flourishing and populous city, where he remained three days, and then departed for Herat. His camel companion now was a noisy, disputatious theologian, who not only regaled him on the road with menaces and arguments, but deterred a poor half-starved Arab tailor, whose services Forster had engaged, from eating the bread of an infidel, though he saw clearly the poor man had no other to eat.

In this agreeable position he continued until the 2d of November, when they arrived at Herat, where he determined once more to invest himself, if possible, with the cloak of Mohammedanism. At the caravansary, where he had been deposited by the kafilah, with an ample tradition of his faith and practice, so desirable a disguise was impracticable; but he no sooner quitted the purlieus of his lodgings than he became a grave hypocritical Mussulman, and partook of the enjoyment of all his privileges. Nor did he entertain any great fear of detection, it being easy, in so motley a population as that of Herat, to maintain successfully the most extraordinary disguise. He daily frequented the eating-houses, where all the talk of the day was circulated, and chiefly fabricated, in conjunction with the barbers’ shops, which in Herat have a neat appearance. In the centre of it stands a small stone pillar, on the top of which is placed a cup of water in readiness for operation, while the sides of the shop are decorated with looking-glasses, razors, and beard-combs. In one great source of amusement Herat was at this time deficient,—there were no dancing girls. However, notwithstanding this remarkable desideratum, our traveller, who was an accommodating person, and contentedly put up with the blessings within his reach, contrived to pass his time agreeably enough when absent from the caravansary.

Learning at length that a kafilah was about to proceed to Tursheez, a town of Khorasan, lying in the direction of Mazenderan, he entered into an agreement with the director for a conveyance, but with a confidential stipulation that he was to be received in a Mohammedan character, as an Arab. The kafilah departed from Herat on the 22d of November; and as it had been agreed that he was to form one of the family of the leader, he joined the party at the appointed place, and took his station on a camel, with a bag of rice on the opposite pannier. The advantages of his new character were soon visible. Having represented himself as a pilgrim going to the shrine of Meshed, he was treated with the greatest possible consideration by every passenger in the kafilah, all of whom courted his society, as if holiness, like the plague, were infectious. Our hajjî now rejoiced and stroked his beard, to the ample dimensions of which he owed a large portion of the veneration which was shown him; and as he moved along, caressed and admired by all who beheld him, he must have felt no small gratitude towards Mohammed for the sanctity which his religion had thrown round the person of a pilgrim. This extraordinary degree of respect exciting the kafilah conductor, who considered that at this rate he might possibly dwindle into nobody, even in the eyes of his own camels and mules, he whispered about that Forster in reality was no hajjî, nay, not so much as a member of the church at all. His information, however, was received with utter incredulity, and attributed to his envious disposition; so that no evil arose to the Meshed pilgrim.

It was now December, and the north wind, sweeping with irresistible violence over the plains of Khorasan from the frozen mountains of Tartary, brought along with it a deluge of snow, which in a few hours clothed the whole country in white. On arriving at the village of Ashkara, the snow fell in such great quantities that the roads were blocked up, while the winds, hurling it along in tremendous drifts, seemed to threaten the village itself with destruction. The whole party was admitted, after many earnest entreaties, into a small dark room in the fort, where they were furnished with an abundance of fuel; but when they began to make inquiries respecting provisions, they found with dismay that not a single article of food was on any terms to be procured. Yet, says the traveller, such cordial pleasures are inherent in society, that though pent up in a dark hovel, which afforded but a flimsy shelter against the mounds of snow furiously hurled against it, our good-humour with each other and an ample supply of firing produced cheerfulness and content. A Persian of more than ordinary education, and who possessed a taste for poetry, amused them with reading Jami’s story of Yousuf and Zuleikha, which, for its scenes of wondrously pathetic adventure, and the luxuriant genius of the poet, is admirably calculated to soften the rigour of a winter’s day.

At this village they remained four days, during which, though the fact is not stated, they must have found something more substantial to subsist on than Jami’s poetry; when, the storm having abated, they pushed forward in the direction of Tursheez. On arriving at this town, he found that every apartment in the caravansary was already occupied; but a small piece of money bestowed upon the gatekeeper introduced him to a small chamber, in which, by submitting to receive a partner in housekeeping, he might reside comfortably enough during his stay. Our traveller, on his part, regarded the companion with still greater satisfaction than the chamber, and it soon appeared that the feeling was mutual; for the stranger, accosting him with evident tokens of joy, observed, that the solitary life he had hitherto passed at Tursheez was exceedingly tiresome, and that he now anticipated a cordial relief by his company. It was immediately agreed that a joint board should be kept; that the stranger, being yet weak from a recent sickness, should conduct the culinary operations, while Forster was to furnish water; a laborious task, there being none that was good at a nearer distance than a mile. This man, a gloomy, mysterious person, soon departed for Herat; and the traveller, together with a new companion, contrived likewise to find a better apartment. This second associate was a moollah, whose profession it was to vend certain spells, which were powerfully efficacious in conferring every species of worldly happiness, and in excluding all evils. But

Nolint: atqui licet esse beatis.

The Persians of these parts had no taste for happiness; so that this modern Thermander was, when Forster met him, so thoroughly disgusted with his attempts at banishing all misery from among his countrymen, that he was willing, he said, to shut up his book should any other prospect of a maintenance be held out to him. When our traveller offered him a participation of his fare, he therefore joyfully quitted his profession as a wholesale dealer in happiness, and consented to superintend the labours of the kitchen, in which, by long practice, he had attained a remarkable proficiency. “The excellent services of my companion,” says Forster, “now left me at liberty to walk about the town, collect information, and frequent the public baths. In the evening we were always at home; when the moollah, at the conclusion of our meal, either read the story of Yousuf and Zuleikha, which he did but lamely, or, opening his book of spells, he would expound the virtues of his nostrums, which embraced so wide a compass that few diseases of mind or body could resist their force. They extended from recalling to the paths of virtue the steps of a frail wife, and silencing the tongue of a scolding one, to curing chilblains and destroying worms.”

While Forster and the moollah were enjoying this peaceful and pleasant life, a large body of pilgrims from the shrine of Meshed suddenly inundated every apartment of the caravansary; and as this motley group of vagabonds were proceeding towards Mazenderan, directly in his route, he was tempted to join them and continue his journey, leaving his poor companion to subsist once more upon the virtue of his spells.

Accordingly, with this holy kafilah he departed from Tursheez on the 28th of December; and being, as the reader will have perceived, of an exceedingly sociable disposition, he very quickly found a substitute for the moollah in the person of a seid, or descendant of Mohammed, who has doubtless more descendants than any other man ever had. This green-turbaned personage was a native of Ghilān, and, take him for all in all, his conduct did more honour to his great ancestor than any other member of his family commemorated by European travellers. With this honest man Forster very quickly entered into partnership; but the seid being old and infirm, the laborious portion of their operations necessarily fell on the traveller. One little incident among many will serve to show the terms upon which they lived together. The kafilah having halted in a desert on the 3d of January, 1784, at a small stream, “the Ghilān seid and I,” says Forster, “had filled our bottle for mutual use; and the bread, cheese, and onions which supplied our evening meal giving me a violent thirst, I made frequent applications to our water stock. The seid, seeing that I had taken more than a just portion, required that the residue should be reserved for his ceremonial ablutions. While the seid retired to pray I went in search of fuel, and, returning first to our quarter, I hastily drank off the remaining water, and again betook myself to wood-cutting, that I might not be discovered near the empty vessel by my associate, who had naturally an irascible temper. When I supposed he had returned from his prayer, I brought in a large load of wood, which I threw on the ground with an air of great fatigue, and of having done a meritorious service ‘Ay,’ says he, ‘while I, like a true believer, have been performing my duty to God, and you toiling to procure us firing for this cold night, some hardened kaufir, who I wish may never drink again in this world, has plundered the pittance of water which was set apart for my ablutions.’ He then made strict search among our neighbours for the perpetrator of this robbery, as he termed it; but receiving no satisfactory information, he deliberately delivered him or them to the charge of every devil in the infernal catalogue, and went grumbling to sleep.”

In this way they proceeded until, having escaped from the deserts of Khorasan, they entered the mountainous, woody, and more thickly-peopled province of Mazenderan, the inhabitants of which Forster found more civilized and humane than the Khorasans. On the night of the 24th of January, while pushing on through the forests, most of the passengers beheld a star with an illuminated tail, which, from its form and quick motion, our traveller supposed to be a comet. In several of the woods through which their road now lay, no vestige of a habitation or signs of culture appeared, excepting a few narrow slips of land at the bases of the hills. But as they proceeded the valleys soon “opened, and exhibited a pleasing picture of plenty and rural quiet. The village all open and neatly built, the verdant hills and dales, encircled by streams of delicious water, presented a scene that gave the mind ineffable delight. The air, though in winter, was mild, and had the temperature of an English climate in the month of April.” Frazer, the able author of the Kuzzilbash, has given in his travels a no less favourable idea of the rich scenery of Mazenderan.

In a few days he arrived at Mushed Sir, on the Caspian Sea, where he was hospitably received and entertained by the Russian merchants established there. At this city he embarked for Baku, where he shaved his beard, forswore Mohammed, and again embarked in a Russian frigate for Astrakhan, where he arrived on the evening of the 28th of April. From this place, where he remained some time in order to recruit his strength, he proceeded through Moscow to Petersburg, which he reached on the 25th of May. Here his stay was but short, for he had now become impatient to visit England; and therefore, embarking about the middle of June in a trading vessel, he arrived in England in the latter end of July, 1784.

Forster seems to have occupied himself immediately on his arrival in throwing into form a portion of the literary materials which he had collected during one of the most hazardous and adventurous journeys that ever were performed; for in 1786 he published in London his “Sketches of the Mythology and Manners of the Hindoos,” which was received with extraordinary favour by the public. How long he remained in England after the publication of this work I have not been able to discover; but we find him in 1790 at Calcutta, where he published the first volume of his “Journey from Bengal to England,” and prepared the second volume for the press. However, before the completion of his work, the political troubles which at that period shook the whole empire of Hindostan involved him in their vortex. He was despatched by the governor-general, whose personal friendship he would appear to have enjoyed, on an embassy to Nagpoor, in Gundwarra, the capital of the Bhoonsla Mahratta dynasty, where he died about eight months after his arrival, in the month of February, in 1791. His papers were conveyed to England. Here, six years after his death, a complete edition of his travels appeared, in two volumes quarto; but the person who undertook the task of editor, with a degree of negligence which cannot be sufficiently admired, not only omitted to give the public any account of the author, but, which is more unpardonable, did not even condescend to inform them when, how, and from whom the manuscript was obtained. However, the extraordinary merit of the work, and the lively, laughing style in which it is written, quickly recommended it sufficiently to the literary world. The celebrated Meiners, professor of philosophy in the university of Göttingen, translated it into German; and Langlès, the well-known orientalist, published in 1802 a French translation, with copious notes, a chronological notice on the khans of the Krimea, and a map of Kashmere.

In English there has not, I believe, appeared any new edition,—none, at least, which has acquired any reputation; though there are extremely few books of travels which better deserve to be known, or which, if properly edited, are calculated to become more extensively popular. Forster was a man of very superior abilities; and his acquirements—whatever M. Langlès, a person ill calculated to judge, may have imagined—were various and extensive. He possessed an intimate knowledge of the Persian, and the popular language of Hindostan; and appears to have made a considerable progress even in Sanscrit. Neither was he slightly conversant with modern literature; and although it may be conjectured from various parts of his work that the history of ancient philosophy and literature had occupied less of his attention, he may yet be regarded as one of the most accomplished and judicious of modern travellers. This being the case, it is difficult to explain why he should now be less read than many other travellers, whose works are extremely inferior in value, and incomparably less amusing.

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JAMES BRUCE.

Born 1730.—Died 1794.

JAMES BRUCE, one of the most illustrious travellers whom any age or country has produced, was born on the 14th of December, 1730, at Kinnaird, in the county of Stirling, in Scotland. His mother, who died of consumption when he was only three years old, seemed to have bequeathed to him the same fatal disorder; for during childhood his health was bad, and his constitution, which afterward acquired an iron firmness, appeared to be particularly feeble. His father, who had married a second wife, by whom he had a large family, sent James at the age of eight years to London, where he remained under the care of his uncle, counsellor Hamilton, until 1742, when he was placed at Harrow school. Here he remained four years, during which he made considerable progress in his classical studies; and while he commanded the enthusiastic approbation of his teachers (one of whom observed, that for his years he had never seen his fellow), he laid the foundations of many valuable friendships which endured through life.

On leaving school at the early age of sixteen, Bruce, who at that time could of course understand nothing of his own character, imagined himself admirably adapted for the study of divinity and the tranquil life of a clergyman; but his inclination not receiving the approbation of his father, he necessarily abandoned it, and prepared, in obedience to paternal authority, to study for the Scottish bar. He returned to Scotland in 1747, and, having spent the autumn of that year in destroying wild fowl and other game, for which noble and rational species of recreation he always, we are told, retained a peculiar predilection, he resumed his studies, which, as they now led him through the dusty mazes of ancient and modern law, seem to have possessed much fewer charms for our future traveller than shooting grouse upon the mountains. Two years, however, were uselessly consumed in this study. At the termination of this period it was discovered that it was not as a lawyer that Bruce was destined to excel; and therefore, abandoning all thoughts of a career for which he had himself never entertained the least partiality, he returned in a considerably impaired state of health to his favourite field sports in Stirlingshire.

Here he lived about four years, undetermined what course of life he should pursue; but at length, having resolved to repair as a free trader to Hindostan, he proceeded to London in 1753 for the purpose of soliciting permission from the directors. An event now occurred, however, which promised to determine for ever the current of his hopes and pursuits. Conceiving an attachment for the daughter of an eminent wine-merchant, who, on dying, had bequeathed considerable wealth and a thriving business to his widow and child, Bruce relinquished his scheme of pushing his fortunes in the East, married, and became himself a wine-merchant. But Providence had otherwise disposed of his days. In a few months after his marriage, consumption, that genuine pestilence of our moist climates, deprived him of his amiable wife at Paris, whither he had proceeded on his way to the south of France. For some time after this event he continued in the wine trade, the interests of which requiring that he should visit Spain and Portugal, he applied himself during two years to the study of the languages of those countries, of which he is said to have possessed a very competent knowledge.

This preliminary step having been made, he may be said to have commenced his travels with a voyage to the Peninsula. Landing on the northern coast of Spain, he traversed Gallicia, spent four months in Portugal, and then, re-entering Spain, made the tour of a large portion of Andalusia and New Castile, and then proceeded to Madrid. His enthusiasm and romantic character, which had probably a new accession of ardour from the wild scenes still redolent of ancient chivalry which he had just visited, recommended him strongly to the Spanish minister, who used many arguments to induce him to enter the service of his Catholic majesty. This by no means, however, coincided with Bruce’s views. That restlessness which the man who has once conceived the idea of travelling ever after feels, unfitted him in reality for all quiet employment. He felt himself goaded on by the desire of fame; to be in motion seemed to be on the way to acquire it. He therefore proceeded across the Pyrenees into France, and thence, through Germany and Holland, to England, where he arrived in July, 1758.

He had learned at Rotterdam the death of his father, by which he succeeded to the family estate at Kinnaird. He likewise continued during another three years to derive profit from his business as a wine-merchant; but at the termination of that period the partnership was dissolved. All this while, however, his leisure had been devoted to the acquisition of the Arabic and other eastern languages, among the rest the Ethiopic, which probably first directed his attention to Abyssinia. In the mean while, an idea which he had conceived while at Ferrol in Gallicia was the means of bringing him into communication with the English ministry; this was, that in case of a rupture with Spain, Ferrol would be the most desirable point on the Spanish coast for a descent. Should the scheme be adopted, he was ready to volunteer his services in aiding in its execution. The plans appeared feasible to Lord Chatham, with whom Bruce had the honour of conversing on the subject. But this great man going out of office before any thing definitive had been concluded on, Bruce began to imagine that the plan had been abandoned; but was for some time longer amused with hopes by the ministers, until the affair was finally dropped at the earnest solicitation of the Portuguese ambassador.

He now retired in apparent disgust to his estate in Scotland; but shortly afterward, Lord Halifax, who seems to have penetrated into Bruce’s character, recalled him to London, and proposed to him, as an object of ambition, the examination of the architectural curiosities of Northern Africa, and the discovery of the sources of the Nile. This latter achievement, however, was spoken of in an equivocal manner, and as if, while he mentioned it, his lordship had entertained doubts of Bruce’s capacity for successfully conducting so difficult and dangerous an enterprise. Such a mode of proceeding was well calculated, and was probably meant, to pique the vanity of Bruce, and urge him, without seeming to do so, into the undertaking of what with great reason appeared to be an herculean labour. But whatever may have been Lord Halifax’s intentions, which is now a matter of no importance, the hint thus casually or designedly thrown out was not lost. Bruce’s imagination was at once kindled by the prospect of achieving what, as far as he then knew, no man had up to that moment been able to perform; and secretly conceiving that he had been marked out by Providence for the fulfilment of this design, he eagerly seized upon the idea, and treasured it in his heart.

Fortune, moreover, appeared favourable to his views. The consulship of Algiers, the possession of which would greatly facilitate his proceedings in the early part of the scheme proposed, becoming vacant at an opportune moment, he was induced to accept of it; and, having been appointed, he immediately furnished himself with astronomical instruments and all other necessaries, and set out through France and Italy for the point of destination.

During a short stay in Italy, spent in the assiduous study of antiquities, he engaged Luigi Balugani, a young Bolognese architect, to accompany him as an assistant on his travels; and, having received his final instructions from England, he embarked at Leghorn, and arrived at Algiers in the spring of 1763.

The leisure which Bruce now enjoyed, interrupted occasionally by business or altercations with the dey, was devoted to the earnest study of the Arabic, in which his progress was so rapid, that in the course of a year he considered himself fully competent to dispense with the aid of an interpreter. In the Ethiopic want of books alone prevented his making equal progress; for with him the acquiring of a language was a task of no great difficulty. He was now, having thus qualified himself for penetrating into the interior with advantage, peculiarly desirous of commencing his travels; for to continue longer at Algiers would, he rightly considered, be uselessly to sacrifice his time; and he repeatedly requested from Lord Halifax permission to resign his consulship. For a considerable time, however, his desires were not complied with. The critical position of the British in that regency required a firm, intelligent consul; and until a dispute which had just then arisen with the dey respecting passports should be settled, it was not judged expedient to recall Bruce, whose intrepidity, which was thus tacitly acknowledged, admirably adapted him to negotiate with barbarians. The dispute arose out of the following circumstances:—On the taking of Minorca by the French, a number of blank Mediterranean passports fell into their hands. These, in the hope of embroiling the English and Algiers, they filled up and sold to the Spaniards and other nations inimical to the Barbary powers. The effect desired was actually produced. Ships were taken bearing these forged passports; and although, upon examination, the fraud was immediately detected by the British consul, Bruce’s predecessor, it was not easy to calm the violent suspicions which had thus been excited in the mind of the dey, that the English were selling their protection to his enemies. In fact, the conduct of the governor of Mahon and Gibraltar, who, as a temporary expedient, granted what were termed _passavants_ to ships entering the Mediterranean, strongly corroborated this suspicion; for these ill-contrived, irregular passports appeared to be purposely framed for embarrassing or deluding the pirates. Bruce endeavoured, with all imaginable firmness and coolness, to explain to the dey that the first inconvenience originated in accident, and that the second was merely a temporary expedient; but it is probable that had not the regular admiralty passports arrived at the critical moment, he might have lost his life in this ignoble quarrel.

This disagreeable affair being terminated, he with double earnestness renewed his preparations for departure. Aware that a knowledge of medicine and surgery, independently of all considerations of his own health, might be of incalculable advantage to him among the barbarous nations whose countries he designed to traverse, he had, during the whole of his residence at Algiers, devoted a portion of his time to the study of this science, under the direction of Mr. Ball, the consular surgeon; and this knowledge he afterward increased by the aid of Dr. Russel at Aleppo.

The chaplain of the factory being absent, to avoid the necessity of taking the duties of burying, marrying, and baptizing upon himself, he took into his house as his private chaplain an aged Greek priest, whose name was Father Christopher, who not only performed the necessary clerical duties, but likewise read Greek with our traveller, and enabled him, by constant practice, to converse in the modern idiom. The friendship of this man, which he acquired by kindness and affability, was afterward of the most essential service to him, and contributed more, perhaps, than any other circumstance to preserve his life and forward his views in Abyssinia.

At length, in the month of August, 1765, Bruce departed from Algiers, furnished by the dey with ample permission to visit every part of his own dominions, and recommendatory letters to the beys of Tunis and Tripoli. He first sailed to Port Mahon, and then, returning to the African shore, landed at Bona. He then coasted along close to the shore, passed the little island of Tabarca, famous for its coral fishery, and observed upon the mainland prodigious forests of beautiful oak. Biserta, Utica, Carthage were successively visited; and of the ruins of the last, he remarks, that a large portion are overflowed by the sea, which may account, in some measure, for the discrepancy between the ancient and modern accounts of the dimensions of the peninsula on which it stood.

At Tunis he delivered his letters, and obtained the bey’s permission to make whatever researches he pleased in any part of his territories. He accordingly proceeded with an escort into the interior, visited many of the ruins described or mentioned by Dr. Shaw, feasted upon lion’s flesh, which he found exceedingly tough and strongly scented with musk, among the Welled Sidi Booganim, and then entered the Algerine province of Kosantina. Here, he observes, he was greatly astonished to find among the mountains a tribe of Kabyles, with blue eyes, fair complexions, and red hair. But he ought not to have been astonished; for Dr. Shaw had met with and described the same people, and supposed, as Bruce does, that they were descendants of the Vandals who anciently possessed this part of Africa.

Having visited and made drawings of numerous ruins, the greater number of which had previously been described more or less accurately by Dr. Shaw, he returned to Tunis, and, after another short excursion in the same direction, proceeded eastward by Feriana, Gaffon, and the Lake of Marks, to the shores of the Lesser Syrtis. Here he passed over to the island of Gerba, the Lotophagitis Insula of the ancients, where, he observes, Dr. Shaw was mistaken or misinformed in imagining that its coasts abounded with the _seedra_, or lotus-tree. He must have spoken of the doctor’s account from memory; for it is of the coasts of the continent, not of the island, that Dr. Shaw speaks in the passage alluded to.

In travelling along the shore towards Tripoli Bruce overtook the Muggrabine caravan, which was proceeding from the shores of the Atlantic to Mecca,[8] and his armed escort, though but fifteen in number, coming up with them in the gray of the morning, put the whole body, consisting of at least three thousand men, in great bodily terror, until the real character of the strangers was known. The English consul at Tripoli received and entertained our traveller with distinguished kindness and hospitality. From hence he despatched an English servant with his books, drawings, and supernumerary instruments to Smyrna, and then crossed the Gulf of Sidra, or Greater Syrtis, to Bengazi, the ancient Berenice.

Footnote 8:

Bruce says, “From the Western Ocean to the _western banks_ of the Red
Sea, _in the kingdom of Sennaar_.” His recent biographer omits the
“kingdom of Sennaar,” but still places Mecca on the “western banks of
the Red Sea.” For “western,” however, we must read “eastern” in both
cases.

Here a tremendous famine, which had prevailed for upwards of a year, was rapidly cutting off the inhabitants, many of whom had, it was reported, endeavoured to sustain life by feeding upon the bodies of their departed neighbours, ten or twelve of whom were every night found dead in the streets. Horror-stricken at the bare idea of such “Thyestœan feasts,” he very quickly quitted the town, and proceeded to examine the ruins of the Pentapolis and the petrifactions of Rao Sam, concerning which so many extraordinary falsehoods had been propagated in Europe. From thence he returned to Dolmetta (Ptolemata), where he embarked in a small junk for the island of Lampedosa, near Crete. The vessel was crowded with people flying from the famine. They set sail in the beginning of September, with fine weather and a favourable wind; but a storm coming on, and it being discovered that there were not provisions for one day on board, Bruce hoped to persuade the captain, an ignorant landsman, to put into Bengazi, and would no doubt have succeeded; but as they were making for the cape which protects the entrance into that harbour, the vessel struck upon a sunken rock, upon which it seemed to be fixed. They were at no great distance from the shore, and as the wind had suddenly ceased, though the swell of the sea continued, Bruce, with a portion of his servants and a number of the passengers, lowered the largest boat, and, jumping into it, pushed off for the shore. “The rest, more wise,” he observes, “remained on board.”

They had not rowed twice the length of the boat from the vessel before a wave nearly filled the boat, at which its crew, conscious of their helplessness, uttered a howl of despair. “I saw,” says Bruce, “the fate of all was to be decided by the very next wave that was rolling in; and apprehensive that some woman, child, or helpless man would lay hold of me, and entangle my arms or legs, and weigh me down, I cried to my servants, both in Arabic and English, ‘We are all lost; if you can swim, follow me.’ I then let myself down in the face of the wave. Whether that or the next filled the boat I know not, as I went to leeward, to make my distance as great as possible. I was a good, strong, practised swimmer, in the flower of life, full of health, trained to exercise and fatigue of every kind. All this, however, which might have availed much in deep water, was not sufficient when I came to the surf. I received a violent blow upon my breast from the eddy wave and reflux, which seemed as given by a large branch of a tree, thick cord, or some elastic weapon. It threw me upon my back, made me swallow a considerable quantity of water, and had then almost suffocated me.

“I avoided the next wave, by dipping my head and letting it pass over; but found myself breathless, and exceedingly weary and exhausted. The land, however, was before me, and close at hand. A large wave floated me up. I had the prospect of escape still nearer, and endeavoured to prevent myself from going back into the surf. My heart was strong, but strength was apparently failing, by being involuntarily twisted about, and struck on the face and breast by the violence of the ebbing wave. It now seemed as if nothing remained but to give up the struggle and resign to my destiny. Before I did this I sunk to sound if I could touch the ground, and found that I reached the sand with my feet, though the water was still rather deeper than my mouth. The success of this experiment infused into me the strength of ten men, and I strove manfully, taking advantage of floating only with the influx of the wave, and preserving my strength for the struggle against the ebb, which, by sinking and touching the ground, I now made more easy. At last, finding my hands and knees upon the sands, I fixed my nails into it, and obstinately resisted being carried back at all, crawling a few feet when the sea had retired. I had perfectly lost my recollection and understanding, and, after creeping so far as to be out of the reach of the sea, I suppose I fainted, for from that time I was totally insensible of any thing that passed around me.”

In giving the history of this remarkable escape of Bruce, I have made use of his own words, as no others could bring the event so vividly before the mind of the reader. He seems, in fact, to rival in this passage the energetic simplicity and minute painting of Defoe. The Arabs of the neighbourhood, who, like the inhabitants of Cornwall, regard a shipwreck as a piece of extraordinary good fortune, soon came down to the shore in search of plunder; and observing Bruce lying upon the beach, supposed him to be drowned, and proceeded at once to strip his body. A blow accidentally given him on the back of the neck restored him to his senses; but the wreckers, who from his costume concluded him to be a Turk, nevertheless proceeded, with many blows, kicks, and curses, to rifle him of his few garments, for he had divested himself of all but a waistcoat, sash, and drawers in the ship, and then left him, to perform the same tender offices for others.

He now crawled away as well as his weakness would permit, and sat down, to conceal himself as much as possible among the white sandy hillocks which rose upon the coast. Fear of a severer chastisement prevented him from approaching the tents, for the women of the tribe were there, and he was entirely naked. The terror and confusion of the moment had caused him to forget that he could speak to them in their own language, which would certainly have saved him from being plundered. When he had remained some time among the hillocks several Arabs came up to him, whom he addressed with the _salaam alaikum_! or “Peace be with you!” which is a species of shibboleth in all Mohammedan countries. The question was now put to him whether he was not a Turk, and, if so, what he had to do there. He replied, in a low, despairing tone, that he was no Turk, but a poor Christian physician, a dervish, who went about the world seeking to do good for God’s sake, and was then flying from famine, and going to Greece to get bread. Other questions followed, and the Arabs being at length satisfied that he was not one of their mortal enemies, a ragged garment was thrown over him, and he was conducted to the sheikh’s tent. Here he was hospitably received, and, together with his servants, who had all escaped, entertained with a plentiful supper. Medical consultations then followed; and he remained with the sheikh two days, during which every exertion was made on the part of the Arabs to recover his astronomical instruments, but in vain. Every thing which had been taken from them was then restored, and they proceeded on camels furnished by the Arabs to Bengazi.

At this port he embarked on board of a small French sloop, the master of which had formerly received some small favours from Bruce at Algiers, which he now gratefully remembered, and sailed for Canea, in Crete; from whence he proceeded to Rhodes, where he found his books, to Casttrosso, on the coast of Caramania, and thence to Cyprus and Sidon. His excursions in Syria were numerous, and extended as far as Palmyra; but I omit to detail them, as of minor importance, and hasten to follow him into Egypt and Abyssinia.

On Saturday, the 15th of June, 1768, he set sail from Sidon, and touching by the way at Cyprus, his imagination, which was on fire with the ardour of enterprise, beheld on the high white clouds which floated northward above the opposite current of the Etesian winds messengers, as it were, from the mountains of Abyssinia, come to hail him to their summits. Early in the morning of the fifth day he had a distant prospect of Alexandria rising from the sea; and, upon landing, one of the first objects of his search was the tomb of Alexander, which Marmol pretended to have seen in 1546; but although his inquiries were numerous, they were perfectly fruitless.

From this city he proceeded by land to Rosetta, and thence up the Nile to Cairo. Here he was hospitably received by the house of Julian and Bertran, to whom he had been recommended; and he likewise received from the principal bey and his officers, men of infamous and odious characters, very extraordinary marks of consideration, his cases of instruments being allowed to pass unexamined and free of duty through the custom-house, while presents were given instead of being exacted from him by the bey. These polite attentions he owed to the opinion created by the sight of his astronomical apparatus that he was a great astrologer,—a character universally esteemed in the East, and held in peculiar reverence by the secretary of the bey then in office, from his having himself some pretensions to its honours.

This man, whose name was Risk, in whom credulity and wickedness kept an equal pace, desired to discover, through Bruce’s intimate knowledge of the language of the stars, the issue of the war then pending between the Ottoman empire and Russia, together with the general fortunes and ultimate destiny of the bey. Our traveller had no predilection for the art of fortune-telling, particularly among a people where the bastinado or impaling-stake might be the consequence of a mistaken prediction; but the eulogies which his kind host bestowed upon the laudable credulity of the people, and perhaps the vanity of pretending to superior science, overcame his reluctance, and he consented to reveal to the anxious inquirer the fate of empires. In the mean while he was directed to fix his residence at the convent of St. George, about three miles from Cairo. Here he was visited by his old friend Father Christopher, with whom he had studied modern Greek at Algiers, and who informed him that he was now established at Cairo, where he had risen to the second dignity in his church. Understanding Bruce’s intention of proceeding to Abyssinia, he observed that there were a great number of Greeks in that country, many of whom were high in office. To all of these he undertook to procure letters to be addressed by the patriarch, whose commands they regarded with no less veneration than holy writ, enjoining them as a penance, upon which a kind of jubilee was to follow, says Bruce, “that laying aside their pride and vanity, great sins with which he knew them much _infected_, and, instead of pretending to put themselves on a footing with me when I should arrive at the court of Abyssinia, they should concur heart and hand in serving me; and that before it could be supposed they had received instructions from _me_, they should make a declaration before the king that they were not in condition equal to me; that I was a free citizen of a _powerful nation_, and servant of a great king; that they were born slaves of the Turk, and at best ranked but as would my servants; and that, in fact, one of their countrymen was in that station then with me.”[9]

Footnote 9:

In the biography of Bruce recently published there are a few mistakes
in the account of this transaction, which, simple as it may appear,
was precisely that upon which Bruce’s whole success in Abyssinia
depended. Major Head says, that Father Christopher was the patriarch,
that he accosted Bruce upon his arrival at the convent, and that it
was he who addressed the letters to Abyssinia. Bruce, on the contrary,
says that he was _Archimandrites_; and that it was “at his
solicitation that Risk had desired _the patriarch_ to furnish” him
with an apartment in the convent of St. George. Nor was he at the
convent to accost Bruce on his arrival. “The next day after my
arrival,” says the traveller, “I was surprised by the visit of my old
friend Father Christopher.” He goes on to say, that between them they
digested the plan of the letters, and that Father Christopher
undertook to manage the affair,—that is, to procure the patriarch to
write and forward the letters.—_Bruce’s Travels_, vol. 1. p. 34, 35,
4to. _Edin._ 1790.

Our traveller was soon called upon to perform in the character of an astrologer. It was late in the evening when he one night received a summons to appear before the bey, whom he found to be a much younger man than he had expected. He was sitting upon a large sofa covered with crimson cloth of gold; his turban, his girdle, and the head of his dagger all thickly covered with fine brilliants; and there was one in his turban serving to support a sprig of diamonds, which was among the largest Bruce ever saw. Abruptly entering upon the object of their meeting, he demanded of the astrologer whether he had ever calculated the consequences of the war then raging between the Turks and Russians? “The Turks,” replied Bruce, “will be beaten by sea and land wherever they present themselves.” The bey continued, “And will Constantinople be burned or taken?”—“Neither,” said the traveller; “but peace will be made after much bloodshed, with little advantage to either party.” At hearing this the bey clapped his hands together, and, having sworn an oath in Turkish, turned to Risk, who stood before him, and said, “That will be sad indeed! but truth is truth, and God is merciful.”

This wonderful prophecy procured our traveller a promise of protection from the bey, to whom a few nights afterward he was again sent for near midnight. At the door he met the janizary aga, who, when on horseback, had absolute power of life and death, without appeal, all over Cairo; and, not knowing him, brushed by without ceremony. The aga, however, stopped him just at the threshold, and inquired of one of the bey’s people who he was. Upon their replying “It is the _hakim Inglese_” (English physician), he politely asked Bruce in Turkish “if he would go and see him, for he was not well;” to which the latter replied in Arabic, “that he would visit him whenever he pleased, but could not then stay, as he had just received a message that the bey was waiting.”—“No, no; go, for God’s sake go,” said the aga; “any time will do for me!”

Upon entering the bey’s apartment, he found him alone, sitting, leaning forward, with a wax taper in one hand, and in the other a small slip of paper, which he was reading, and held close to his eyes, as if the light were dim or his sight weak. He did not, or affected not, to observe Bruce until he was close to him, and started when he uttered the “salām.” He appeared at first to have forgotten why he had sent for the physician, but presently explained the nature of his indisposition; upon which, among other questions, Bruce inquired whether he had not been guilty of some excess before dinner. The bey now turned round to Risk, who had by this time entered, and exclaimed, “Afrite! Afrite!”—(He is a devil! he is a devil!) Bruce now prescribed warm water, or a weak infusion of green tea, as an emetic, and added, that having taken a little strong coffee, or a glass of spirits, he should go to bed. At this the bey exclaimed, “Spirits! do you know I am a Mussulman?”[10]—“But I,” replied the traveller, “am none. I tell you what is good for your body, and have nothing to do with your religion or your soul.” The bey was amused at his bluntness, and said, “He speaks like a man!” The traveller then retired.

Footnote 10:

Major Head, in his account of this laughable consultation, by omitting
all mention of the spirits, makes it appear that the bey meant to
insinuate that vomiting, or drinking green tea, was contrary to the
Mohammedan religion. But, although the Koran commands its followers to
abstain from wine, under which denomination rigid Islamites include
all kinds of spirits, it is by no means so unreasonable as to prohibit
vomiting, or the drinking of warm water, or weak green tea.

Our traveller now prepared to depart; and having obtained the necessary letters and despatches both from the patriarch and the bey, commenced his movements with a visit to the Pyramids. He then embarked in a kanja, and proceeded up the river, having on the right-hand a fine view of the pyramids of Gizeh and Saccara, with a prodigious number of others built of white clay, which appeared to stretch away in an interminable line into the desert. On reaching Metraheny, which Dr. Pococke had fixed upon as the site of Memphis, Bruce discovered what he thought sufficient grounds for concurring in opinion with that traveller in opposition to Dr. Shaw, who contends in favour of the claims of Gizeh. The Serapium, the Temple of Vulcan, the Circus, and the Temple of Venus, the ruins of which should be found on the site of Memphis, are nowhere discoverable either at Metraheny or Gizeh, and are not improbably supposed by Bruce to be buried for ever beneath the loose sands of the desert. A man’s heart fails him, he says, in looking to the south and south-west of Metraheny. He is lost in the immense expanse of desert which he sees full of pyramids before him. Struck with terror from the unusual scene of vastness opened all at once upon leaving the palm-trees, he becomes dispirited from the effect of sultry climates, shrinks from attempting any discovery in the moving sands of the Saccara, and embraces in safety and in quiet the reports of others, who, he thinks, may have been more inquisitive and more adventurous than himself.