The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller Part 9

Gibberti having thus made every exertion possible to ensure the safety of his English friends, Bruce landed at Masuah on the 20th of September, 1769. The naybe himself was at Arkeeko; but Achmet, his nephew, came down to receive the duties on Bruce's merchandise.

Two elbow-chairs were placed in the middle of the market-place. On one of them Achmet was seated, surrounded by several of the officers who were to open Bruce's bales and packages, which were before him; while the other chair, on his left, remained unoccupied. Achmet was dressed in a long white muslin Banian habit, which reached to his ankles; and, when Bruce arrived within arm's length of him, he arose. They touched each other's hands, carried their fingers to their lips, and then crossed their hands upon their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Salum Alic.u.m!--peace be between us!"

(the salutation of the inferior), said Bruce, firmly. "Alic.u.m Salum--there is peace between us!" replied Achmet, who then pointed to the chair, which Bruce at first declined; but Achmet insisting that he should occupy it, they both with great dignity sat down. Achmet then made a sign for coffee, which Bruce knew to be the token of the country that the life of the guest was not in danger.

"We have expected you here for some time," said Achmet, "but thought you had changed your mind and gone to India. Are you not afraid, so thinly attended, to venture upon these long and dangerous voyages?" "Since sailing from Jidda," replied Bruce, "I have been in Arabia Felix, in the Gulf of Mocha, and crossed last from Loheia. The countries in which I have been are either subject to the Emperor of Constantinople, whose firman I have now the honour to present to you, or to the Regency of Cairo and port of Janisaries (he presented also their letters), or to the Sherriffe of Mecca. To you, sir, I present the sherriffe's letters, and, besides, one from him to yourself; depending on your character, he a.s.sured me this alone would be sufficient to preserve me from ill usage so long as I did no wrong."

Achmet returned the letters to Bruce, saying, "You will give these to the naybe to-morrow. I will keep my own letter, and will read it at home." He accordingly put it in his bosom, and the coffee being removed, Bruce rose to take leave; but he was scarcely on his feet before he was wetted to the skin with deluges of rose-water, showered upon him on every side from silver bottles.

One of the best houses in town had been provided for him; and, when he entered it, a large dinner followed him from Achmet, with a profusion of lemons, and good fresh water, one of the scarcest commodities at Masuah.

Very shortly afterward the baggage arrived unopened, which gave him much pleasure, as he had been greatly afraid that his clock, telescope, quadrant, and other instruments would have suffered from the violent curiosity of the naybe's officers.

Late at night Bruce received a private visit from Achmet, who was then in his undress. His body was naked, excepting a barracan, which was thrown carelessly about him: he wore a pair of loose cotton drawers, and a white cap was on his head. Bruce rose to meet him, and thanked him for his civility in sending his baggage.

After expressing great surprise that Bruce, a Christian, had managed to get letters from Mohammedans; and inquiring whether he really was a prince, if he had been banished from his own country, and for what possible object he could voluntarily expose himself to so many difficulties and dangers, in order merely to visit that country; he earnestly endeavoured, as the sole object of his visit, to persuade Bruce to remain at Masuah, and not to proceed into Abyssinia.

Instead of making a long reply to these questions, and to a request to which he knew he could give no satisfactory answer, Bruce soon put an end to Achmet's speech by presenting him with a very handsome pair of pistols. "Let the pistols remain with you," said Achmet, "and show them to n.o.body till I send you a man to whom you may say anything; for there are in the place a number of devils, not men; but Ullah Kerim! G.o.d is Great! The person that brings you dry dates in an Indian handkerchief, and an earthen bottle to drink your water out of, give him the pistols.

In the mean time, sleep sound and fear no evil; but never be persuaded to trust yourself to the cafrs of Habbesh at Masuah." With this caution Achmet departed, and a female slave very shortly arriving with dates, &c., for Bruce, he committed the brace of pistols to her charge.

On the morning of the 21st the naybe came from Arkeeko. He was attended by three or four servants, and about forty naked savages on foot, armed with short lances and crooked knives. He was preceded by a drum, made out of one of those earthen jars in which b.u.t.ter is sent over to Arabia; it was covered with skin, and looked more like a jar of pickles than an instrument of music. The whole of the procession was in the same style.

The naybe was dressed in an old, shabby Turkish habit, much too short for him, and on his head he wore a Turkish cowke or cap.

In the afternoon Bruce went to pay his respects to him, and found him sitting in a large elbow-chair, from which two files of naked savages formed an avenue that reached to the door. The naybe was a tall, thin, black man, with a large mouth and nose; he had no beard, save a scanty tuft of gray hairs on the point of his chin: his eyes were large and heavy; and a malicious, contemptuous smile sat on his countenance. His character perfectly corresponded with his appearance; for he was a man of no abilities, cruel to excess, brutal, avaricious, and, moreover, a great drunkard.

It was to this creature that Bruce presented a firman, which the greatest pasha in the Turkish empire would have kissed and carried to his forehead. The naybe took it, as well as the various letters which accompanied it, in both his hands, and, laying them unopened by his side, "You should have brought a moullah (an interpreter) with you," he said to Bruce. "Do you think I shall read all these letters? why, it would take me a month!" "Just as you please!" replied Bruce.

A dead silence followed this laconic remark: at last Bruce offered his presents, and then took his leave, little pleased with his reception, and heartily rejoicing that the despatches which had been sent to Janni were now far beyond the power of the naybe.

The inhabitants of Masuah, which, like the whole of the lower coast of the Red Sea, is at all times a most unhealthy spot, were sinking under the smallpox in such numbers that the living were scarcely able to bury the dead; and the whole island, night and day, resounded with shrieks and lamentations. Bruce on this account had suppressed his character of physician, fearing lest he should be detained by the mult.i.tude of the sick.

On the 15th of October the naybe despatched the vessel which had brought Bruce to Masuah; and this evidence or spy upon his own conduct was no sooner out of the way, than that very night he sent a message to Bruce, desiring that he would prepare for him a handsome present; he even gave a list of the articles, which he requested might be made up in three parcels, to be delivered to him on three separate days. The first parcel was to be given to him as Naybe of Arkeeko, the second as the representative of the Grand Seignior, and the third for having pa.s.sed the baggage, particularly the quadrant, gratis and unopened.

It is always worse than useless to yield to the impositions of a savage; for, in his presence, he who bends must also break. Under these circ.u.mstances, firmness can hardly be called courage: it is rather a desperate means of preserving life and property. Bruce replied, that, having the firman of the Grand Seignior, and letters from the Sherriffe of Mecca, it was mere generosity which had induced him to give any present at all; that he was not a trafficker who bought and sold; that he had brought no merchandise with him; and that, therefore, he had no customs to pay. Upon this the naybe sent for Bruce to his house, where he found him in a most violent pa.s.sion; many words pa.s.sed on both sides; at last the naybe peremptorily declared, that unless Bruce paid him three hundred ounces of gold, "he would confine him in a dungeon, without light, air, or meat, until his bones came through his skin."

"Since you have broken your faith," replied Bruce, undauntedly, "with the Grand Seignior, the government of Cairo, the Pasha of Jidda, and the Sherriffe of Mecca, you will, no doubt, do as you please with me; but you may expect to see the English man-of-war, the Lion, before Arkeeko some morning before daybreak!"

"I should be glad," exclaimed the naybe, holding out his hand, "to see that man at Arkeeko or Masuah that would carry as much writing from you to Jidda as would lie upon my thumb-nail. I would strip his shirt off first, then his skin, and then hang him before your door, to teach you more wisdom."

"But my wisdom," replied Bruce, "has already taught me to prevent all this. My letter is already gone to Jidda! and if, in twenty days from this, another letter from me does not follow it, you will see what will arrive. In the mean time, I here announce it to you, that I have letters from the Sherriffe of Mecca to Ras Michael, governor of Tigre, and to the King of Abyssinia; let me, therefore, continue my journey!"

"What, Michael too!" muttered the naybe, writhing under the conviction that Bruce had overreached him; "then go your journey," he maliciously added, "and think of the ill that is before you!"

On the 29th of October the naybe again came from Arkeeko to Masuah, and sent for Bruce, who found him in a large room, like a barn, with about sixty of his janisaries and officers of state, all naked. The first question which the naybe asked Bruce was, "What the comet meant, and why it had appeared?" He added, "The first time it was visible it brought the smallpox, which killed about one thousand people in Masuah and Arkeeko. It is known you conversed with it every night at Loheia. It has now followed you here, to finish the few that remain; and then they say you are to carry it with you into Abyssinia. What have you to do with the comet?" To this strange, barbarous speech our traveller was about to reply, when some one present said he had been informed that Bruce was going to Ras Michael, to teach the Abyssinians to make cannon and gunpowder, in order to attack Masuah. Five or six others spoke loudly in the same strain; and, surrounded by such a crowd of naked savages--savages in every sense of the word--Bruce would most probably at this moment have ended his travels and his life, had it not been for the precautions he had taken in bringing proper letters to Masuah and in sending others from it, which placed the naybe between two batteries, the fire of which he trembled to incur. "Dog of a Christian!" exclaimed one of the company, putting his hand to his knife, "if the naybe wished to murder you, could he not do it here this minute?" "No!" exclaimed another voice from the crowd, "he could not! I would not suffer it.

Achmet is the stranger's friend, and has to-day recommended me to see that no injury be done him. Achmet is ill, or he would have been here himself!"

Bruce now turned upon his heel, and, without form or ceremony, walked out of the barn. He had scarcely dined, when a servant came with a letter from Achmet (who was at Arkeeko), telling him how ill he had been, and how much surprise he had felt at his refusal to see him; and concluded by desiring that the bearer should be allowed to take charge of Bruce's gate until he could himself come to Masuah. Bruce now discovered the falsehood and treachery of the naybe, and resolved to follow Achmet's advice. At midnight his gate was attacked; but, on his threatening to fire, the a.s.sa.s.sins retired.

On the 4th of November Bruce went to Arkeeko, and found Achmet in his own house, ill of an intermittent fever, which had the very worst symptoms: he therefore remained with his patient and prescribed for him until he was free from the disorder. On the 6th, in the morning, while at breakfast, he was rejoiced to hear that three servants had arrived from Tigre. One was from Janni, the Greek officer of the customs at Adowa; the other two were evidently servants of Ras Michael, or, rather, of the king, both wearing the red, short cloak, lined and turned up with mazarine blue, which is the badge of the royal retinue.

Ras Michael's letters to the naybe were very short. He said the king's health was bad, and that he wondered why a physician sent to him from Arabia, of whose arrival at Masuah he had long ago heard, was not at once allowed to proceed to Gondar. He concluded by ordering the naybe to furnish the stranger with necessaries, and then to forward him without loss of time. In the evening Bruce returned to the island of Masuah, to the great joy of his servants, who were afraid of some stratagem of the naybe.

Without farther interruption, he got everything in readiness, and, having concluded his observations upon this inhospitable island, infamous for the quant.i.ty of Christian blood which had been shed there under various pretences, he left Masuah on the 10th of November, after a detention of nearly two months. On arriving at Arkeeko, he found Achmet considerably better; but, as he still appeared to be greatly afraid of dying, Bruce remained with him until he was convalescent, for which he testified the warmest grat.i.tude.

The naybe again endeavoured, by intimidation, to prevail upon Bruce to pay him a thousand patakas; and his friends, seeing his obstinacy, and aware of the cruelty of his disposition, strongly recommended Bruce to give up all thoughts of proceeding to Abyssinia, as in pa.s.sing through Samhar, among the many barbarous people whom the naybe commanded there, he would most surely be cut off. Bruce, however, peremptorily replied that he was determined to go forward; and accordingly, early in the morning of the 15th, he ordered his tents to be struck and his baggage made ready, to show that he was resolved to stay no longer. At eight o'clock he went to the naybe, who was almost alone, and who began, with no small fluency of speech, to enumerate the difficulties of the journey, the rivers, precipices, mountains, woods, wild beasts, savage, lawless people, &c., which were to be encountered, in order still to induce Bruce to remain at Masuah. In the midst of their conversation, a servant entered the room covered with dust, and apparently fatigued with a rapid journey from some distant place. The naybe, with much pretended uneasiness and surprise, read the letters which this man delivered to him, and then gravely told Bruce, that the three tribes who occupied Samhar, the common pa.s.sage from Masuah to Tigre, had revolted, driven away his servants, and declared themselves independent. With apparent devotion, he then hypocritically lifted up his eyes, and said he thanked G.o.d that Bruce was not on his journey, as his death would have been unjustly imputed to him! Bruce only laughed at this barefaced imposition, on which the naybe told him he might proceed if he thought proper, but that he had considered it his duty to warn him of his danger. "We have plenty of firearms," replied Bruce, "and your servants have often seen at Masuah that we are not ignorant of the use of them.

It is true we may lose our lives--that is in the hands of the Almighty--but we shall not fail to leave enough on the spot to give sufficient indication to the king and Ras Michael who were our a.s.sa.s.sins!" "What I mentioned about the Shiho," replied the naybe, whose treacherous countenance now a.s.sumed a look of complacency, "was only to try you; all is peace! I only wanted to keep you here, if possible, to cure my nephew Achmet; but, since you are resolved to go, be not afraid; the roads are safe enough; I will give you a person to conduct you safely."

After bidding adieu to this wretch, Bruce had a short interview with Achmet, who privately told him it was yet far from the naybe's intentions he should ever reach Gondar; but that he would take his final deliverance upon himself, and concluded by advising him to set out immediately.

The short account which we have here given of the Naybe of Masuah may appear exaggerated to those who have never had the fortune to treat with human beings of this description. But, in fact, no human beings can be worse than the people of Masuah; who, as we have already observed, are a mongrel race between the savages of the western coast of the Red Sea, and those super-savages, the Turkish janisaries.

Salt visited this place in 1810, forty-one years after Bruce had left it. Notwithstanding the handsome presents he made to the governor, he was unable to resist the impositions of the naybe, his brothers, and his sons; "and among this tribe of locusts," says Salt, "I was compelled to distribute nearly five hundred dollars before I could get clear of the place. With a pleasure somewhat similar to that expressed by Gil Blas, when he escaped from the robbers' cave, we quitted Arkeeko. Among all the descriptions of men I have ever met with, the character of the half-civilized savages found at Arkeeko is the most detestable, as they have ingeniously contrived to lose all the virtues of the rude tribes to which they belonged, without having acquired anything but the vices of their more civilized neighbours. The only description I recollect that would particularly suit them, may be found in Mr. Bruce's very energetic account of the inhabitants of Sennaar."

It is very singular that Salt, who thus invariably corroborates Bruce in all the princ.i.p.al features of his history, should have been, as we shall shortly see, so completely carried away by the party spirit which existed against him. "Adversity," it has been justly remarked, "makes men friends;" but, though Bruce and Salt suffered at Masuah and Arkeeko under the same rod, yet the latter even there takes every opportunity of supporting Lord Valentia in his petty attempt to convict Bruce of "falsehood" and "exaggeration." The tide of public opinion was still strong against Bruce, and on its faithless waters Lord Valentia and his secretary were enabled to float in triumph.

CHAPTER X.

Journey from Arkeeko, over the Mountain of Tarenta to Gondar, the Capital of Abyssinia.

On the 15th of November Bruce left Arkeeko, and, after crossing a small plain, pitched his tent near a shallow pit of rain-water. Before him were the mountains of Abyssinia, in three distinct ridges. The first broken into gullies, and thinly covered with shrubs; the second higher, steeper, more rugged and bare; and the third a range of sharp-pointed mountains, which would be considered high in any part of Europe. Far above them all towered that stupendous ma.s.s, the Mountain of Tarenta, the apex of which is sometimes buried in the clouds; while at other times, enveloped in mist and darkness, it becomes the seat of lightning, thunder, and storm. Tarenta is the highest pinnacle of that long, steep chain of mountains which, running parallel to the Red Sea, forms the boundary of the seasons. On its east side, or towards the Red Sea, the rainy season is from October to April; while on the western or Abyssinian side, cloudy, cold, and rainy weather reigns from May till October.

While Bruce was in his tent he was visited by his grateful friend and patient, Achmet, who told him not to go to Dobarwa, for, although it was a good road, the safest was always the best. "You will be apt to curse me," he added, "when you are toiling and sweating in ascending Tarenta, the highest mountain in Abyssinia; but you may then consider if the fatigue of your body is not overpaid by the absolute safety you will find yourselves in. Dobarwa belongs to the naybe, and I cannot answer for the orders he may have given to his own servants; but Dixan is mine, although the people are much worse than those of Dobarwa. I have written to my officers there; and as you are strong and robust, the best I can do for you is to send you by a rugged road and a safe one." Achmet, Bruce, and his party then rose with solemnity, and repeating the fedtah, or prayer of peace, they parted never to meet again. "Thus finished,"

says Bruce, in the narrative of his travels, "a series of trouble and vexation, not to say danger, superior to anything I ever before had experienced, and of which the bare recital (though perhaps a too minute one) will give but an imperfect idea. These wretches possess talents for tormenting and alarming far beyond the power of belief; and, by laying a true sketch of them before a traveller, an author does him the most real service." "In this country," Bruce most justly adds, "the more truly we draw the portrait of man, the more we seem to fall into caricature."

Although the dangers and difficulties which had attended Bruce's residence at Masuah and Arkeeko, and which still threatened, though in a different shape, to oppose his journey into Abyssinia, would have been sufficient to deter any ordinary traveller, yet on the 16th he cheerfully left Laherhey, and for two days travelled along a dry, gravelly plain, thickly covered with acacia-trees, which were in blossom, bearing a round yellow flower. Entering a narrow opening in the mountains, which seemed to have been formed by the violent torrents of the rainy season, they travelled up a sandy bed, the verdant banks of which, shaded from the sun by the impending mountains, were covered with rack-trees, capers, and tamarinds.

Following the course of this ravine, they proceeded among mountains of no great height, but bare, stony, and full of terrible precipices, until, oppressed and overpowered by the sun, they halted under the shade of the trees before mentioned. Great numbers of Shiho, with their wives and families, were descending from the tops of the high mountains of Habbesh (Abyssinia), and pa.s.sed, driving their flocks to the pasture, which, in the months of October and November, is found on the plains near the sea.

The Shiho were once very numerous, but, like all the nations which communicate with Masuah, they have been much diminished by the smallpox.

They have neither tents nor cottages, but live in caves in the mountains, or under small huts built of reeds or thick gra.s.s. The men are generally naked above the waist; the women are covered with a sort of gown, loose in the sleeves and body, and held together by a leather girdle. The children of both s.e.xes are completely naked. The party of these people which pa.s.sed Bruce consisted of about fifty men and about thirty women; each of the former held a lance in his hand, while a knife was peeping from his girdle.

Although they were on higher ground, they appeared uneasy at the sight of strangers. Bruce saluted the chief, asking him if he would sell a goat out of their large flock; but the man seemed to think it prudent to decline entering into conversation, and the whole tribe pa.s.sed in silence onward. In the evening Bruce resumed his journey, and at night pitched his tent at Hamhammou, on the side of a small green hill, some hundred feet from the bed of the torrent. The weather had been perfectly good since he left Masuah; but this afternoon the mountains were quite hid, and heavy clouds were sweeping along the sides of the lower range of hills; the lightning was frequent, in broad flakes, and deeply tinged with blue, and long, rumbling peals of thunder were heard at a distance. As Bruce's description of this storm is one of the parts of his narrative which have been marked as exaggerated, we give it in his own words: "The river," he says, "scarcely ran at our pa.s.sing it, when, all on a sudden, we heard a noise on the mountains above louder than the loudest thunder. Our guides, upon this, flew to the baggage, and removed it to the top of the green hill; which was no sooner done, than we saw the river coming down in a stream about the height of a man, and the breadth of the whole bed it used to occupy. The water was thickly tinged with red earth, and ran in the form of a deep river, and swelled a little above its banks, but did not reach our station on the hill."

Salt says: "Bruce pa.s.sed a night on the same spot (Hamhammou), and it was his fortune, as well as ours, to encounter here a terrible storm, which, as usual, he describes with some exaggeration."

In Sicily and in Greece we have known people to be carried away by the violent "fiumaras," which are even there produced by the sudden rains; and Bruce's description of a storm _within the tropics_ does not appear at all exaggerated. But it seems that Mr. Salt's storm was not quite equal to the one described by poor Bruce, and he therefore makes up the difference by raising a little tempest of his own against a fellow-traveller: still, in a very few pages after, he says, "We heard that the dead bodies of three men had been found washed down by the torrent on this side of Tarenta." "Dead men," it has been said, "tell no tales!" yet in this instance they certainly do very strongly corroborate Bruce's account of the storm he witnessed: but Lord Valentia and his secretary seem to have fancied that they were to find everything in Abyssinia, elements and all, precisely as Bruce left them forty years before.

Leaving Hamhammou, Bruce first saw "the dung of elephants, which was full of thick pieces of undigested branches." He also observed the paths where these enormous animals had pa.s.sed; trees were torn up by the roots, some were even broken in the middle, and branches, half eaten, were lying on the ground.

Hamhammou is a desert mountain of black stones, apparently almost calcined by the heat of the sun: it forms the boundary of a district that belongs to the Hazorta. This tribe, who, from inhabiting a higher country, have a much lighter complexion than their neighbours the Shihos, are exceedingly active; they inhabit caves, or else cabanes, like cages, which, covered with hides, are just large enough to hold two persons. They live in constant defiance of the Naybe of Masuah, against whom their attacks have generally proved successful. As their nights are here cold even in summer, the Hazorta, as well as their children, are clothed.

Bruce now proceeded through a plain which, he says, "was set so thick with acacia-trees that our hands and faces were all torn and b.l.o.o.d.y with the strokes of their th.o.r.n.y branches." They suddenly came to the mouth of a narrow valley, through which a stream of beautiful water ran very swiftly over a bed of pebbles. It was the first clear water which Bruce had seen since he left Syria; and it naturally gave him that indescribable pleasure which sweet water always affords to a tired, thirsty traveller. The shade of the tamarind-tree and the coolness of the air invited them to rest on this delightful spot. "The caper-tree,"

says Bruce, "here grows as high as the tallest English elm; its flower is white, and its fruit, though not ripe, was fully as large as an apricot. I went at some distance to a small pool of water to bathe, and took my firelock with me; but none of the savages stirred from their huts, nor seemed to regard me more than if I had lived among them all their lives, though surely I was the most extraordinary sight they had ever seen; whence I conclude that they are a people of small talents or genius, having no curiosity."

Proceeding along the side of the river, among large timber-trees, Bruce pitched his tent by the side of another stream, as clear, as shallow, and as beautiful as the first; yet in every direction he was surrounded by bleak, black, desolate mountains, covered with loose stones, and, besides these, there was nothing to be seen but the heavens. Their road for some time wound between mountains, the banks of the torrent being still covered with rack and sycamore trees, which, being under a burning sun, and well watered, were naturally of an enormous size. In the evening they reached Tubbo; and as Salt says "Bruce has well described this place," we shall give the picture in his own words: