The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller Part 14

"'Now, Engedan,' said I, 'when you please, say--Fire! but mind, you have taken leave of your good shield for ever.' The word was given, and the gun fired. It struck the three shields, neither in the most difficult nor the easiest part for perforation, something less than half way between the rim and the boss. The candle went through the three shields with such violence that it dashed itself to a thousand pieces against a stone wall behind it. I turned to Engedan, saying very lowly, gravely, and without exultation or triumph, on the contrary, with absolute indifference, 'Did I not tell you your shield was naught?' A great shout of applause followed from about a thousand people that were gathered together. The three shields were carried to the king, who exclaimed in great transport, 'I did not believe it before I saw it, and can scarce believe it now I have seen it.'"

Bruce then repeated this common schoolboy's experiment by firing the other half of the candle through a table of sycamore. Some priests who were present, unable to comprehend the matter, declared it was done by "mucktoub" (magic), and so the wonder with them ceased. But it was not so with the king: "it made," says Bruce, "the most favourable and lasting impression upon his mind; nor did I ever after see in his countenance any marks either of doubt or diffidence, but always, on the contrary, the most decisive proofs of friendship, confidence, and attention, and the most implicit belief of everything I advanced upon any subject from my own knowledge."

One half of a farthing candle in Bruce's hands thus became a step in that ladder by which he managed, with such admirable ability, to raise himself to notice; and this anecdote, trifling as it may appear, affords a lesson worthy to be remembered by every one who attempts to penetrate a new country.

The possibility of this occurrence, however, many of Bruce's enemies have obstinately refused to believe. The experiment of firing a candle through a door is one which has very often been performed; and, even if its practicability had never been shown, it would be evident to any one who reflected on the subject for a moment, that such a result must unavoidably take place. The momentum, or force of a shot, is not separately the effect either of its weight or of its velocity, but the joint product of both. A light or soft body, therefore, propelled with great velocity, may have an effect equal to that of a heavy or hard body propelled with less: air, for instance, rapidly displaced by the pa.s.sing of a cannon-shot, is known to produce very unexpected results; and all sailors know how heavily water strikes when it falls with any velocity.

But, though a deal table and tallow candle must have been at the disposal of the meanest of Bruce's critics, it cost them less, and was, at the same time, more gratifying to them to accuse the traveller of falsehood, than to put his experiment to the proof or to reason on the truth of his statements.

Salt himself, however, corroborates the story forty years afterward. "In the course of the same day," he says, "these two Greeks paid me a visit; and I have seldom been acquainted with more venerable or respectable-looking men. The elder was exceedingly infirm, and appeared to be nearly blind; so that it was with some difficulty that he could be brought up, on a mule, into the room in which we were sitting. On being seated, he expressed great anxiety to examine my features, and repeatedly inquired whether I was any relation of Yagoube (Mr. Bruce).

"He afterward conversed with me for some time respecting that traveller, and in almost every particular confirmed the account I have already quoted upon the authority of Dofter Esther. He related in addition, that the Emperor Tecla Haimanout never paid much attention to Mr. Bruce till after '_his shooting through_ a table with a candle'--a fact which I had never before heard mentioned in the country--when he became a great favourite, and was called Baalomaal; he added that, on a particular occasion, the emperor took a fancy to Mr. Bruce's watch, and asked him for it; but that that gentleman refused, and said abruptly, 'Is it the custom in this kingdom for a king to beg?' which answer made a great noise throughout the court."

Bruce now experienced an instance of kindness in Ayto Confu, the son of Ozoro Esther, which gave him great pleasure. On the west of Abyssinia, adjoining the frontiers of Sennaar, there is a hot, unwholesome strip of low country, inhabited only by Mohammedans, and divided into several small districts, which are known by the general name of Mazuga.

Ayto Confu possessed several of these districts; one of which, Ras el Feel, having been always commanded by a Mohammedan, as Bruce says, "had no rank among the great governments of the state." To this command Bruce was now unexpectedly appointed, and was, in consequence, created by the king governor of Ras el Feel, with permission to appoint his Moorish friend Yasine as his deputy. Bruce considered that he would be enabled, by Yasine's friendship, to secure to his interests the Arabs and sheikhs of Atbara; for he had already resolved to return to England by Sennaar, "and," as he says, "never to trust myself again in the hands of that b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sa.s.sin, the Naybe of Masuah."

Salt has taken great pains to endeavour to prove that Bruce never was governor of Ras el Feel. He says (forty years after Bruce had quitted the country) that people, several of whom must have been children when Bruce was in Abyssinia, told him they had "_never heard_" that Bruce was governor of Ras el Feel. Bruce, however, never pretended that he acted as governor of this district; he merely says that he was appointed governor, with permission for his friend Yasine to act as his deputy, his sole object being to form an acquaintance with that barbarous country; and considering that, in Abyssinia, appointments are not gazetted, Salt should have felt that Bruce's statement might be perfectly correct, even though the people he met with had "never heard"

of it.

"I now," says Bruce, "for the first time since my arrival at Abyssinia, abandoned myself to joy;" but his const.i.tution was too much weakened to bear this excitement, and accordingly, the following day, when he went home to Emfras, he was attacked by his old and relentless enemy the Bengazi ague. For some time he was unable to leave the house, and was even confined to his bed: his journal barely mentions this illness, but his handwriting during this period shows very affectingly the weak and exhausted state of his frame.

The rebel Fasil had no sooner heard of Ras Michael's return to Gondar than he marched against the Agows. A b.l.o.o.d.y battle was fought at one of their princ.i.p.al settlements, in which Fasil proved victorious. A council was forthwith held, in which Ras Michael declared that, although the rainy season was at hand, the king's forces should immediately take the field.

Gusho and Powussen having sworn to Michael that they would never return without Fasil's head, decamped next morning, but with the secret determination to arrange a conspiracy against the ras.

While preparations for the war were making, the iteghe, or queen-mother, seeing the declining state of Bruce's health, endeavoured to dissuade him from the undertaking which was apparently always uppermost in his thoughts. "See! see!" said the royal moralist, "how every day of our life furnishes us with proofs of the perverseness and contradiction of human nature: you are come from Jerusalem, through vile Turkish governments, and hot, unwholesome climates, to see a river and a bog, no part of which you can carry away, were it ever so valuable--of which you have in your own country a thousand larger, better, and cleaner; and you even take it ill when I discourage you from the pursuit of this fancy, in which you are likely to perish, without your friends at home ever hearing when or where the accident happened. While I, on the other hand, the mother of kings, who have sat upon the throne of this country more than thirty years, have for _my_ only wish, night and day, that, after giving up everything in the world, I could be conveyed to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and beg alms for my subsistence all my life after, if I could only be buried at last in the street within sight of the gate of that temple where our blessed Saviour once lay!"

It may here be observed, that this feeling still exists very generally and strongly throughout Abyssinia.

The greatest happiness which, in the opinion of the Abyssinians, can be found in this life, is to reach Jerusalem. Burning with this desire, great numbers of men and women continually bid adieu to their homes with the view of performing this holy pilgrimage. The fate that awaits them is a sad return for the mistaken goodness and piety of their intentions; for in crossing the Red Sea they are almost always taken prisoners by the Turks, and, far from happiness, Jerusalem, or their own country, they thus end their days in misery and bondage.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] We are told in Mr. Salt's Journal, in vol. iii. of Lord Valentia's Travels, that Guebra Mascal, this very person, was made Governor of Tigre by Tecla Georgis in 1788, and, though deposed, died much regretted in 1805.

[30] Powussen was a powerful chief of the Galla tribes; and the object of Ras Michael in this alliance was to conciliate these formidable barbarians.--_Am. Ed._

CHAPTER XII.

Bruce accompanies the King's Army, and returns with it to Gondar.

By the queen's permission, Bruce for a short time took up his abode at Emfras, situated on the east side of Tzana, the greatest lake in Abyssinia, being about fifty miles long, thirty-five broad, and containing several islands.

On the 13th of May, 1770, the king's army approached the town of Emfras, which in a few hours was completely deserted; for, although Ras Michael was strict, and even just, in time of peace, yet it was known that, the moment he took the field, like the tiger roused from his lair, he became licentious and cruel. The Mohammedan town near the water was plundered in a moment, and some of the straggling troops came even to Bruce's residence to demand meat and drink. He therefore thought it prudent at once to repair to the king, and accordingly, the next morning at daybreak he mounted his horse, and in a few hours reached the tents of his majesty and Ras Michael, which were placed about five hundred yards asunder--no one daring to stand, or even pa.s.s between them.

Although Bruce's appointment gave him a right of access at all times to the king, he did not choose at that moment to enter the royal presence, but preferred going to the tent of his kind and lovely friend, Ozoro Esther, where he was sure, at least, of getting a good breakfast and meeting with a warm reception. As soon as Ozoro Esther saw Bruce, she exclaimed, "There is Yagoube! there is the man I wanted!" The tent was cleared of all but her women, and she began to tell Bruce of several complaints which she seemed to think would, before the end of the campaign, carry her to her grave. "It was easy to see," says Bruce, "that they were of the slightest kind, though it would not have been agreeable to have told her so, for she loved to be thought ill, to be attended, condoled with, and flattered!" After giving to his interesting patient both advice and prescriptions, the doors of the tent were thrown open, and an abundant breakfast was displayed in wooden platters on the carpet.

The Abyssinian gourmands say "that you should plant first and then water," which means that n.o.body should drink till he has finished eating. Stewed fowls, highly seasoned with Cayenne pepper, roasted Guinea-hens, and the never-failing _brind_ or raw beef, were eaten, therefore, in great quant.i.ties; after which wine, a beer called bouza, and hydromel, were drunk in equal proportion. Ozoro Esther, leaning forward from her sofa, kindly reminded her guests that their time was short, and that the drum would soon give the signal for striking the tents. From this scene Bruce escaped to the king, where he learned that Fasil was preparing to repa.s.s the Nile into the country of the Galla.

The next morning the king marched, and then remained for two days encamped on the banks of the Nile, where the following circ.u.mstance occurred. Old Ras Michael had long endeavoured to get possession of Welleta Israel, a sister of his own wife, Ozoro Esther. She now again refused his unnatural addresses, on which he was heard to say that he would order her eyes to be put out.

Welleta Israel was at this time in the camp with her sister Ozoro Esther. In the evening a small tent suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the Nile, which was not only both broad and deep, but, with its prodigious ma.s.s of water, a number of large, slippery stones were rolling along at the bottom of the river. In the dead of the night Welleta Israel escaped, and in the morning she and the tent had equally disappeared. To the astonishment of every one, it was found that she had actually crossed the river, having fled from the vengeance of the ras with an intrepid conductor, her own nephew.

The next morning the king crossed the Nile at a pa.s.s, and encamped on the other side, near a small village called Tsoomwa, where his fit-auraris had taken post early in the morning. The fit-auraris (which means, literally, front of the army) is an officer in the Abyssinian service, dependant only on the commander of the forces. He is always selected from the bravest, most robust, and most experienced men in the army. His duty is to mark out by a lance the position most proper for the king's tent: he is expected also to know the depth of the rivers, the state of the fords, the extent and thickness of the woods, and, in short, to be acquainted generally with the geography and state of the country. The governor of every province has an officer of this description. The fit-auraris, therefore, may be compared to an officer of the quarter-master-general's department in an European army.

From Tsoomwa the king marched to Derdera, and being now in the territory of his enemy, the whole country was set on fire. Those who could not escape were slain, and all sorts of wanton barbarities were perpetrated.

The king's pa.s.sage of the Nile was the signal agreed upon for Bruce to set out from Emfras to join him. Accompanied by Strates, a Greek, and other attendants, he travelled for several days, encountering many hardships and dangers: at last he met with his friend Negade Ras Mohammed (the chief of the Moors of Gondar), to whom he expressed his ardent desire to be enabled to visit the neighbouring cataract of the Nile. "Unless you had told me you was resolved," said Mohammed, with a grave, thoughtful air, though full of openness and candour, "I would, in the first place, have advised you not to think of such an undertaking.

Again, if anything was to befall you, what should I answer to the king and the iteghe? It would be said the Turk has betrayed him!"

"Mohammed," said Bruce, "you need not dwell on these professions; I have lived twelve years with people of your religion, my life always in their power, and I am now in your house, in preference to being in a tent out of doors with Netcho and his Christians. I do not ask you whether I am to go or not, for that is resolved on; and, though you are a Mohammedan and I a Christian, no religion teaches a man to do evil. We both agree in this, that G.o.d, who has protected me thus far, is capable to protect me likewise at the cataract, and farther, if he has not determined otherwise for my good. I only ask you, as a man who knows the country, to give me your best advice how I may satisfy my curiosity in this point with as little danger and as much expedition as possible, leaving the rest to Heaven." Mohammed accordingly promised to send his son and four of his servants to protect Bruce; he then took leave of him, saying with much feeling, "Do not stay! return immediately, and--Ullah Kerim (G.o.d is merciful)!"

Early next morning Bruce mounted his horse, and, accompanied by four active, resolute young men, proceeded very rapidly. In a few hours they came in sight of a considerable village; and, as they were proceeding to call upon the chief or shum, they were surrounded by several of his servants, who seemed desirous to pay them every possible respect.

Bruce happened to be on a very steep part of the hill, full of bushes; and one of the shum's servants, dressed in the Arabian fashion, in a bornoose, and turban striped white and green, led his horse, to prevent his slipping, till he got into the path leading to the shum's door; when, all of a sudden, the fellow exclaimed in Arabic, "Good Lord! to see you here! Good Lord! to see you here!" Bruce asked him to whom he was speaking, and what reason he had to wonder to see him there. The man then told him that he was on board the Lion when Bruce's little vessel, all covered with sail, pa.s.sed with such briskness among the English ships, which all fired their cannon; "and," added he, "everybody said, there is a poor man making a great haste to be a.s.sa.s.sinated among those wild people in Habbesh; and so we all thought." He concluded with saying, "Drink! no force! Englishman very good! drink no good!"

As soon as the horses were fed, Bruce would stay no longer, but mounted to proceed to the cataract. They first came to the bridge, which consists of a single arch of about twenty-five feet broad, the extremities of which were let into and strongly fastened to the solid rock on both sides. The Nile here is confined between two rocks, and runs in a deep ravine with great velocity, and a deep, roaring sound.

They were obliged to remount the stream above half a mile before they came to the cataract, through trees and bushes of most beautiful appearance.

"The cataract itself," says Bruce, "was the most magnificent sight that ever I beheld. The height has been rather exaggerated. The missionaries say the fall is about sixteen ells, or fifty feet. The measuring is indeed very difficult; but, by the position of long sticks and poles of different lengths, at different heights of the rock, from the water's edge, I may venture to say, that it is nearer forty feet than any other measure. The river had been considerably increased by rains, and fell in one sheet of water, without any interval, above half an English mile in breadth, with a force and noise that was truly terrible, and which stunned, and made me, for a time, perfectly dizzy. A thick fume or haze covered the fall all round, and hung over the course of the stream both above and below, marking its track, though the water was not seen. The river, though swelled with rain, preserved its natural clearness, and fell, as far as I could discern, into a deep pool or basin in the solid rock. It was a magnificent sight, that ages, added to the greatest length of human life, would not efface or eradicate from my memory; it struck me with a kind of stupor, and a total oblivion of where I was, and of every other sublunary concern. It was one of the most magnificent, stupendous sights in the creation.

"I measured the fall, and believe, within a few feet, it was the height I have mentioned; but I confess I could at no time in my life less promise upon precision; my reflection was suspended or subdued; and, while in sight of the fall, I think I was under a temporary alienation of mind; it seemed to me as if one element had broke loose from, and become superior to, all laws of subordination; that the fountains of the great deep were again extraordinarily opened, and the destruction of a world was once more begun by the agency of water."

From the cataract Bruce returned to the house of his Moorish friend Negade Ras Mohammed, and on the 22d of May he resumed his journey to join the king. After pa.s.sing a number of hills covered with trees and shrubs of indescribable beauty and extraordinary fragrance, he descended towards the pa.s.sage of the Nile. Here he experienced the use of Mohammed's servants, three of whom, each with a lance in one hand, holding that of his companion in the other, waded across the violent stream, sounding with the end of their lances every step they took.

"From the pa.s.sage to Tsoomwa," says Bruce, "all the country was forsaken, the gra.s.s trodden down, and the fields without cattle.

Everything that had life and strength fled before that terrible leader (Ras Michael) and his no less terrible army: a profound silence was in the fields around us, but no marks yet of desolation." After travelling two days under a very hot sun, they came to a flat country, which, from the constant rains that now fell, began to stand in large pools, threatening to turn it all into a lake.

"We had hitherto," says Bruce, "lost none of the beasts of carriage, but now were so impeded by streams, brooks, and quagmires, that we despaired of ever bringing one of them to join the camp. The horses and beasts of burden that carried the baggage of the army, and which had pa.s.sed before us, had spoiled every ford, and we saw to-day a number of dead mules lying about the fields, the houses all reduced to ruins, and smoking like so many kilns: even the gra.s.s or wild oats, which were grown very high, were burned in large plots of a hundred acres together; everything bore the marks that Ras Michael was gone before, while not a living creature appeared in those extensive, fruitful, and once well-inhabited plains. An awful silence reigned everywhere around, interrupted only at times by thunder, now become daily, and the rolling of torrents, produced by local showers in the hills, which ceased with the rain, and were but the children of an hour. Amid this universal silence that prevailed all over this scene of extensive desolation, I could not help remembering how finely Mr. Gray paints the pa.s.sage of such an army under a leader like Ras Michael:

'Confusion in his van with Flight combined, And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind.'"

As they advanced, they pa.s.sed a great number of dead mules and horses; "and the hyaenas," says Bruce, "were so bold as only to leave the carca.s.s for a moment and snarl, as if they regretted to see any of us pa.s.s alive."

"Since pa.s.sing the Nile," continues Bruce, "I found myself more than ordinarily depressed; my spirits were sunk almost to a degree of despondency, and yet nothing had happened since that period more than what was expected before. This disagreeable situation of mind continued at night while I was in bed. The rashness and imprudence with which I had engaged myself in so many dangers, without any necessity for so doing; the little prospect of my being ever able to extricate myself out of them, or even, if I lost my life, of the account being conveyed to my friends at home; the great and unreasonable presumption which had led me to think that, after every one that had attempted this voyage had miscarried in it, I was the only person that was to succeed; all these reflections upon my mind, when relaxed, dozing, and half oppressed with sleep, filled my imagination with what I have heard other people call the _horrors_, the most disagreeable sensation I ever was conscious of, and which I then felt for the first time. Impatient of suffering any longer, I leaped out of bed and went to the door of the tent, where the outward air perfectly awakened me, and restored my strength and courage.

All was still; and at a distance I saw several bright fires, but lower down, and more to the right than I expected, which made me think I was mistaken in the situation of Karcagna. It was then near four in the morning of the 25th. I called up my companions, happily buried in deep sleep, as I was desirous, if possible, to join the king that day."

If the reader will but recall to mind the picture of Bruce's personal appearance on his arrival at Jidda on the Red Sea--how much he was shaken by the fatigue he had even at that period undergone, and will then reflect on the wear and tear of const.i.tution which he had since suffered, he will comprehend, better than Bruce himself seems to have done, why his spirits now began to fail him, and why, like an exhausted taper, life burned dimly in the socket.

Bruce and his party were three or four miles from Derdera when the sun rose: there had been little rain that night, and they found very few torrents in their way; but it was slippery and troublesome walking, the rich soil being trodden into mire. About seven o'clock they entered the broad plain of Maitsha, leaving the lake behind them. Here great part of the country was in tillage, and had been apparently covered with plentiful crops; but all had been cut down by the army for their horses, or, out of recklessness or vengeance, trodden under foot, so that a green blade could scarcely be seen. They met a number of persons this day, chiefly straggling soldiers, who, in parties of three and four, were seeking, in all the bushes and concealed parts of the river, for the miserable natives who had hidden themselves therein; and in this dreadful occupation many had been successful. Some of them had three, some four women, boys, and girls, whom, though Christians like themselves, they were hurrying along, to sell to the Turks for a very small price.

A little before nine Bruce heard the report of a gun, which gave his party great joy, as they supposed the army not to be far off; a few minutes after they heard several single shots, and in less than a quarter of an hour a general firing began from right to left, which ceased for an instant, and then was heard again as smart as ever.