JAMES BRUCE

An exerpt from Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile

(originally published in 1790)

Background note: James Bruce, born in 1730, was a Scottish laird; by nature stalwart, intrepid, and bloody quarrelsome, by 1757 he had embarked upon a life of travel and adventure. It was around 1767 that he decided to 'discover' the Ethiopian source of the Nile, a spot which a few Europeans had already visited (and published descriptions of). Bruce had no qualifications whatsoever to become an African explorer, but went ahead anyway. He spent several years in Ethiopia and made two attempts (the second, in 1770, being successful) on the source of the Nile. After returning from the second attempt, he lived a year longer in the city of Gondar; then returned slowly to Europe through the Sudan and Egypt. By springtime of 1773 he arrived in Britain, his exploits having made him famous, and set about writing his Travels.

The Travels were largely written from memory. They are adventures, though should probably not be taken for Gospel. The following concerns a journey through the North African desert.

Book VIII Chapter xii

DISTRESS IN THE DESERT

<Bruce and his party left Chendi on 20 October and crossed the Atbara five days later. On 11 November they left the Nile and struck into the desert, making for Syene (Aswan). On the 18th they camped at Terfowey. He was becoming anxious lest Idris, the guide, should be heading too far to the east.>

Our camels were always chained by the feet, and the chain secured by a padlock, lest they should wander in the night, or be liable to be stolen and carried off. Musing then upon the geographical difficulties just mentioned, and gazing before me, without any particular intention or suspicion, I heard the chain of the camels clink, as if somebody was unloosing them, and then, at the end of the gleam made by the fire, I saw distinctly a man pass swiftly by, stooping as he went along, his face almost to the ground. A little time after this I heard another clink of the chain, as if from a pretty sharp blow, and immediately after a movement among the camels. I then rose, and cried in a threatening tone, in Arabic, 'I charge you on your life, whoever you are, either come up to me directly, or keep at a distance till day, but come that way no more; why should you throw your life away?' In a minute after, he repassed in the shade among the trees, pretty much in the manner he had done before. As I was on guard between the baggage and the camels, I was consequently armed, and advanced deliberately some steps, as far as the light of the fire shone, on purpose to discover how many they were, and was ready to fire upon the next I saw. 'If you are an honest man,' cried I aloud, 'and want any thing, come up to the fire and fear not, I am alone; but if you approach the camels or the baggage again, the world will not be able to save your life, and your blood be upon your own head.' Mahomet, Idris's nephew, who heard me cry, came running up from the well to see what was the matter. We went down together to where the camels were, and, upon examination, found that the links of one of the chains had been broke, but the opening not large enough to let the corresponding whole link through, to separate it. A hard blue stone was driven through a link of one of the chains of another camel, and left sticking there, the chain not being entirely broken through: we saw, besides, the print of a man's feet on the sand. There was no need to tell us after this that we were not to sleep that night; we made therefore another fire on the other side of the camels with branches of the acacia-tree, which we gathered. I then sent the man back to Idris at the well, desiring him to fill his skins with water before it was light, and transport them to the baggage where I was, and to be all ready, armed there by the dawn of day; soon after which if the Arabs were sufficiently strong, we were very certain they would attack us. This agreed perfectly with Idris's ideas also, so that, contenting themselves with a lesser quantity of water than they first intended to have taken, they lifted the skins upon the camels I sent them, and were at the rendezvous, near the baggage, a little after four in the morning.

The Barbarins, <people of Barbar> and, in general, all the lower sort of Moors and Turks, adorn their arms and wrists with amulets; these are charms, and are some favourite verse of the Koran wrapt in paper, neatly covered with Turkey leather. The two Barbarins that were with me had procured for themselves new ones at Sennaar, which were to defend them from the simoom and the sand, and all the dangers of the desert. That they might not soil these in filling the water, they had taken them from their arms, and laid them on the brink of the well before they went down. Upon looking for these after the girbas were filled, they were not to be found. This double attempt was an indication of a number of people being in the neighbourhood, in which case our present situation was one of the most desperate that could be figured. We were in the middle of the most barren, inhospitable desert in the world, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, from day to day, we could carry wherewithal to assuage our thirst. We had with us the only bread it was possible to procure for some hundred miles; lances and swords were not necessary to destroy us; the bursting or tearing of a girba, the lameness or death of a camel, a thorn or sprain in the foot, which might disable us from walking, were as certain death to us as a shot from a cannon. There was no staying for one another; to lose time was to die, because, with the utmost exertion our camels could make, we scarce could carry along with us a scanty provision of bread and water sufficient to keep us alive.

That desert, which did not afford inhabitants for the assistance or relief of travellers, had greatly more than sufficient for destroying them. Large tribes of Arabs, two or three thousand, encamped together, were cantoned, as it were, in different places of this desert, where there was water enough to serve their numerous herds of cattle, and these, as their occasion required, traversed in parties all that wide expanse of solitude, from the mountains near the Red Sea cast, to the banks of the Nile on the west, according as their several designs or necessities required. These were Jaheleen Arabs, those cruel, barbarous fanatics, that deliberately shed so much blood during the time they were establishing the Mahometan religion. Their prejudices had never been removed by any mixture of strangers, or softened by society, even with their own nation after they were polished; but buried, as it were, in these wild deserts, if they were not grown more savage, they had at least preserved, in their full vigour, those murdering principles which they had brought with them into that country, under the brutal and inhuman butcher, Kaled Ibn el Waalid, <a famous general of early Islam. He did not invade any part of Africa> impiously called The Sword of God. If it should be our lot to fall among these people, and it was next to a certainty that we were at that very instant surrounded by them, death was certain, and our only comfort was, that we could die but once, and that to die like men was in our own option. Indeed, beside considering the bloody character which these wretches naturally bear, there could be no reason for letting us live: We could be of no service to them as slaves; and to have sent us into Egypt, after having first rifled and destroyed our goods, could not be done by them but at a great expence, to which well-inclined people only could have been induced from charity, and of that last virtue they had not even heard the name. Our only chance then remaining was, that their number might be so small, that, by our great superiority in fire-arms and in courage, we might turn the misfortune upon the aggressors, deprive them of their camels and means of carrying water, and leave them, scattered in the desert, to that death, which either they or we, without alternative, must suiter.

I explained myself to this purpose, briefly to the people, on which a great cry followed, 'God is great! let them come!' Our arms were perfectly in order, and our old Turk Ismael seemed to move about and direct with the vigour of a young man. As we had no doubt they would be mounted on camels, so we placed ourselves a little within the edge of the trees. The embers of our two fires were in our front; our tents, baggage, and boxes on each side of us, between the opening of the trees; our camels and water behind us, the camels being chained together behind the water, and ropes at their heads, which were tied to trees. A skin of water, and two wooden bowls beside it, was left open for those that should need to drink. We had finished our breakfast before day-break, and I had given all the men directions to fire separately, not together, at the same set of people; and those who had the blunderbusses to fire where they saw a number of camels and men together, and especially at any camels they saw with girbas upon them, or where was the greatest confusion.

The day broke; no Arabs appeared; all was still. The danger which occurred to our minds then was, lest, if they were few, by tarrying we should give them time to send off messengers to bring assistance. I then took Ismael and two Barbarins along with me, to see who these neighbours of ours could be. We soon traced in the sand the footsteps of the man who had been at our camels; and, following them behind the point of a rock, which seemed calculated for concealing thieves, we saw two ragged, old, dirty tents, pitched with grass cords.

The two Barbarins entered one of them, and found a naked woman there. Ismael and I ran briskly into the largest, where we saw a man and a woman, both perfectly naked, frightful, emaciated figures, not like the inhabitants of this world. The man was partly sitting on his hams; a child, seemingly of the age to suck, was on a rag at the corner, and the woman looked as if she wished to hide herself. I sprung forward upon the man, and, taking him by the hair of the head, pulled him upon his back on the floor, setting my foot upon his breast, and pointing my knife to his throat; I said to him sternly, 'If you mean to pray, pray quickly, for you have but this moment to live.' The fellow was so frightened, he scarce could beg us to spare his life; but the woman, as it afterwards appeared, the mother of the sucking child, did not seem to copy the passive disposition of her husband; she ran to the corner of the tent, where was an old lance, with which, I doubt not, she would have sufficiently distinguished herself, but it happened to be entangled with the cloth of the tent, and Ismael felled her to the ground with the butt-end of his blunderbuss, and wrested the lance from her. A violent howl was set up by the remaining woman, like the cries of those in torment. 'Tie them,' said I, 'Ismael; keep them separate, and carry them to the baggage, till I settle accounts with this camel-stealer, and then you shall strike their three heads off, where they intended to leave us miserably to perish with hunger; but keep them separate.' While the Barbarins were tying the woman, the one that was the nurse of the child turned to her husband, and said, in a most mournful, despairing tone of voice, 'Did I not tell you, you would never thrive, if you hurt that good man? did not I tell you this would happen for murdering the Aga?'

Our people had come to see what had passed, and I sent the women away, ordering them to be kept separate, out of the hearing of one another, to judge if in their answers they did not prevaricate. The woman desired to have her child with her, which I granted. The little creature, instead of being frightened, crowed, and held out its little hands as it passed me. We fastened the Arab with the chain of the camels, and so far was well; but still we did not know how near the Bishareen might be, nor who these were, nor whether they had sent off any intelligence in the night. Until we were informed of this, our case was little mended. Upon the man's appearing, all my people declared, with one general voice, that no time was to be lost, but that they should all be put to death as soon as the camels were loaded, before we set out on our journey; and, indeed, at first view of the thing, self-preservation, the first law of nature, seemed strongly to require it. Hagi Ismael was so determined on the execution, that he was already seeking a knife sharper than his own. 'We will stay, Hagi Ismael,' said I, 'till we see if this thief is a liar also. If he prevaricates in the answers he gives to my questions, you shall then cut his head off, and we will consign him with the lie in his mouth, soul and body to hell, to his master whom he serves.' Ismael answered, 'The truth is the truth; if he lies he can deserve no better.'

The reader will easily understand the necessity of my speaking at that moment in terms not only unusual for a Christian, but even in any society or conversation; and if the ferocity and brutality of the discourse should shock any, especially my fair readers, they will remember, that these were intended for a good and humane purpose, to produce fear in those upon whom we had no other tie, and thereby extort a confession of the truth; which might answer two purposes, the saying the effusion of their blood, and providing for our own preservation. 'You see,' said I, placing the man upon his knees, 'your time is short, the sword is now drawn which is to make an end of you; take time, answer distinctly and deliberately; for the first trip or lie that you make, is the last word that you will utter in this world. Your wife shall have her fair chance likewise, and your child; you and all shall go together, unless you tell me the naked truth. Here, Ismael, stand by him, and take my sword; it is, I believe, the sharpest in the company.

'Now I ask you, at your peril, who was the good man your wife reproached you with having murdered? where was it, and when, and who were your accomplices?' He answered trembling, and indistinctly, through fear, 'It was a black, an Aga from Chendl.' 'Mahomet Towash, says Ismael; 'Ullah Kerimi God is merciful!' 'The same,' says the Bishareen. He then related the particulars of his death, in the manner which I shall have occasion to state afterwards. 'Where are the Bishareen?'continued I; 'where is Abou Bertran? <A sheikh of the Bishareen tribe to whom Bruce carried a letter from the Mek of Chendi.> How soon will a light camel and messenger arrive where he now is?' 'In less than two days; perhaps,' says he, 'in a day and a half, if he is very diligent, and the camel good.' 'Take care,'said I, 'you are in danger. Where did you and your women come from, and when?' 'From Abou Bertran,' says he; we arrived here at noon on the 5th day, <It is not here to be understood that the Arab described the day by the 5^th, but by an interval of time which we knew corresponded to the 5th> but the camels were all she-camels; they are favourite camels of Shekh Seide; we drove them softly; the two you saw at the tents are lame; besides there were some others unsound; there were also women and children.' 'Where did that party and their camels go to from this? and what number of men was there with them?' 'There were about three hundred camels of all sorts, and about thirty men, all of them servants; some of them had one lance, and some of them two; they had no shields or other arms.' 'What did you intend last night to do with my camels?' 'I intended to have carried them, with the women and child, to join the party at the Nile.' 'What must have become of me in that case? we must have died?' He did not answer. 'Take care, said I, the thing is now over, and you are in my hands; take care what you say.' 'Why, certainly,' says he, 'you must have died, you could not live, you could not go any where else.' 'If another party had found us here, in that case would they have slain us?' He hesitated a little; then, as if he recollected himself, said, 'Yes, surely, they murdered the Aga, and would murder any body that had not a Bishareen with them.' A violent cry of condemnation immediately followed. 'Now attend and understand me distinctly,' said I; 'for upon these two questions hangs your life: Do you know of any party of Bishareen who are soon to pass here, or any wells to the north, and in what number? and have you sent any intelligence, since last night you saw us here?' He answered, with more readiness than usual, 'We have sent nobody anywhere; our camels are lame; we were to follow, as soon as they should be able to travel, to join those at the Nile. The parties of the Bishareen are always passing here, sometimes more, sometimes less; they will not come till they hear from the Nile whether the grass is grown. They have with them two dromedaries, who will carry the news from the Nile in three days, or they will come in small parties like the last, for they have no fear in these parts. The wells to the north belong to the Ababde. When they pass by them with cattle, they are always in great numbers, and a Shekh along with them; but those wells are now so scanty, they have not water for any number, and they must therefore all pass this way.'

I got up, and called on Ismael. The poor fellow thought he was to die. Life is sweet, even to the most miserable. He was still upon his knees, holding his hands clasped round the back of his neck, and already, I suppose, thought he felt the edge of Ismael's knife. He swore that every word he had spoken was truth; and if his wife was brought, she could not tell another story.

I thereupon left him, and went to his wife, who, when she saw Hagi Ismael with a drawn sword in his hand, thought all was over with her husband, and fell into a violent fit of despair, crying out, 'That all the men were liars and murderers, but that she would have told the truth, if I had asked her first.' 'Then go, Hagi Ismael,' said I, 'tell them not to put him to death till I come; and now you have your chance, which if you do not improve by telling the truth, I will first slay your child with my own hand before your face, and then order you all to be cruelly put to death together.' She began with great earnestness to say, 'She could not tell who killed Mahomet Towash, for she only heard it in conversation from her husband, who was there, after he had come home.' I then, word for word, put those questions to her that I had done to her husband, and had precisely the same answers. The only difference was, that she believed a party of the Ababde would pass Chiggre soon; but seeing me rise to go away, she burst into a flood of tears, and tore her hair in the most violent excess of passion; shrieking out, to have mercy upon her, and pressing the little child to her breast, as if to take leave of it; then laying it down before me, in great agony and bitterness of heart, she again shrieked out, 'If you are a Turk, make it a slave, but do not kill my child, and spare my husband.'

Though I understood Arabic well, I did not, till that day, know it had such powers, or that it contained expressions at once so forcible and so simple. I found myself so much moved, and my tears came so fast, that it was in vain to endeavour to carry on a farce under such tragical appearances. 'Woman,' said I, 'I am not a Turk, nor do I make slaves or kill children. It is your Arabs that force me to this; it was you that attacked me last night, it was you that murdered Mahomet Towash, one of your own religion, and busied in his duty. I am a stranger, seeking my own safety; but you are all murderers and thieves.' 'It is true, says she, 'they are all murderers and liars, and my husband, not knowing, may have lied too. Only let me hear what he told you, and I will tell you whether it is truth or not.' Day was now advancing apace, and no resolution taken, whilst our present situation was a very unsafe one. We carried the three prisoners bound, and set George, the Greek, centinel over them. I then called the people together.

I stated fairly, in a council held among ourselves, the horror of slaughtering the women and child, or even leaving them to starve with hunger, by killing their camels, from whom they got their only sustenance; for, though we should not stain our hands with their blood, it was the same thing to leave them to perish: that we were strangers, and had fallen upon them by accident, but they were in their own country. On the contrary, suppose we only slew the man, any of the women might mount a camel, and, travelling with diligence, might inform the Bishareen, who would send a party and cut us off at the next well, where we must pass, and where it would be impossible to escape them. I must say, there was a considerable majority for sparing the women and child, and not one but who willingly decreed the death of the man, who had confessed he was endeavouring to steal our camels, and that he intended to carry them to his party at the Nile; in which case the loss of all our lives was certain, as we should have been starved to death, or murdered by the Arabs.

The very recital of this attempt so enraged Hagi Ismael, that he desired he might have the preference in cutting off his head. The Barbarins, too, were angry for the loss of their bracelets. Indeed, every one's opinion was, that the Arab should die, and especially since the account of their behaviour to Mahomet Towash, whose death I, for my own part, cannot say I thought myself under any obligation to revenge. 'Since you are differing in your opinions, and there is no time to lose,' said I, allow me to give you mine. It has appeared to me. that often since we began this journey, we have been preserved by visible instances of God's protection, when we should have lost our lives, if we had gone by the rules of our own judgment only. We are, it is true, of different religions, but all worship the same God. Suppose the present case should be a trial, whether we trust really in God's protection, or whether we believe our safety owing to our own foresight and courage. If the man's life be now taken away, to-morrow we may meet the Bishareen, and then we shall all reflect upon the folly of our precaution. For my own part, my constant creed is, that I am in God's hands, whether in the house or in the desert; and not in those of the Bishareen, or of any lawless spoiler. I have a clear conscience, and am engaged in no unlawful pursuit, seeking on foot my way home, feeding on bread and water, and have done, nor design, wrong to no man. We are well armed, are nine in number, and have twice as many firelocks, many of these with double-barrels, and others of a size never before seen by Arabs, armies of whom have been defeated with fewer. We are ragged and tattered in our clothes, and no prize to any one; nor do I think we shall be found a party of pleasure, for any set of wild young men to leave their own homes, with javelins and lances, to way-lay us at the well for sport and diversion, since gain and profit are out of the question. But this I declare to you, if ever we meet these Arabs, if the ground is such as has been near all the wells we have come to, I will fight the Bishareen boldly and cheerfully, without a doubt of beating them with ease. I do not say my feelings would be the same if my conscience was loaded with that most heinous and horrid crime, murder in cold blood; and therefore my determination is to spare the life even of this man, and I will oppose his being put to death by every means in my power.'

It was easy to see, that fear of their own lives only, and not cruelty, was the reason they sought that of the Arab. They answered me, two or three of them at once, 'That it was all very well; what should they do? should they give themselves up to the Bishareen, and be murdered like Mahomet Towash? was there any other way of escaping?' 'I will tell you, then, since you ask me, what you should do: You shall follow the duty of self-defence and self-preservation, as far as you can do it without a crime. You shall leave the women and the child where they are, and with them the camels, to give them and their child milk; you shall chain the husband's right hand to the left of some of yours, and you shall each of you take him by turns, till we shall carry him into Egypt. Perhaps he knows the desert and the wells better than Idris; and if he should not, still we have two Hybeers instead of one; and who can foretell what may happen to Idris, more than to any other of us? But as he knows the stations of his people, and their courses at particular seasons, that day we meet one Bishareen, the man that is chained with him, and conducts him, shall instantly stab him to the heart, so that he shall not see, much less triumph in, the success of his treachery. On the contrary, if he is faithful, and informs Idris where the danger is, and where we are to avoid it, keeping us rather by scanty wells than abundant ones, on the day I arrive safely in Egypt, I will clothe him anew, as also his women, give him a good camel for himself, and a load of dora for them all. As for the camels we leave here, they are she ones, and necessary to give the women food. They are not lame, it is said; but we shall lame them in earnest so that they shall not be able to carry a messenger to the Bishareen before they die with thirst in the way, both they and their riders, if they should attempt it.'

An universal applause followed this speech; Idris, above all, declared his warmest approbation. The man and the women were sent for, and had their sentence repeated to them. They all subscribed to the conditions cheerfully; and the woman declared she would as soon see her child die, as be an instrument of any harm befalling us, and that, if a thousand Bishareen should pass, she knew how to mislead them all, and that none of them should follow us till we were far out of danger.

I sent two Barbarins to lame the camels effectually, but not so as to make them past recovery. After which, for the nurse and the child's sake, I took twelve handfuls of the bread which was our only food,and indeed we could scarcely spare it, as we saw afterwards,-and left it to this miserable family, with this agreeable reflection, however, that we should be to them, in the end, a much greater blessing, than, in the beginning, we had been an affliction, provided only they kept their faith, and on their part deserved it.

On the 2oth at eleven o'clock, we left the well at Terfowey, after having warned the women, that their chance of seeing their husband again depended wholly upon his and their faithful conduct. We took our prisoner with us, his right hand being chained to the left of one of the Barbarins. We had no sooner got into the plain, than we felt great symptoms of the simoom; and about a quarter before twelve, our prisoner first, and then Idris, cried out, The simoom! the simoom! My curiosity would not suffer me to fall down without looking behind me. About due south, a little to the east, I saw the coloured haze as before. It seemed now to be rather less compressed, and to have with it a shade of blue. The edges of it were not defined as those of the former, but like a very thin smoke, with about a yard in the middle tinged with those colours. We all fell upon our faces, and the simoom passed with a gentle ruffling wind. It continued to blow in this manner till near three o'clock; so we were all taken ill that night, and scarcely strength was left us to load the camels and arrange the baggage. This day one of our camels died, partly famished, partly overcome with extreme fatigue; so that, incapable as we were of labour, we were obliged, for self-preservation's sake, to cut off thin slices of the fleshy part of the camel, and hang it in so many thongs upon the trees all night, and after upon the baggage, the sun drying it immediately, so as to prevent putrefaction.

At half past eight in the evening we alighted at a well called Naibey, in a bare sandy plain, where there were a few straggling acacia-trees. We had all this day seen large blocks of fossile salt upon the surface of the earth where we trod. This was the cause, I suppose, that both the spring at Terfowey, and now this of Naibey, were brackish to the taste, and especially that of Naibey. We found near the well the corpse of a man and two camels upon the ground. It was apparently long ago that this accident happened; for the moisture of the camel was so exhaled, that it seemed to weigh but a very few pounds; no vermin had touched it, as in this whole desert there is neither worm, fly, nor any thing that has the breath of life.

On the 21st, at six in the morning, having filled the girbas with water, we set out from Naibey, our direction due north, and, as we thought, in a course almost straight upon Syene. The first hour of our journey was through sharp-pointed rocks, which it was very easy to foresee would very soon finish our camels. About eight we had a view of the desert to the westward as before, and saw the sands had already begun to rise in immense twisted pillars, which darkened the heavens. The rising of these in the morning so early, we began now to observe, was a sure sign of a hot day, with a brisk wind at north; and that heat, and the early rising of the sands, was as sure a sign of its falling calm about mid-day, and its being followed by two hours of the poisonous wind. That last consideration was what made the greatest impression, for we had felt its effects; it had filled us with fear, and absorbed the last remnant of our strength; whereas the sand, though a destruction to us if it had involved us in its compass, had as yet done us no other harm than terrifying us in the first days we had seen it.

It was this day more magnificent than any we had as yet seen. The sun shining through the pillars, which were thicker, and contained more sand apparently than any of the preceding days, seemed to give those nearest us an appearance as if spotted with stars of gold. I do not think at any time they seemed to be nearer than two miles. The most remarkable circumstance was, that the sand seemed to keep in that vast circular space surrounded by the Nile on our left, in going round by Chaigle towards Dongola, and seldom was observed much to the eastward of a meridian, passing along the Nile through the Magiran, before it takes that turn; whereas the simoom was always on the opposite side of our course, coming upon us from the south-east.

A little before twelve our wind at north ceased, and a considerable quantity of fine sand rained upon us for an hour afterwards. At the time it appeared, the description of this phenomenon, in Syphax's speech to Sempronius, was perpetually before my mind:-

So, where our wide Numidian wastes extend,

Sudden the impetuous hurricanes descend,

Wheel through the air, in circling eddies play,

Tear up the sands, and sweep whole plains away.

The helpless traveller, with wild surprise,

Sees the dry desert all around him rise,

And, smothered in the dusty whirlwind, dies.

ADDISON <Cato, Act III, 51-57>

These lines are capital, and are a fine copy, which can only appear tame by the original having been before our eyes, painted by the great master, the Creator and Ruler of the world.

The simoom, with the wind at S.E., immediately follows the wind at N., and the usual despondency that always accompanied it. The blue meteor, with which it began, passed over us about twelve, and the ruffling wind that followed it continued till near two. Silence, and a desperate kind of indifference about life, were the immediate effect upon us; and I began now, seeing the condition of my camels, to fear we were all doomed to a sandy grave, and to contemplate it with some degree of resignation. At half past eight in the evening we alighted in a sandy flat, where there was great store of bent grass and trees, which had a considerable degree of verdure, a circumstance much in favour of our camels. We determined to stop here to give them an opportunity of eating their fill where they could find it.

On the 22d, at six o'clock, we set out from the sandy flat, and one of the Tucorory <Tuculor, a negro people of the Senegal region> was seized with a phrensy or madness. At first I took it for a fit of the epilepsy, by the distortions of his face; but it was soon seen to be of a more serious nature. Whether he had been before afflicted with it I know not. I offered to bleed him, which he refused; neither, though we gave him water, would he drink, but very moderately. He rolled upon the ground, and moaned, often repeating two or three words which I did not understand. He refused to continue his journey, or rise from where he lay, so that we were obliged to leave him to his fortune. We went this day very diligently, not remarkably slow nor fast; but though our camels, as we thought, had fared well for these two nights, another of them died about four o'clock this afternoon, when we came to Umarack.

I here began to provide for the worst. I saw the fate of our camels approaching, and that our men grew weak in proportion; our bread, too, began to fail us, although we had plenty of camel's flesh in its stead; our water, though in all appearance we were to find it more frequently than in the beginning of our journey, was nevertheless brackish, and scarcely served the purpose to quench our thirst; and, above all, the dreadful simoom had perfectly exhausted our strength, and brought upon us a degree of cowardice and languor that we struggled with in vain. I therefore, as the last effort, began to throw away every thing weighty I could spare, or that was not absolutely necessary, such as all shells, fossiles, minerals, and petrifactions, that I could get at, the counter-cases of my quadrant, telescopes, and clock, and several such like things.

Our camels were now reduced to five, and it did not seem that these were capable of continuing their journey much longer. In that case, no remedy remained, but that each man should carry his own water and provisions. Now, as no one man could carry the water he should use between well and well, and it was more than probable that distance would be doubled by some of the wells being found dry; and if that was not the case, yet, as it was impossible for a man to carry his provisions, who could not walk without any burden at all, our situation seemed to be most desperate.

The Bishareen alone seemed to keep up his strength, and was in excellent spirits. He had attached himself, in a particular manner, to me, and with a part of that very scanty rag, which he had round his waist, he had made a wrapper, very artificially, according to the manner his countrymen, the Bishareen, practise on such occasions. This had greatly defended my feet in the day, but the pain occasioned by the cold in the night was really scarce sufferable. I offered to free him from the confinement of his left hand, which was chained to some one of the company night and day; but he very sensibly refused it, saying, 'Unchain my hands when you load and unload your camels, I cannot then run away from you; for, though you did not shoot me, I should starve with hunger and thirst; but keep me to the end of the journey as you began with me; then I cannot misbehave, and lose the reward which you say you are to give me.'

At forty minutes past three o'clock we saw large strata of fossile salt everywhere upon the surface of the ground. At five we found the body of Mahomet Towash, on the spot where he had been murdered, stript naked, and lying on his face unburied. The wound in the back-sinew of his leg was apparent; he was, besides, thrust through the back with a lance, and had two wounds in the head with swords. We followed some footsteps in the sand to the right, and there saw three other bodies, whom Idris knew to be his principal servants. These, it seemed, had taken to their arms upon the Aga's being first wounded, and the cowardly, treacherous Bishareens had persuaded them to capitulate, upon promise of giving them camels and provision to carry them into Egypt, after which they had murdered them behind these rocks.

At six o'clock we alighted at Umarack, so called from a number of rack-trees that grow there, and which seem to affect a saltish soil; at Raback and Masuah I had seen them growing in the sea. When I ordered a halt at Umarack, the general cry was, to travel all night, so that we might be at a distance from that dangerous unlucky spot. The sight of the men murdered, and fear of the like fate, had got the better of their other sensations. In short. there was nothing more visible, than that their apprehensions were of two sorts, and produced very different operations. --The simoom, the stalking pillars of sand, and the probability of dying with thirst, or hunger, brought on a torpor, or indifference, that made them inactive; but the discovery of the Arab at Terfowey, the fear of meeting the Bishareen at the wells, and the dead bodies of the Aga and his unfortunate companions, produced a degree of activity and irritation that resembled very much their spirits being elevated by good news. I told them, that, of all the places in the desert through which they had passed, this was by far the safest; because fear of being met by the troops from Assouan, seeking the murderers of Mahomet Towash, would keep all the Bishareen at a distance. Our Arab said, that the next well belonged to the Ababde, and not the Bishareen, and that the Bishareen had slain the Aga there, to make men believe it had been done by the Ababde. Idris contributed his morsel of comfort, by assuring us, that the wells now, as far as Egypt, were so scanty of water, that no party above ten men would trust their provision to them, and none of us had the least apprehension from marauders of twice that number. The night at Umarack was excessively cold as to sensation; Fahrenheit's thermometer was, however, at 49' an hour before day-light.

On the 23d we left Umarack at six o'clock in the morning; our road this day being between mountains of blue stones of a very fine and perfect quality, through the heart of which ran thick veins of jasper, their strata perpendicular to the horizon. There were other mountains of marble of the colour called Isabella. In other places the rock seemed composed of petrified wood, such as we had seen in the mountains near Cosseir. At a quarter past eleven, going due N. we entered a narrow valley, in which we passed two wells on our left; and following the windings through this valley, all of deep sand, we came to a large pool of excellent water, called Umgwat, sheltered from the rays of the sun by a large rock, which projected over it, the upper part of which was shaped like a wedge, and was composed all of green marble, without the smallest variety, or spot, of other colour in it.

Through this whole valley, to-day, we had seen the bodies of the Tucorory, who had followed Mahomet Towash, and been scattered by the Bishareen, and left to perish with thirst there. None of them, however, as far as we could observe, had ever reached this well. In the water we found a bird of the duck kind, called teal, or widgeon. The Turk Ismael was preparing to shoot at it with his blunderbuss, but I desired him to refrain, being willing, by its flight, to endeavour to judge something of the nearness of the Nile. We raised it, therefore, by sudden repeated cries, which method was likely to make it seek its home straight, and abandon a place it must have been a stranger to. The bird flew straight west, rising as he flew, a sure proof his journey was a long one, till at last, being very high and at a distance, he vanished from our sight, without descending, or seeking to approach the earth; from which I drew an unpleasant inference, that we were yet far from the Nile, as was really the case.

Here we threw away the brackish water that remained in our girbas, and filled them with the wholesome element drawn from this pool of Umgwat. I could not help reproaching Idris with the inaccuracy of the information he had pretended to give us the day before, that no party above ten men could meet us at any of these wells, as none of them could supply water for more; whereas in this pool there was certainly enough of excellent water to serve a whole tribe of Arabs for a month. He had little to say, further than that Haimer, though near, was a scanty well, and perhaps we should not find water there at all. He trusted, however, if our people would take heart, we were out of all danger from Arabs, or any thing else.

At a quarter past three we left the well, and continued along a sandy valley, which is called Waadi Umgwat. This night it was told me, that Georgis, and the Turk Ismael, were both so ill, and so desponding, that they had resolved to pursue the journey no farther, but submit to their destiny, as they called it, and stay behind and die. It was with the utmost difficulty I could get them to lay aside this resolution; and the next morning I promised they should ride by turns upon one of the camels, a thing that none of us had yet attempted. They had, indeed, often desired me to do so, but I well knew, if I had set them that example, besides destroying the camels, it would have had the very worst effect upon their dastardly spirits; and, indeed, we very soon saw the bad effects of this humane consideration for the two invalids.

On the 24th, at half past six in the morning, we left Umgwat, following the windings of sandy values between stoney hills. At half past nine we found Mahomet Aga's horse dead. The poor creature seemed, without a guide, to have followed exactly enough the tract of the wells and way to Egypt, and had survived all his fellow-travellers. At eleven o'clock we came to some plains of loose, moving sand, and saw some pillars in motion, which had not wind to sustain them for any time, and which gave us, therefore, little concern. At one we alighted near the well Mour, which was to the N. E. of us. At four we left the well Mour: At forty minutes after four passed the well itself, which was then dry; and, at a quarter past six, we found a dead man, whose corpse was quite dry, and had been so a considerable time. At seven o'clock in the evening we alighted at El Haimer, where are the two wells in a large plain of sand. The water is good. There is another well to the west of us, but it is bitter and saltish, though more abundant than either of the other two, which, by filling our skins, we had several times drained.

On the 25th, at half past seven in the morning, we left the well El Haimer, and, at ten o'clock, alighted among some acacia trees; our camels having ate nothing all night, except the dry bitter roots of that drug, the senna. While we were attending the camels, and resting ourselves on the grass, we were surprised at the appearance of a troop of Arabs all upon camels, who looked like a caravan, each camel having a small loading behind him. They had two gentle ascents before they could arrive at the place where we were. The road is between two sandy hills, at the back of which our camels were feeding in a wood; and near the road was the well El Haimer, where our skins were lying full of water. It was necessary then to understand one another before we allowed them to pass between the sandy hills. Upon the first alarm, my people all repaired to me, bringing their arms in their hands, as well those that they carried upon them, as the spare arms, all of which were primed and charged.

The first question was, what to do with the Bishareen? None of us had any suspicion of him. We unchained him from the Barbarin, and fastened his other hand, then gave him to the Tucorory, and made them stand behind to increase the appearance of our number. I then advanced to the edge of the hill, and cried out with a loud voice, 'Stop! for you cannot pass here.' Whether they understood it I do not know, but they still persisted in mounting the hill. I again cried, shewing my firelock, 'Advance a step farther, and I'll fire,' After a short pause they all dismounted from their camels, and one of them, with his lance in his hand, came forward till within twenty yards, upon which Idris immediately knew them, and said they were Ababde. 'Ababde or not,' said I, they are seventeen men, and Arabs, and I am not of a disposition, without further surety, to put myself in their hands, as Mahomet Aga did. I am sure they are perfectly in our power now, as long as they stand where they are.' Idris then told me that he was married to one of the Ababde of Shekh Ammer, and he would go and get a sure word from them. 'Tell them from me, said I, 'that I, too, am the friend of Nimmer their Shekh and his two sons, and of Shekh Hammam of Furshout <Bruce had met them when travelling in Egypt; he had given Nimmer soap pills to relieve the gravel from which he suffered.>; that I am going into Egypt, have been followed by the Bishareen, and trust nobody; have twenty men armed with firelocks, and will do them no harm, provided they consent to pass one by one, and give a man for a hostage.'

Idris, without arms, having joined the man who had advanced towards us, went down with him to the body of strangers, and the treaty was soon agreed to. Two of the principal men among them approached me without their lances, and the compliment of peace, 'Salam Alicum! and Alicum Salam!' was given and returned by both sides. They seemed, however, startled at seeing the Bishareen with both his hands chained; but I told them, that had no regard to them, and desired Idris to order their camels to go on; and one of the Barbarins in the meantime brought them a gourd full of water, and bread; for eating together is like pledging your faith. They had not heard of the fate of Mahomet Aga, and seemed very ill-pleased at it, saying, that Abou Bertran was a thief and a murderer. All the camels being past, I asked them whither they were going? They said to Atbieh, west of Terfowey, to gather senna for the government of Cairo. I would very fain have had them to sell or exchange with me a couple of camels. They said theirs were not strong; that before they could reach home they would be much in the same condition with our own; that they were obliged to load them very heavily, as indeed the bags they had behind them to carry the senna seemed to indicate their profit was but small, so that the death of one camel was a most serious loss.

I thought myself obliged in humanity to introduce our prisoner to the two Ababde that had remained with us. They said, they intended to take water at Terfowey, and we told them briefly the accident by which we came in company with the Bishareen. They, on the contrary, thought that we had been a party of soldiers from Assouan, who had apprehended the Arab. Immediately after which they conversed in the language of Beja, which is that of the Habab, Suakem, and Masuah. I told them plainly, that, though I knew that language, I would not suffer them to speak any but Arabic, understood by us all. They immediately complied, and then inquired about the position of Abou Bertran and his tribe of Bishareen. This, too, I would not suffer the Arab to inform them of, but charged them, as he did also, to tell his wives that he was well, and ate and drank as we had done, and was within two days of arriving at Assouan, whence he should be returned to them with the rewards promised. I then desired him to lay a lance in a manner that the point should be towards Syene, which they accordingly did, and with a long needle of 12 inches in a brass box, having an arch of a few degrees marked on it, I, with the utmost attention, took the direction from Haimer to Syene N. N. W. or more northerly. I would very willingly have had it in my power to have made an observation of latitude, but noon was past; I contented myself, therefore, with keeping my route as distinctly as possible till the evening.

At 40 minutes past one o'clock we left Haimer, and our friends, the Ababde, continued their route, after giving us great praise, as well for our civility, as our keeping the watch like men, as they expressed it. At half past eight we alighted at Abou Ferege, a place where there was very little verdure of any kind. Here, for the first time on our journey, we met with a cloudy sky, which effectually disappointed my observation of latitude; but every noon and night I described, in a rough manner, my course through the day, carrying always a compass, with a needle about five inches radius, round my neck, by a lace, and resting in my pocket. I thus found that we had kept the line directly upon Syene, which the Ababde Arab had shewed us.

On the 26th, at half after six in the morning, we set out from Abou Ferege, continuing nearly in the same direction upon Syene till eleven o'clock, when, for the purpose of observation only, I alighted at a place called Abou Heregi, without water, grass, or food for our camels. We were exceedingly averse to exertions, and became so weak and spiritless, that it was not possible to prevail upon our people to take the large quadrant out of its chest to put it together, and prepare it for observation. I therefore took a Hadley's quadrant, with a mixture I had made, which served me better than quick-silver, and made my observation by reflection at Abou Heregi, and found it in lat. 23', from which I inferred, with some degree of comfort to myself, that the longitude of Syene in the French maps is ill laid down, and that we were now in the direction upon Syene, had no westing to run down, but the journey must finish in a very few days.

At two o'clock in the afternoon we left Abou Heregi, and at four had an unexpected entertainment, which filled our hearts with a very short-lived joy. The whole plain before us seemed thick-covered with green grass and yellow daisies. We advanced to the place with as much speed as our lame condition would suffer us; but how terrible was our disappointment, when we found the whole of that verdure to consist in senna and coloquintida, the most nauseous of plants, and the most incapable of being substituted as food for man or beast. At nine o'clock in the evening we alighted at Saffieha, which is a ridge of craggy mountains to the S. E. and N. W. The night here was immoderately cold, and the wind north. We were now very near a crisis, one way or the other. Our bread was consumed, so that we had not sufficient for one day more; and though we had camels flesh, yet, by living so long on bread and water, an invincible repugnance arose either to smell or taste it. As our camels were at their last gasp, we had taken so sparingly of water, that, when we came to divide it, we found it insufficient for our necessities, if Syene was even so near as we conceived it to be.

Georgis had lost one eye, and was nearly blind in the other. Ismael and he had both become so stiff by being carried, that they could not bear to set their feet to the ground; and I may say for myself, that, though I had supported the wounds in my feet with a patience very uncommon, yet they were arrived at that height as to be perfectly intolerable, and, as I apprehended, on the point of mortification. The bandage, which the Bishareen had tied about the hollow of my foot, was now almost hidden by the flesh swelling over it. Three large wounds on the right foot, and two on the left continued open, whence a quantity of lymph oozed continually. It was also with the utmost difficulty we could get out the rag, by cutting it to shreds with scissars. The tale is both unpleasant and irksome. Two soles which remained from our sandals, the upper leathers of which had gone to pieces in the sand near Gooz, were tied with a cotton cloth very adroitly by the Bishareen. But it seemed impossible that I could walk farther, even with this assistance, and therefore we determined to throw away the quadrant, telescopes, and timekeeper, and save our lives, by riding the camels alternately. But Providence had already decreed that we should not terminate this dangerous journey by our own ordinary foresight and contrivance, but owe it entirely to his visible support and interposition.

On the 27th, at half past five in the morning, we attempted to raise our camels at Safficha by every method that we could devise, but all in vain; only one of them could get upon his legs, and that one did not stand two minutes till he kneeled down, and could never be raised afterwards. This the Arabs all declared to be the effects of cold; and yet Fahrenheit's thermometer, an hour before day, stood at 42'. Every way we turned ourselves death now stared us in the face. We had neither time nor strength to waste, nor provisions to support us. We then took the small skins that had contained our water, and filled them as far as we thought a man could carry them with ease; but after all these shifts, there was not enough to serve us three days, at which I had estimated our journey to Syene, which still however was uncertain. Finding, therefore, the camels would not rise, we killed two of them, and took as much flesh as might serve for the deficiency of bread, and, from the stomach of each of the camels, got about four gallons of water, which the Bishareen Arab managed with great dexterity. It is known to people conversant with natural history, that the camel has within him reservoirs in which he can preserve drink for any number of days he is used to. In those caravans, of long course, which come from the Niger across the desert of Selima, it is said that each camel, by drinking, lays in a store of water that will support him for forty days. I will by no means be a voucher of this account, which carries with it an air of exaggeration; but fourteen or sixteen days, it is well known, an ordinary camel will live, though he hath no fresh supply of water. When he chews the cud, or when he eats, you constantly see him throw, from this repository, mouthfuls of water to dilute his food; and nature has contrived this vessel with such properties, that the water within it never putrifies. nor turns unwholesome. It was indeed vapid, and of a bluish cast, but had neither taste nor smell.

The small remains of our miserable stock of black bread and dirty water, the only support we had hitherto lived on amidst the burning sands, and our spirits likewise were exhausted by an uncertainty of our journey's end. We were surrounded amidst those terrible and unusual phenomena of nature which Providence, in mercy to the weakness of his creatures, has concealed far from their sight, in deserts almost inaccessible to them. Nothing but death was before our eyes; and, in these dreadful moments of pain, suffering, and despair, honour, instead of relieving me, suggested still what was to be an augmentation to my misfortune; the feeling this produced fell directly upon me alone, and every other individual of the company was unconscious of it.

The drawings made at Palmyra and Baalbec for the king, were, in many parts of them, not advanced farther than the outlines, which I had carried with me, that, if leisure or confinement should happen, I might finish them during my travels in case of failure of other employment, so far at least, that, on my return through Italy, they might be in a state of receiving further improvement, which might carry them to that perfection I have since been enabled to conduct them. These were all to be thrown away, with other not less valuable papers, and, with my quadrant, telescopes, and time-keeper, abandoned to the rude and ignorant hands of robbers, or to be buried in the sands. Every memorandum, every description, sketch, or observation, since I departed from Badjoura and passed the desert to Cosseir, till I reached the present spot, were left in an undigested heap, with our carrion-camels, at Saffieha, while there remained with me, in lieu of all my memoranda, but this mournful consideration, that I was now to maintain the reality of these my tedious perils, with those who either did, or might affect, from malice and envy, to doubt my veracity upon my ipse dixit alone, or abandon the reputation of the travels which I had made with so much courage, labour, danger, and difficulty, and which had been considered as desperate and impracticable to accomplish for more than 2000 years. <Bruce recovered them later.>

I would be understood not to mean by this, that my thoughts were at such a time in the least disturbed with any reflection on the paltry lies that might be propagated in malignant circles, which has each its idol, and who, meeting, as they say, for the advancement of learning, employ themselves in blasting the fame of those who must be allowed to have surpassed them in every circumstance of intrepidity, forethought, and fair atchievement. The censure of these lion-faced and chicken-hearted critics never entered as an ingredient into my sorrows, on that occasion, in the sadness of my heart; if I had not possessed a share of spirit enough to despise these, the smallest trouble that occurred in my travels must have overcome a mind so feebly armed. My sorrows were of another kind; that I should, of course, be deprived of a considerable part of an offering I meant as a mark of duty to my sovereign; that, with those that knew and esteemed me, I should be obliged to run in debt for the credit of a whole narrative of circumstances, which ought, from their importance to history and geography, to have a better foundation than the mere memory of any man, considering the time and variety of events which they embraced; and, above all, I may be allowed to say, I felt for my country, that chance alone, in this age of discovery, had robbed her of the fairest garland of this kind she ever was to wear, which all her fleets, full of heroes and men of science, in all the oceans they might be destined to explore, were incapable of replacing upon her brow. These sad reflections were mine, and confined to myself. Luckily my companions were no sharers in them; they had already, in their own sufferings, much more than their little stock of fortitude, philosophy, or education, enabled them to bear.

About three o'clock in the afternoon of the 27th, we saw two kites, or what are called Haddaya, very numerous in Lower Egypt; about a quarter of an hour afterwards, another of the same sort, known to be carrion-birds, probably going in search of the dead camels. I could not conceal my joy at what I regarded as a happy omen. We went five hours and a half this day, and at night came to Waadi el Arab, where are the first trees we had seen since we left El Haimer.

On the 28^th, at half past seven in the morning, we left Waadi el Arab, and entered into a narrow defile, with rugged but not high mountains on each side. About twelve o'clock we came to a few trees in the bed of a torrent. Ill as I was, after refreshing myself with my last bread and water, I set out in the afternoon to gain a rising ground, that I might see, if possible, what was to the westward; for the mountains seemed now rocky and high like those of the Kennouss near Syene. I arrived, with great difficulty and pain, on the top of a moderate hill, but was exceedingly disappointed at not seeing the river to the westward; however, the vicinity of the Nile was very evident, by the high, uniform mountains that confine its torrent when it comes out of Nubia. The evening was still, so that sitting down and covering my eyes with my hands, not to be diverted by external objects, I listened and heard distinctly the noise of waters, which I supposed to be the cataract, but it seemed to the southward of us, as if we had passed it. I was, however, fully satisfied that it was the Nile.

Just before I left my station the sun was already low, when I saw a flock of birds, which, in Syria, where they are plenty, are called the Cow-bird. In Egypt they are also numerous upon the Nile, but I do not know their name. They are a small species of the heron, about a third of the size of the common one, milk-white, having a tuft of flesh-coloured feathers upon their breast, of a coarser, stronger, and more hairy-like quality than the shorter feathers. A flock of these birds was flying in a straight line, very low, evidently seeking food along the banks of the river. It was not an hour for birds to go far from their home, nor does this bird feed at a distance from its accustomed haunt at any time. Satisfied then that, continuing our course N. W., we should arrive at or below Syene, I returned to join my companions; but it was now dark, and I found Idris and the Barbarins in some pain, endeavouring to trace me by my footsteps.

I communicated to them this joyful news, which was confirmed by Idris, though he did not himself know the just distance from this place (Abou Seielat), as his usual way had been to Daroo, not to Assouan, which he did not choose to approach, for fear of vexations from the Turkish garrison. A cry of joy followed this annunciation. Christians, Moors, and Turks, all burst into floods of tears, kissing and embracing one another, and thanking God for his mercy in this deliverance; and unanimously, in token of their gratitude, and acknowledgment of my constant attention to them in the whole of this long journey, saluting me with the name of Abou Ferege, Father Foresight, the only reward it was in their power to give.

On the 29th, at seven o'clock in the morning, we left Abou Seielat; about nine, we saw the palm-trees at Assouan; and a quarter before ten arrived in a grove of palm-trees on the north of that city.

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Last updated on January 25, 2003 by Sylvia and Kevin.