The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller Part 21

"As soon as we recovered ourselves we took refuge in a village, from fear only, for we saw no vestige of any other whirlwind. It involved a great quant.i.ty of rain, which the Nuba of the villages told us was very fortunate, and portended good luck to us, and a prosperous journey; for they said that, had dust and sand arisen with the whirlwind in the same proportion it would have done had not the earth been moistened, we should all infallibly have been suffocated; and they cautioned us by saying that tempests were very frequent in the beginning and end of the rainy season; and, whenever we should see one of them coming, to fall down upon our faces, keeping our lips close to the ground, and so let it pa.s.s; and thus it would neither have power to carry us off our feet nor suffocate us, which was the ordinary case.

"Our kind landlords, the Nuba, gave us a hearty welcome, and helped us to wash our clothes first, and then to dry them. When I was stripped naked, they saw the blood running from my nose, and said they could not have thought that one so white as I could have been capable of bleeding."

These people gave Bruce a piece of roasted hog, which he ate, very much to their satisfaction. In return, as the camel was lame, Bruce ordered it to be killed, and the flesh to be given to the Nuba of the village, who feasted upon it for several days. With these people Bruce spent a very cheerful evening, and then, having a clean hut, he retired to rest from the effects of the whirlwind.

On the 26th he left the village, his way being still across an immense plain. After encountering several violent storms of thunder, lightning, and rain, he arrived at Basboch--a large collection of huts bearing the appearance of a town--where the governor, a venerable old man of about seventy, received him with no little dignity and urbanity. "Christian,"

said he, taking him by the hand, "what dost thou at such a time in such a country?"

Basboch is on the eastern bank of the Nile or Blue river, not a quarter of a mile from the ford below. The river here runs north and south; near the banks it is shallow, but deep in the middle, and in this part is much infested with crocodiles. Sennaar is two miles and a half S.S.W. of it. "We heard," says Bruce, "the evening drum very distinctly, and not without anxiety, when we reflected to what a brutish people, according to all accounts, we were about to trust ourselves."

After waiting at this place three days, Bruce and his party having at last received permission to enter Sennaar, the capital of Nubia,[35]

they were conducted to a very s.p.a.cious, good house, belonging to the sheikh himself, and about a quarter of a mile from the palace. The following morning a messenger came from the king, desiring Bruce to wait upon him.

The palace, which covers a prodigious deal of ground, is one story high, built of clay, and the floors of earth. The king was in a small room, which was covered with a Persian carpet, and the walls were hung with tapestry. He was sitting upon a mattress, laid on the ground, which was likewise covered with a Persian rug, and round him were a number of cus.h.i.+ons of Venetian cloth of gold. His dress, however, did not correspond with this magnificence; for it was nothing but a large common loose s.h.i.+rt of Surat blue cloth. His head was uncovered; he wore his own short, black hair, and was as white in complexion as an Arab. He seemed to be a man about thirty-four; his feet were bare, or only covered by his s.h.i.+rt. "He had," says Bruce, "a very plebeian countenance, on which was stamped no decided character; I should rather have guessed him to be a soft, timid, irresolute man. At my coming forward and kissing his hand, he looked at me for a minute as if undetermined what to say. He then asked for an Abyssinian interpreter, as there are many of these about the palace. I said to him in Arabic, 'That I apprehended I understood as much of that language as would enable me to answer any question he had to put to me.' Upon which he turned to the people that were with him. 'Downright Arabic, indeed! You did not learn that language in Habesh?' said he to me. I answered, 'No; I have been in Egypt, Turkey, and Arabia, where I learned it; but I have likewise often spoken it in Abyssinia, where Greek, Turkish, and several other languages were used.' He said, 'Impossible! he did not think they knew anything of languages, excepting their own, in Abyssinia.'"

There were sitting by the side of the room, opposite to him, four men dressed in white cotton s.h.i.+rts, with a white shawl covering their heads and part of their face, by which it was known they were religious men, or men of learning, or of the law. Bruce presented first the Sherriffe of Mecca's letter, and then one from the King of Abyssinia. The king took them both and read them, and said, "You are a physician and a soldier." "Both, in time of need," replied Bruce. "But the sherriffe's letter," said the sheikh, "tells me, also, that you are a n.o.bleman in the service of a great king that they call Englise-man, who is master of all the Indies, and who has Mohammedan as well as Christian subjects, and allows them all to be governed by their own laws." "Though I never said so to the sherriffe," replied Bruce, "yet it is true; I am as n.o.ble as any individual in my nation, and am also servant to the greatest king now reigning on earth, of whose dominions, it is likewise truly said, these Indies are but a small part." "How comes it," said the king, "you that are so n.o.ble and learned that you know all things, all languages, and so brave that you fear no danger, and pa.s.s, with two or three old men, into such countries as this and Habesh, where Baady, my father, perished with an army--how comes it that you do not stay at home and enjoy yourself, eat, drink, take pleasure, and rest, and not wander like a poor man, a prey to every danger?" "You, sir," replied Bruce, "may know some of this sort of men; certainly you do know them; for there are in your religion, as well as in mine, men of learning, and those, too, of great rank and n.o.bility, who, on account of sins they have committed, or vows they have made, renounce the world, its riches, and pleasures: they lay down their n.o.bility, and become humble and poor, so as often to be insulted by wicked and low men, not having the fear of G.o.d before their eyes." "True; these are dervis," said the three men of learning.

"I am, then, one of these dervis," said Bruce, "content with the bread that is given me, and bound for some years to travel in hards.h.i.+ps and danger, doing all the good I can to the poor and rich, serving every man and hurting none." "Tybe! that is well," said the king. "And how long have you been travelling about?" "Near twenty years," replied Bruce.

"You must be very young," observed the king, "to have committed so many sins, and so early." "I did not say," replied Bruce, "that I was one of those who travelled on account of their sins, but that there were some dervises that did so on account of their vows, and some to learn wisdom." The king now made a sign, and a slave brought a cus.h.i.+on, which Bruce would have refused, but was forced to sit down upon it.

A cadi who was present then asked Bruce when the Hagiuge Magiuge were to arrive. "Hagiuge Magiuge," said the cadi, "are little people, not so big as bees, or like the zimb, or fly of Sennaar, that come in great swarms out of the earth, ay, in mult.i.tudes that cannot be counted; two of their chiefs are to ride upon an a.s.s, and every hair of that a.s.s is to be a pipe, and every pipe is to play a different kind of music, and all that hear and follow them are carried to h.e.l.l." "I know them not," says Bruce, "and in the name of the Lord, I fear them not, were they twice as little as you say they are, and twice as numerous. I trust in G.o.d I shall never be so fond of music as to follow to such a place an a.s.s, for all the tunes that he or they can play." The king laughed violently.

Bruce then went away, and found a number of people in the street, who all offered him some taunt or insult. "I pa.s.sed," he says, "through the great square before the palace, and could not help shuddering, upon reflection, at what had happened in that spot to the unfortunate M. du Roule and his companions, though under a protection which should have secured them from all danger, every part of which I was then unprovided with."

The drum beat a little after six o'clock in the evening. Bruce then had a very comfortable dinner sent to him, which consisted of camel's flesh stewed with an herb, a slimy substance, called bammia. After having dined, and finished his journal of the day, he began to unpack his instruments, when a servant came from the palace, telling him to bring his present to the king. "I sorted," says Bruce, "the separate articles with all the speed I could, and we went directly to the palace. The king was then sitting in a large apartment; he was naked, but several cloths were lying upon his knee and about him, and a servant was rubbing him over with very stinking b.u.t.ter or grease, with which his hair was dropping, as if wet with water. Large as the room was, it could be smelled through the whole of it. The king asked me if ever I greased myself as he did. I said, 'Very seldom, but fancied it would be very expensive.' He then told me that it was elephant's grease, which made people strong, and preserved the skin very smooth."

This simple toilet being finished, Bruce produced his present, which he said the King of Abyssinia had sent, hoping that, according to the faith and customs of nations, he would transmit him safely and speedily into Egypt. The king answered, "There was a time when he could have done all this, and more: but that times were changed. Sennaar was in ruins, and was not like what it once was."

Several days having pa.s.sed unsatisfactorily, Bruce was again summoned to the palace. "The king," he says, "told me that several of his wives were ill, and desired that I would give them my advice, which I promised to do without difficulty, as all acquaintance with the fair s.e.x had hitherto been much to my advantage. I must confess, however, that calling these the fair s.e.x is not preserving a precision in terms. I was admitted into a large square apartment, very ill-lighted, in which were about fifty women, all perfectly black, without any covering but a very narrow piece of cotton rag about their waists. While I was musing whether or not these all might be queens, or whether there was any queen among them, one of them took me by the hand, and led me rudely enough into another apartment. This was much better lighted than the first.

Upon a large bench or sofa, covered with blue Surat cloth, sat three persons, clothed from the neck to the feet with blue cotton s.h.i.+rts.

"One of these, who I found was the favourite, was about six feet high, and corpulent beyond all proportion. She seemed to me, next to the elephant and rhinoceros, the largest living creature I had ever met with. Her features were perfectly like those of a negro; a ring of gold pa.s.sed through her under lip, and weighed it down, till, like a flap, it covered her chin, and left her teeth bare, which were very small and fine. The inside of her lip she had made black with antimony. Her ears reached down to her shoulders, and had the appearance of wings; she had in each of them a large ring of gold, somewhat smaller than a man's little finger, and about five inches in diameter. The weight of these had drawn down the hole where her ear was pierced so much, that three fingers might easily pa.s.s above the ring. She had a gold necklace, like what we used to call _esclavage_, of several rows, one below another, to which were hung rows of sequins pierced. She had on her ankles two manacles of gold, larger than any I had ever seen upon the feet of felons, with which I could not conceive it was possible for her to walk, but afterward I found they were hollow. The others were dressed pretty much in the same manner, only there was one that had chains, which came from her ears to the outside of each nostril, where they were fastened.

There was also a ring put through the gristle of her nose, and which hung down to the opening of her mouth. I think she must have breathed with great difficulty. It had altogether something of the appearance of a horse's bridle. Upon my coming near them, the eldest put her hand to her mouth, and kissed it, saying, at the same time, in very vulgar Arabic, 'Kifhalek howaja?' (How do you do, merchant?) I never in my life was more pleased with distant salutations than at this time. I answered, 'Peace be among you! I am a physician, and not a merchant.'

"I shall not entertain the reader with the mult.i.tude of their complaints; being a lady's physician, discretion and silence are my first duties. It is sufficient to say, that there was not one part of their whole bodies in which some of them had not ailments. The three queens insisted upon being blooded, which desire I complied with, as it was an operation that required short attendance; but, upon producing the lancets, their hearts failed them. They then all cried out for the tabange, which in Arabic means a pistol; but what they meant by this word was, the cupping instrument, which goes off with a spring like the snap of a pistol. I had two of these with me, but not at that time in my pocket. I sent my servant home, however, to bring one, and, the same evening, performed the operation upon the three queens with great success. The room was overflowed with an effusion of royal blood, and the whole ended with their insisting upon my giving them the instrument itself, which I was obliged to do, after cupping two of their slaves before them, who had no complaints, merely to show them how the operation was to be performed."

When the "black spirits" of these queens had somewhat revived, the creatures naturally became a little playful, and were exceedingly curious to inspect Bruce's skin.

"The only terms," he says, "I could possibly, and that with great difficulty, make for myself, were, that they should be contented to strip me no farther than the shoulders and breast. Upon seeing the whiteness of my skin, they gave all a loud cry in token of dislike, and shuddered, seeming to consider it rather the effects of disease than natural. I think in my life I never felt so disagreeably. I have been in more than one battle, but surely I would joyfully have taken any chance again in any of them to have been freed from that examination. I could not help likewise reflecting that, if the king had come in during this exhibition, the consequences would either have been impaling, or stripping off that skin whose colour they were so curious about; indeed, it was impossible to be more chagrined at, or more disgusted with, my present situation than I was; and the more so, that my delivery from it appeared to be very distant, and the circ.u.mstances were more and more unfavourable every day."

During his tedious detention at Sennaar, Bruce occupied himself, as usual, in making celestial observations, and in inquiring into the history of the country, a great part of which he minutely relates.

"Nothing," he says, "is more pleasant than the country around Sennaar in the end of August and beginning of September, I mean so far as the eye is concerned: instead of that barren, bare waste which it appeared on our arrival in May, the corn now sprung up, and, covering the ground, made the whole of this immense plain appear a level, green land, interspersed with great lakes of water, and ornamented at certain intervals with groups of villages, the conical tops of the houses presenting at a distance the appearance of small encampments. Through this immense plain winds the Nile, a delightful river there, above a mile broad, full to the very brim, but never overflowing. Everywhere on these banks are seen numerous herds of the most beautiful cattle of various kinds, the tribute recently extorted from the Arabs, who, freed from all their vexations, return home with the remainder of their flocks in peace, at as great a distance from the town, country, and their oppressors as they possibly can.

"The banks of the Nile about Sennaar resemble the pleasantest parts of Holland in the summer season; but, soon after, when the rains cease, and the sun exerts his utmost influence, the dora begins to ripen, the leaves to turn yellow and to rot, the lakes to putrify, smell, and be full of vermin, all this beauty suddenly disappears; bare, scorched Nubia returns, and all its terrors of poisonous winds and moving sands, glowing and ventilated with sultry blasts, which are followed by a troop of terrible attendants, epilepsies, apoplexies, violent fevers, obstinate agues, and lingering, painful dysenteries, still more obstinate and mortal.

"War and treason seem to be the only employment of this horrid people, whom Heaven has separated by almost impa.s.sable deserts from the rest of mankind."

To any one who will consider that Sennaar is only thirteen degrees from the line, it is scarcely necessary to observe that its heat is excessive, though the natives bear it with astonis.h.i.+ng ease; for on the 2d of August, while Bruce was lying perfectly enervated in a room deluged with water, at noon, the thermometer being at 116, he saw several black labourers working without any appearance of being incommoded.

His observations on heat are so practical, and so admirably expressed, that we give them in his own words: "Cold and hot are terms merely relative, not determined by the lat.i.tude, but elevation of the place; when, therefore, we say hot, some other explanation is necessary concerning the place where we are, in order to give an adequate idea of the sensations of that heat upon the body, and the effects of it upon the lungs. The degree of the thermometer conveys this very imperfectly; ninety degrees is excessively hot at Loheia in Arabia Felix, and yet the lat.i.tude of Loheia is but fifteen degrees, whereas ninety degrees at Sennaar is, as to sense, only warm, although Sennaar, as we have said, is in lat.i.tude thirteen degrees.

"At Sennaar, then, I call it _cold_ when one, fully clothed and at rest, feels himself in want of fire. I call it _cool_ when one fully clothed and at rest feels he could bear more covering all over, or in part more than he has then on. I call it _temperate_ when a man, so clothed and at rest, feels no such want, and can take moderate exercise, such as walking about a room, without sweating. I call it _warm_ when a man, so clothed, does not sweat when at rest, but, upon moderate motion, sweats and again cools. I call it _hot_ when a man sweats at rest, and excessively on moderate motion. I call it _very hot_ when a man, with thin or little clothing, sweats much, though at rest. I call it _excessive hot_ when a man in his s.h.i.+rt, at rest, sweats excessively, when all motion is painful, and the knees feel feeble as if after a fever. I call it _extreme hot_ when the strength fails, a disposition to faint comes on, a straitness is found in the temples, as if a small cord was drawn tight around the head, the voice impaired, the skin dry, and the head seems more than ordinarily large and light."

If Bruce's enemies could but have been subjected to this last degree of temperature, they would, perhaps, for once have agreed to admire the indefatigable exertions which, under such a climate, and in spite of ill health, he still continued to make. The history, ancient and modern, of the kingdom of Sennaar, its natural history, its trade, money, measures, diseases, etc., etc., were objects of his most eager inquiry; and it may truly be said, that his thirst for information seems actually to have increased with the difficulties which oppressed him.

He made every exertion to leave Sennaar: in vain were represented to him the dangers which awaited him. "I persisted," says he, "in my resolution; I was tied to the stake. To fly was impossible; and I had often overcome such dangers by braving them;" but a new difficulty now arose. His funds were exhausted, and the person with whom he had credit refused to supply him. "This was a stroke," says Bruce, "that seemed to ensure our destruction, no other resource being now left. My servants began to murmur; some of them had known of my gold chain from the beginning, and these, in the common danger, imparted what they knew to the rest. In short, I resolved, though very unwillingly, not to sacrifice my own life and that of my servants, and the finis.h.i.+ng my travels, now so far advanced, to childish vanity. I determined, therefore, to abandon my gold chain, the honourable recompense of a day full of fatigue and danger.

"It was on the 5th of September," says Bruce, "that we were all prepared to leave this capital of Nubia, an inhospitable country from the beginning, and which, every day we continued in it, had engaged us in greater difficulties and dangers. We flattered ourselves that, once disengaged from this bad step, the greatest part of our sufferings was over; for we apprehended nothing but from men, and, with very great reason, thought we had seen the worst of them."

FOOTNOTE:

[35] Although this city is at the present day but little better than a heap of ruins, it bears the marks of former magnificence. See _Russell's Nubia and Abyssinia_, p. 59, Harpers' Family Library.--_Am. Ed._

CHAPTER XVI.

Bruce leaves Sennaar.--Crosses the great Desert of Nubia.--His Distress.--Reaches Seyne, on the Nile.

On the 8th of September the camels were at last laden, and sent forward to a small village three or four miles from Sennaar. Bruce then finally settled his accounts; "and I received back," he says, "six links, the miserable remains of one hundred and eighty-four, of which my n.o.ble chain once consisted." Thus robbed, even of this precious token of his hard-earned honour, Bruce, after having been detained four months at Sennaar, proceeded once again on his journey towards his native land: although he had been so long directing his course to the north, he had still to travel nearly seven hundred miles before he could escape from that burning region of the earth, the torrid zone. His way was long, his path beset with dangers; but the relentless persecution of a tropical sun is what no man can adequately describe: every animal pants beneath it, and the very atmosphere they breathe trembles and quivers like air at the mouth of a furnace; still Bruce resolutely proceeded onward; and, about ten o'clock at night, he and his little party joyfully reached Soliman. He now formally addressed his people; he recommended diligence, sobriety, and subordination; and a.s.sured them that, until the journey was terminated, they should share with him one common fare and fortune.

Never was a discourse more gratefully received. "Sennaar," says Bruce, "sat heavy upon all their spirits," and beyond description did they rejoice at having escaped from it.

Constantly advancing, on the 16th they arrived at Herbagi, a large, pleasant village; and Bruce immediately waited upon Wed Ageeb, an hereditary prince of the Arabs, subject to the government of Sennaar. He had never before seen a European, and testified great surprise at our traveller's complexion. After resting two days at Herbagi, Bruce proceeded along the river. "Nothing," he says, "could be more beautiful than the country we pa.s.sed that day, partly covered with very pleasant woods and partly in lawns, with a few fine scattered trees." After travelling three days, they came, on the 21st, to the pa.s.sage of the Nile, which river they crossed. The manner of pa.s.sing the camels at this ferry is by fastening cords under their hind quarters, and then tying a halter to their heads. Two men hold on to these cords, and a third the halter, so that the animals, by swimming, carry the boat on sh.o.r.e. One is fastened on each side of the stem and stern. These useful beasts suffer greatly by such rude treatment, and many die in the pa.s.sage, with all the care that can be taken; but they still oftener perish through the tricks of the boatmen, who privately put salt in the camel's ears, which makes him desperate and ungovernable, till, by fretting and plunging his head constantly in the water, he loses his breath, and is finally drowned; they have then gained their object, and feast upon the flesh.

Having thus crossed the Nile, they proceeded to Halfaia, where the tropical rains terminate. A very important change was about to take place in the character of the country, and Bruce, in bidding adieu to the wet portion of Africa, was now entering on the confines of the deserts. Here there are palm-trees, but no dates. The people eat cats, the hippopotamus, and the crocodile. Having remained at Halfaia a week, they set out on the 29th, and soon reached the village of Wed Hojila, where the great Bahar el Abiad, or White river, falls into the Bahar el Azergue, or Blue river; and here, with great frankness, Bruce acknowledges that the Abiad "_is larger than the Nile_." "The Abiad," he says, "is a very deep river; it runs dead, and with little inclination, and preserves its stream always undiminished; because, rising in lat.i.tudes where there are continual rains, it therefore suffers not the decrease the Nile does by the six months' dry weather."

This confession certainly reflects no little credit on Bruce's character, and it should put to silence those who have so unfairly insinuated that he always endeavoured to conceal the fact that the Bahar el Abiad was a much larger branch of the Nile than the Abyssinian river, the sources of which it had cost him so much to visit.

"At Halfaia," says Bruce, "begins that n.o.ble race of horses justly celebrated all over the world. They are the breed that was introduced here at the Saracen conquest, and have been preserved unmixed to this day. They seem to be a distinct animal from the Arabian horse, such as I have seen in the plains of Arabia Deserta, south of Palmyra and Damascus, where I take the most excellent of the Arabian breed to be, in the tribes of Mowalli and Annecy, which is about lat. 36; while Dongola and the dry country near it seem to be the centre of excellence for this n.o.bler animal.

"What figure the Nubian breed of horses would make in point of fleetness, is very doubtful, their make being so entirely different from that of the Arabian; but if beautiful and symmetrical parts, great size and strength, the most agile, nervous, and elastic movements, great endurance of fatigue, docility of temper, and seeming attachment to man beyond any other domestic animal, can promise anything, the Nubian stallion is, above all comparison, the most eligible in the world. Few men have seen more horses, or more of the different places where they are excellent, than I have, and no one ever more delighted in them, as far as the manly exercise went. What these may produce for the turf is what I cannot so much as guess; as there is not, I believe, in the world, one more indifferent to, or ignorant of, that amus.e.m.e.nt than I am. The experiment would be worth trying in any view, and the expense would not be great."

All n.o.ble horses in Nubia are believed to be descended from one of the five upon which Mohammed and his four immediate successors fled from Mecca to Medina on the night of the Hegira. The horses of Halfaia and Gherri are rather smaller than those of Dongola, few of which are less than sixteen hands.

After travelling along the Nile two days, Bruce reached Chendi or Chandi, a large village, the capital of its district, the government of which belonged to Sittina, which means "the mistress." She was the sister of Wed Ageeb, the princ.i.p.al of the Arabs in that part of Africa.

On the 12th of October, about a week after his arrival, Bruce waited upon Sittina, who received him behind a screen, so that it was impossible he could see either her figure or face. She expressed herself with great politeness, and wondered exceedingly how a white man should venture so far in such an ill-governed country. "Allow me, madam," said Bruce, "to complain of a breach of hospitality in you, which no Arab has been yet guilty of towards me." "Me!" said Sittina; "that would be strange indeed, to a man that bears my brother's letter. How can that be?" "Why, you tell me, madam," said Bruce, "that I am a white man, by which I know that you see me, without giving me a like advantage. The queens of Sennaar did not use me so harshly; I had a full sight of them, without having used any importunity." Sittina burst into a fit of laughter, and desired Bruce to come to her the next day.

"On the 13th," says Bruce, "it was so excessively hot that it was impossible to suffer the burning sun. The poisonous simoom blew as if it came from an oven. Our eyes were dim, our lips cracked, our knees tottering, our throats were perfectly dry, and no relief was found from drinking an immoderate quant.i.ty of water. The people advised me to dip a sponge in vinegar and water, and hold it before my mouth and nose, and this greatly relieved me. In the evening I went to Sittina. Upon entering the house, a black slave laid hold of me by the hand, and placed me in a pa.s.sage, at the end of which were two opposite doors. I did not well know the meaning of this; but had stayed only a few minutes, when I heard one of the doors at the end of the pa.s.sage open, and Sittina appeared magnificently dressed, with a kind of round cap of solid gold upon the crown of her head, all beat very thin, and hung round with sequins; with a variety of gold chains, solitaires, and necklaces of the same metal about her neck. Her hair was platted in ten or twelve small divisions, like tails, which hung down below her waist, and over her was thrown a common white cotton garment. She had a purple silk stole or scarf hung very gracefully on her back, brought again round her waist, without covering her shoulders or arms.

"Allow me, madam," said Bruce, suddenly kissing her hand, "as a physician, to say one word." Sittina bowed her head, and received Bruce in a private room. "Are the women handsome in your country?" said Sittina. "The handsomest in the world, madam," replied Bruce; "but they are so good, and so excellent in all other respects, that n.o.body thinks at all of their beauty, nor do they value themselves upon it." "And do they allow you to kiss their hands?" said she. "I understand you, madam," replied Bruce, "though you have mistaken me. There is no familiarity in kissing hands; it is a mark of homage and distant respect paid in my country to our sovereigns, and to none earthly besides." "But do you know," said Sittina, "that no man ever kissed my hand but you?"

"It is impossible I should know that," replied Bruce, "nor is it material. Of this I am confident, it was meant respectfully, cannot hurt you, and ought not to offend you."

Some days afterward, as Bruce was sitting in his tent, musing upon the very unpromising aspect of his affairs, an Arab of very ordinary appearance, naked, with only a cotton cloth round his middle, came up to him, and offered to conduct him to Barbar, and thence to Egypt. He said his house was at Daroo, on the side of the Nile, about twenty miles beyond Syene or a.s.souan, nearer Cairo. Bruce asked him why he had not gone with Mohammed Towash, who had lately set off. He replied he did not like the company, and was very much mistaken if their journey would end well. On pressing him farther if this was the true reason, he confessed that he had contracted debt, had been obliged to p.a.w.n his clothes, and that his camel was detained for what still remained unpaid. After much conversation, Bruce found that Idris (for that was his name) was a man of some substance in his own country, and had a daughter married to the schourbatchie at a.s.souan. A bargain was accordingly made. Bruce redeemed the camel and cloak, and Idris agreed to show him the way to Egypt, where he was to be paid and rewarded according to his behaviour.

Bruce having thus secured a guide, was now prepared to leave Shendi; but, previous to his departure, he waited upon Sittina to thank her for her favours; for she had sent for Idris, had given him very positive instructions, which she enforced by threats, and had also furnished Bruce with useful letters. He therefore begged he might be allowed to testify his grat.i.tude by once again kissing her hand, to which she laughingly condescended, saying, "Well, you are an odd man! If Idris, my son, saw me just now, he would think me mad!"

It is curious, instructive, and amusing to observe how admirably Bruce works his way, by invariably bending before the difficulties which a.s.sail him. He is bold and daring among the brave, resolute before tyrants, a physician to his friends, a magician before the rabble, and before the gentler s.e.x (in these lat.i.tudes we should offend them were we to call them fair) he is on his knee, and respectfully kisses their hands, whether it be their custom or no.