This traveller, who for enterprise and courage has
seldom been surpassed, was born in the year 1751,
at Groton, a small village on the river Thames, in
Connecticut, in the United States. He had, at a very
early age, the misfortune to be deprived of his father;
and although his mother, a woman of remarkable
164piety and benevolence, discharged with exemplary
affection her duties towards him and her other
children, notwithstanding a second marriage, this
circumstance cut him off from all those advantages
which the moral education received in a well-regulated
family under the paternal roof confers. Owing
in a great measure to the political condition of the
country, but principally, perhaps, to the restlessness
of his own character, his youthful studies were
irregular and ill-directed. He frequently changed
his inclinations in the choice of a profession. At
one time the law, at another the career of a missionary
among the Indians, captivated his fancy.
When both these schemes of life had been, one after
the other, abandoned, his imagination appears to
have dwelt with complacency for a moment on the
peaceful studies and noiseless, though important,
avocations of a country clergyman.
The completion of the slender education which he
received was effected at Dartmouth College, an institution
established by the Rev. Dr. Wheelock, in
the back woods, with the benevolent design of scattering
the seeds of religion and civilization among
the Indian nations. Here Ledyard, whose mind was
as impatient of the salutary restraints of discipline
as that of any savage upon earth, exhibited unequivocal
tokens of those locomotive propensities which
afterward goaded him into rather than directed him
in his romantic but almost aimless wanderings over
the greater part of the habitable world. For ordinary
studies he had evidently no aptitude. He read,
indeed, but it was such reading as beguiled away the
time, and nourished the fantastic vagaries of his
imagination, without much enlarging his mind, or
knitting his character into firmness or consistency.
In many respects he scarcely yielded to the knight
of La Mancha. What does the reader think he carried
with him to college, whither he was proceeding
for the purpose of fitting himself for spreading the
165light of Christianity, and with it the blessings of
social life, among the Indians? Histories of former
missions, from the failure or success of which he
might derive light for his own guidance; or books
which, by unfolding the genuine character of savages,
might instruct him in the art of captivating their
affections and moulding their passions into manageable
forms? Nothing of the kind. But instead of
these, he drove across the woods to college in a
sulkey, containing a choice collection of plays, with
calico curtains, and various other materials for scenic
representations!
When he had been some time at Dartmouth, toiling
at studies which were wholly incompatible with
his tastes, he suddenly disappeared, and no one could
conjecture whither he had betaken himself. He was
absent upwards of a quarter of a year; and it afterward
appeared that during all this time he was wandering
among the savages, reconnoitring, as his
American biographer conjectures, the strong places
of ignorance and prejudice against which, as a missionary,
his future attacks were to be directed. It is
more probable, however, that the excursion was
undertaken merely to escape from the discipline of
the college, than which nothing, it is clear, could be
more irksome to him. After roaming as far as the
borders of Canada, picking up as he went along a
knowledge of the character and language of the
savages, which was of essential service to him in
his subsequent wanderings, he returned to Dartmouth,
and resumed his studies.
Nevertheless, a secret predilection, which operated
like destiny, already began to shape his course towards
its proper goal. An appetite for violent excitement
gradually discovered itself in his character.
Action of some kind or other became necessary.
To satisfy this longing he climbed mountains in
winter, and slept in the snow; but this sobering
couch, which we are told brought St. Anthony to
166reason, failed to produce so favourable an effect upon
Ledyard. He descended the mountain apparently
pleased to have discovered that slight hardships, at
least, would not kill him, and fully resolved, as soon
as opportunity should present itself, to put the force
of his constitution to still further trial. Accident
not furnishing him with an occasion for exhibiting
his prowess in this way, he took the matter into his
own hands.
Robinson Crusoe was evidently Ledyard’s beau
idéal of a hero. To the young mind which makes
companions of its own dream, solitude is sweet, as
it favours their growth, and throws a gorgeous mantle
over their deformities. Our young traveller seems
to have early conceived the design of achieving a
reputation, and in the mean while, until he should
have made the first step, and acquired the right to
exact some degree of consideration among mankind,
the dim forest, or the lonely river, was a more
agreeable associate in his mind than any of those
two-legged animals with which a residence at college
daily brought him into contact. He therefore
at once resolved to put an end to so mawkish a way
of life. Selecting from the majestic forest which
clothed the margin of the Connecticut River a tree
large enough to form a canoe, he contrived, with the
aid of some of his fellow-students, to fell and convey
it to the stream, which runs near the college.
Here it was hollowed out, and fashioned in the
requisite shape, and when completed measured fifty
feet in length by three in breadth. His young college
companions enabled him to lay in the necessary
store of provisions. He had a bear-skin for a covering;
a Greek Testament and Ovid to amuse him on
the way; and thus equipped, he pushed off into the
current, bade adieu to his youthful friends, turned
his back upon Dartmouth, and floated leisurely down
the stream. Hartford, the place of his destination,
was one hundred and forty miles distant. The
167country, during much of the way, was a wilderness,
and the river, of the navigation of which he was
totally ignorant, exhibited in many places dangerous
falls and rapids. However, youth and ignorance are
generally bold. He was, besides, too well pleased
at escaping from the irksomeness of regular study,
and, indeed, too much enamoured of danger itself to
have been terrified, even had he fully understood the
character of the river.
The canoe being carried along with sufficient
rapidity by the force of the current, he had but little
occasion for using his paddles, and filled up the intervals
of reflection with reading. He was thus
employed when the canoe approached Bellows Falls.
The noise of the waters rushing with impetuous
velocity through their narrow channel between the
rocks, roused him to a sense of his danger, fortunately,
in time to enable him by the strenuous use
of his paddles to reach the shore. His canoe was
dragged round the fall by the kindness of the good
people of the neighbourhood, who were amazed at
the boldness and novelty of his enterprise, and again
safely launched upon the waters below. No further
account is given of this singular voyage. He arrived
safely at Hartford about daybreak one fine morning
in spring, and astonished his friends by the strangeness
of his appearance, and the no less strange relation
of his adventures.
Whether or not any efforts were made on this occasion
to induce Ledyard to resume his missionary
studies is not known; but if there were it was without
success. His inclinations, as I have already
observed, had now taken another direction. He
was desirous of becoming a regular clergyman, and
exerted himself, unfit as he was, to obtain a preacher’s
license. Inferior claims have sometimes been
urged with effect; but Ledyard’s were rejected; and
in that reckless state of mind produced by disappointment
and disgust, which none but those who
168have been buffeted by adverse fortune can properly
conceive, he threw himself into the first gap which
he saw open, and determined to combat with the ills
of life in the humble condition of a common sailor.
In this capacity he sailed for Gibraltar, in the ship
of a Captain Deshon, who had been a friend of his
father. Though this gentleman, we are told, regarded
him more in the light of a companion than
as one of his crew, Ledyard seems to have conceived
no very favourable idea of a seafaring life
from his voyage across the Atlantic, and on his landing
at Gibraltar, determined to avoid a repetition of
the experiment by enlisting in the army. By the
solicitations of Captain Deshon, however, who at
the same time strongly remonstrated with him on
the impropriety of his conduct, he was released, and
returned with his liberator to New-London. This
voyage put to flight his romantic ideas respecting
the life of a mariner; and he once more saw himself
dependent on his friends, without profession or
prospect.
From the conversation of some of the older members
of his family, he had learned that in England
he possessed many wealthy relations; and the idea
now occurred to him, that could he but make himself
known to these, he should be received with open
arms, and lifted up at once to a respectable position
in society. With him to resolve and to act were the
same thing. He immediately proceeded to New-York,
where, finding a vessel bound for England, he
obtained a birth, probably on condition of his working
as a sailor. On landing at Plymouth, he found
himself penniless, and without a friend, in a strange
country; but his courage, sustained by the golden
hopes with which he amused his imagination, was
proof against misfortune. His calamities, he flattered
himself, were soon to have an end. He was
now within a few days’ journey of his wealthy relations;
and provided he kept, as the vulgar say,
169body and soul together, what did it signify how he
passed the brief interval which separated him from
his island of Barataria? Accordingly, relying upon
that principle in our nature by which compassion is
kindled, and the hand stretched forth to relieve, as
often as real honest distress presents itself, he set
out for London. On the way his good genius
brought him acquainted with an Irishman, whose
pockets were as guiltless of coin as his own; and
as it is a comfort not to be “alone unhappy” in this
“wide and universal theatre,” these two moneyless
friends were a great consolation to each other. In
fact, it is often among the poor and unfortunate that
fellowship is most sweet. The sight of another’s
sufferings excites our magnanimity. We scorn to
sink under what we see by another man’s experience
can be borne, perhaps, without repining. And
thus two poor devils without a penny may be of use
to each other, by reciprocally affording an example
of fortitude and patience. Ledyard and his Hibernian
companion begged by turns, and in this way
reached London, where they separated, each to
cherish his poverty in a different nook.
Hunger, which has a kind of predilection for
great cities, seems to sharpen the sight as well as
the wits of men; for, amid the vast throng of equipages
which jostle and almost hide each other in the
streets of London, Ledyard’s eye caught the family
name upon a carriage; and he learned from the
coachman the profession and address of the owner,
who was a rich merchant. El Dorado was before
him. He hastened to the house, and although the
master himself was absent, he found the son, who,
at all events, listened to his story. When he had
heard him out, however, he very coolly informed
our sanguine traveller that he wholly disbelieved his
representations, never having heard of any relations
in America; but that from the East Indies, he added,
they expected a member of the family, whom Ledyard
170greatly resembled; and that if in reality he
was the person, he would be received with open
arms.
This reception, so different from that which he
had anticipated, yet so extremely natural under the
circumstances of the case, was more than Ledyard’s
philosophy, which had not yet been sufficiently disciplined
by poverty, could digest; and he quitted
the house of his cautious relative with avowed
disgust. How he now continued to subsist is not
known. It appears, however, that in spite of his
distress he succeeded in making the acquaintance
of several respectable individuals, to whom he related
his story, and who, taking an interest in his
fate, exerted themselves to effect a reconciliation
between him and his wealthy friends, but without
success; for distrust on the one part, and haughtiness
on the other, intervened, and shipwrecked their
good intentions.
While our traveller’s affairs were in this precarious
or rather desperate state, an account of the preparations
which were making for Captain Cook’s third
voyage round the world reached him in his obscurity.
Ambition, which for some time seems to have been
almost stifled in his mind by his distresses, now
again awoke. He longed to form a part of the
glorious enterprise, and to behold, at least, if he
could not share in the achievements of the illustrious
navigator. As a preliminary step he enlisted in
the marine service; and having procured an interview
with Captain Cook, his energy and enthusiasm
so strongly recommended him, that the great discoverer
immediately took him into his service, and
promoted him to be a corporal of marines.
The expedition sailed from England on the 12th
of July, 1776. It consisted of two ships, the Resolution,
commanded by Captain Cook, and the Discovery, by
Captain Clerke. After touching at Teneriffe,
and the Cape of Good Hope, where they laid
171in a large stock of provisions, and live animals, designed
to be left at the various islands on which they
did not exist, they sailed towards the southern extremity
of New-Holland. In twenty-five days they
arrived at Kerguelen’s Island, then recently discovered.
It was barren, and totally without inhabitants.
There was, however, a scanty supply of grass,
and a species of wild cabbage, which they cut for
their cattle. Fresh water was found in abundance;
for it rained profusely, so that torrents came tumbling
down from the hills, and enabled them to replenish
their empty casks. Seals and sea-dogs covered
the shore; and vast flocks of birds hovered
around. Never having experienced in their lonely
island the danger of approaching man, they did not
fly from their visiters, but suffered themselves, and
more particularly the penguin, to be knocked down
with clubs. Here they celebrated Christmas, and
then proceeded to Van Dieman’s Land.
Within less than two months after leaving the
Cape of Good Hope they cast anchor in Adventure
Bay, in this island, which was then supposed to form
a part of New-Holland. At first no inhabitants
appeared, though, in sailing along the coast, they
had observed columns of smoke ascending between
the trees; but in a few days the natives, men,
women, and children, came down to the beach, exhibiting
in their persons the extreme of human
wretchedness. They were black, with negro features,
and woolly hair, besmeared with red ochre
and grease, and went completely naked. Bread and
fish, which were given them, they threw away; but
of the flesh of birds they appeared fond. Their
only weapon was a rude stick about three feet long,
and sharpened at one end. They had no canoes, no
houses, and appeared to be, to a great degree, destitute
of curiosity.
Having laid in a sufficient stock of wood and
water, the expedition proceeded to New-Zealand,
172where they remained a whole month, employed in
laying in provisions, and in making observations on
the character of the country and its inhabitants.
They found the New-Zealanders a race differing in
many respects from the natives of all the surrounding
islands. Cannibalism of the most revolting
kind flourished here in all its glory. The first
thought of a man on beholding the face of a fellow-creature,
like Fontenelle’s on seeing a flock of sheep
in a meadow, was what nice eating he would make;
and if they abstained from devouring their neighbours as
well as their enemies, it was merely from
fear of reprisals. Yet, united with propensities
which, if found to be ineradicable, would justify
their extermination, these people are said to possess
a vehement affection for their friends, constancy in
their attachments, and a strong disposition to love.
It is very possible that both their good and bad qualities
may have been misrepresented. The views and
feelings of savages are not easily comprehended, and
it is seldom that those who enjoy opportunities of
observing them possess the genius to divine, from a
few flitting and often constrained manifestations of
them, the secret temper of the soul.
During their stay at this island one of the mariners
formed an attachment for a young female cannibal;
and, in order to wind himself the more effectually
into her affections, he secretly caused himself to be
tattooed, resolving, when the ships should sail, to
make his escape, and relapse into the savage state
with his mistress. I say relapse, because from that
state we rose, and, whenever we can slip through
the artificial scaffolding upon which we have been
placed by philosophy and civil government, to that
state we inevitably return. These two lovers,
though deprived of the aids which language affords
in the communication of thought and sentiments,
contrived thoroughly to understand each other.
When the time for the departure of the ships arrived,
173the sailor, tattooed, and dressed like a savage, was
suffered to escape among the crowds of natives who
were hurrying on shore; but when the roll was
called to ascertain whether all hands were on board,
his absence was discovered. A guard of marines,
despatched in search of him by the command of
Cook, dragged him from the arms of his savage mistress,
who exhibited every token of anguish and inconsolable
grief, and leaving her in loneliness and
bitter disappointment on the beach, hurried the culprit
on board to take his trial for desertion. In consideration
of the motive, however, the commander
humanely remitted the punishment of the offence;
but it is extremely probable that his vigilance defrauded
a party of New-Zealanders of a feast, for as
soon as the ships should have been out of sight,
these honest people would no doubt have consigned
the sailor to their subterranean ovens.
Though desirous of making direct for Tahiti, or
Otaheite, contrary winds and boisterous weather
forced them out of their course, and as they now
began to be in want of grass and water for the cattle,
as well as fresh provisions for the men, it was
judged advisable to sail away for the Friendly
Islands. Many new islands were discovered during
this voyage, upon one of which, named Watteeoo,
they landed. Here, to his great astonishment, Omai,
the native of Tahiti whom Cook had taken with
him to England, found three of his countrymen, who,
having been overtaken by a storm at sea, had been
driven in their canoe to this island, a distance of
more than fifteen hundred miles. During the thirteen
days that they had been hurried before the gale,
without water or provisions, most of their companions
had perished of hunger, or, stung to phrensy
by their sufferings, had jumped into the sea. The
survivors were now settled at Watteeoo, and refused
his invitation to revisit their native country, the sight
of which could only renew their grief for the loss
174of their dearest friends. This fact suffices to explain
how islands extremely distant from the great
hives of mankind have been peopled, and exhibit in
their population resemblances to races from which
they would appear to be separated by insurmountable
barriers.
From hence they sailed to Tongataboo, an island
exceedingly fertile and covered with forests, where
they remained twenty-six days collecting provisions.
The natives, who, having ingrafted the vices of civilized
nations upon their own, have since exhibited
themselves under a different aspect, now appeared
to be a simple and inoffensive race. Much of their
leisure, of which they appeared to have but too-great
plenty, was occupied in curious religious ceremonies,
which, as among many civilized nations, were regarded
something in the light of amusements. Their
king, Poulaho, conducted himself with marked suavity
and respect towards his strange guests. Few
civilized individuals, indeed, coming suddenly into
contact with a new race of men, could have shown
more ease and self-possession than this savage chief.
However, he declined Cook’s invitation to go on
board the day after their arrival; but entertained
Ledyard, whose duty it was to remain on shore that
night, in a kind and hospitable manner.
“It was just dusk,” says our traveller, “when they
parted, and as I had been present during a part of
this first interview, and was detained on shore, I was
glad he did not go off, and asked him to my tent;
but Poulaho chose rather to have me go with him
to his house, where we went and sat down together
without the entrance. We had been here but a few
minutes before one of the natives advanced through
the grove to the skirts of the green, and there halted.
Poulaho observed him, and told me he wanted him;
upon which I beckoned to the Indian, and he came
to us. When he approached Poulaho, he squatted
down upon his hams, and put his forehead to the sole
of Poulaho’s foot, and then received some directions
175from him, and went away; and returned again very
soon with some baked yams and fish rolled up in
fresh plantain-leaves, and a large cocoanut-shell full
of clean fresh water, and a smaller one of salt water.
These he set down, and went and fetched a mess of
the same kind, and set it down by me. Poulaho
then desired I would eat; but preferring salt which
I had in the tent to the sea-water which they used, I
called one of the guard, and had some of that brought
me to eat with my fish, which was really most delightfully
dressed, and of which I ate very heartily.
“Their animal and vegetable food is dressed in the
same manner here as at the southern and northern
tropical islands throughout these seas, being all
baked among hot stones laid in a hole, and covered
over, first with leaves, and then with mould. Poulaho
was fed by the chief who waited upon him, both
with victuals and drink. After he had finished, the
remains were carried away by the chief in waiting,
who returned soon after with two large separate rolls
of cloth and two little low wooden stools. The
cloth was for a covering while asleep, and the stools
to raise and rest the head on, as we do on a pillow.
These were left within the house, or rather under the
roof, one side being open. The floor within was composed
of dry grass, leaves, and flowers, over which
were spread large well-wrought mats. On this Poulaho
and I removed and sat down, while the chief
unrolled and spread out the cloth, after which he retired;
and in a few minutes there appeared a fine
young girl about seventeen years of age, who, approaching
Poulaho, stooped and kissed his great toe,
and then retired, and sat down in an opposite part
of the house. It was now about nine o’clock, and
a bright moonshine; the sky was serene, and the
wind hushed. Suddenly I heard a number of their
flutes, beginning nearly at the same time, burst from
every quarter of the surrounding grove; and whether
this was meant as an exhilarating serenade, or a
176soothing soporific to the great Poulaho, I cannot
tell. Immediately on hearing the music he took me
by the hand, intimating that he was going to sleep,
and, showing me the other cloth, which was spread
nearly beside him, and the pillow, invited me to
use it.”
The manners of the people whom Ledyard had
now an opportunity of contemplating indicated a
character nearly the reverse of that of the New-Zealanders.
In what circumstances those extraordinary
differences originated it is foreign to the
present purpose to inquire. To account for them,
as some writers have done, by the influence of climate,
is wilfully to sport with facts and experience.
Within the same degrees of latitude, pursuing our
researches round the globe, we have black men and
white; cannibals, and races remarkable for humanity;
men so gross in their intellects that they retain nothing
of man but the shape, and others with a character
and genius so admirably adapted to receive the
impressions of laws and civilization, that they turn
every natural or accidental advantage of their position
to the greatest account, and run on in the
career of improvement with gigantic strides. This
was not Ledyard’s theory. He seemed everywhere
to discover proofs of the vast influence of climate in
rendering men what they are, morally as well as
physically; though he could not be ignorant that
while the climate of Greece and Italy remains what
it was in old times, the physiognomy of the inhabitants
has undergone an entire change, while their
moral condition is, if possible, deteriorated still more
than their features. The mind of man seems, in
fact, after having borne an extraordinary crop of virtues,
knowledge, and heroic deeds, to require, like
the earth, to lie fallow for a season. It cannot be
made to yield fruit beyond a certain point, upon
which, when it has once touched, no power under
heaven can prevent its relapsing into barrenness.
177The population scattered over the innumerable
islands of the Pacific have been in a remarkably peculiar
position from the time in which they were
discovered up to the present moment. Civilization
has, in a manner, been forced upon them. Their idols
have been thrown down; the bloody or absurd rites
of their religion have, in many instances, been exchanged
for the blessings and the light of Christianity;
and although silly or affected persons may
lament for the disappearance of what they term a
“picturesque superstition,” every real friend of humanity
will rejoice at seeing a church occupying
the site of a morai; and men, who once delighted to
feed upon the limbs of an enemy, employing themselves
in deriving subsistence from their own industry
and ingenuity.
The people of Tongataboo, at the period of Ledyard’s
visit, though neither cruel nor ferocious, were
partial to athletic exercises, and not averse to war.
It seems to have yielded them great satisfaction to
be allowed to display in the presence of their visiters
their vigour and dexterity, which were by no means
despicable. Their performances, which chiefly consisted
of wrestling and boxing, always took place
upon the greensward, in the open air; and in order
to prevent what was only meant for amusement from
degenerating into angry contests, a certain number
of elderly men presided over and regulated the exercises;
and when either of the combatants appeared
to be fairly worsted, they mildly signified the fact,
and this was considered a sufficient compliment to
the victor. Like the boxers of antiquity, they wore
upon the hand a kind of glove composed of cords or
thongs, designed to prevent their grappling each
other, and at the same time to preserve them from
dislocations of the joints, particularly of that of the
thumb. Sometimes, however, they engaged each
other with clubs, in which cases the performances
were highly dangerous. Our traveller witnessed one
178of these contests, which, as the persons engaged
were renowned for their superior skill, was protracted
considerably, though they are in general of
brief duration. At length, however, the affair was
decided by a fortuitous blow on the head. The vanquished
champion was carried off the ground by his
friends, while the conqueror was greeted with enthusiastic
shouts of praise from the spectators; and
“when these shouts ended, the young women round
the circle rose, and sang, and danced a short kind of
interlude in celebration of the hero.”
With the brilliant exhibition of fireworks, which,
in return for their hospitality and politeness, Cook
got up for their amusement, both Poulaho and his
people were greatly astonished and delighted. The
animals, likewise, which were new to them, excited
their wonder. Goats and sheep they regarded as a
species of birds; but in the horse, the cow, the cat,
and the rabbit they could perceive no analogy with
the dog or the hog, the only animals with which they
had till then been conversant.
The ideas of these people respecting property were
either very vague, or very different from those of
their visiters. Whatever they saw pleasing to the
eye in the possession of the white men, without considering
whether or not it was intended for them,
they immediately appropriated to themselves; probably
from the belief that these munificent strangers,
who bestowed upon them so many wonderful things,
were a kind of good genii, who, in their own case,
stood in no need of such articles. Cook did not understand
this simplicity. He attached the idea of a
thief to every person who touched what did not belong
to him, and punished these ignorant savages
with the same rigid justice, if we may so apply the
term, which he would have shown towards a hardened
offender at the Old Bailey. In one instance
even the justice of his conduct may be questioned.
One of the chiefs stole some peacocks from the ships,
179and Cook arrested, not the offender, but the king,
whom he kept in custody until the culprit came forward
engaging to restore the birds. This was an
absurd exercise of power, which could not fail considerably
to abate the respect of the natives for the
civilized portion of mankind.
From Tongataboo the expedition sailed to Tahiti,
where they arrived on the 14th of August. Here
Ledyard employed his leisure, which appears to have
been considerable, in studying the character and
manners of the inhabitants; and upon these points
his opinions generally agree with the received notions
respecting those people. In sailing northward
from this group they discovered the Sandwich
Islands, where they remained ten days; and then,
steering still towards the north, arrived without accident
in Nootka Sound, where they cast anchor in
nearly five hundred fathoms of water. Ledyard was
now on his native continent, and, though more than
three thousand miles from the place of his birth, experienced
on landing something like a feeling of
home. The inhabitants he found to be of the same
race with those on the shores of the Atlantic. In
stature they are above the middle size, athletic in
their make, and of a copper colour. Their long black
hair they wear tied up in a roll on the top of the
head, and, by way of ornament, smear it over with
oil and paint, in which they stick a quantity of the
down of birds. They paint their faces red, blue, and
white, but refused to reveal the nature of their cosmetics,
or the country whence they obtained them.
Their clothing principally consists of skins, besides
which, however, they have two other kinds of garments,
of which one is manufactured from the inner
bark of trees, and resembles our coarser cloths; the
other made chiefly from the hair of white dogs, and
wrought over with designs representing their mode
of catching the whale, which our traveller considered
the most ingenious piece of workmanship he anywhere
180saw executed by a savage. All their garments,
like those of the Hindoos, are worn like mantles,
and are invariably fringed, or ornamented in
some fashion or another at the edges. This species
of border ornament, denominated wampum on the
opposite side of the continent, was found, not only
all along this coast, but also on the eastern shores
of Asia. On the feet they wear no covering; and
if they occasionally cover their heads, it is with a
species of basket resembling that which is sometimes
worn by the Chinese and Tartars. In character
they were cunning, bold, ferocious, and, like the
inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, addicted to cannibalism.
From thence they sailed along the coast of America
to Behring’s Straits, in passing through which they
observed that both continents were visible at the
same time. The expedition having in vain traversed
the polar seas in search of a north-west passage, returned
towards the south. Before issuing through
the belt of the Aleeootskian Islands into the Pacific,
Captain Cook remained some days at Onalaska,
where Ledyard was engaged in an adventure highly
characteristic of his intrepid and chivalrous disposition.
Even on their first landing, many peculiarities
in the appearance and costume, no less than in
the moveable possessions of the people, strongly excited
their curiosity; for it was at once perceived
that there existed two races of men upon the island,
of which one might be supposed to be aboriginal,
while the other might be presumed to be adscititious;
an offshoot, in all probability, from the great Asiatic
stock. They were in possession of tobacco, and in
many instances wore blue linen shirts and drawers.
The circumstance, however, which excited most surprise
was the appearance of a young chief, bearing
with him a cake of rye-meal newly baked, and containing
a piece of salmon seasoned with pepper and
salt, as a present to Captain Cook. He informed
181them, by signs, that there were white strangers in
the country, who had come, like them, over the great
waters in a large ship.
This information excited in Cook a desire to explore
the island. It was difficult, however, to determine
in what manner the object was to be effected.
An armed body would proceed slowly, and might,
perhaps, be cut off,—an irreparable loss to the expedition.
The risk of a single individual would be
imminent, but his movements would be more rapid;
and if he should fall, the loss to the public would not
be great. Yet, as the commander did not think himself
justified in ordering any person to undertake so
perilous an enterprise, a volunteer was sought for;
and Ledyard presented himself. The great navigator
was highly pleased with this example of intrepidity,
for the brave always sympathize with the
brave; and after giving the traveller instructions
how to proceed, “he wished me well,” says Ledyard,
“and desired I would not be longer absent than a
week, if possible; at the expiration of which he
should expect me to return. If I did not return by
that time, he should wait another week for me, and
no longer.”
The young chief who brought Cook the rye-cake
and the salmon, with two persons who attended him,
were to serve as guides on the occasion. Being furnished
with a small quantity of bread and some
brandy in bottles, intended for presents to the Indians,
our traveller departed with his Indian guides,
and during the first day advanced about fifteen miles
into the interior. About nightfall they arrived at a
small village consisting of about thirty huts, some
of which were large and spacious, though not very
lofty. These huts were composed of a slight frame
erected over a square hole sunk about four feet into
the ground. Below the frame was covered with turf,
which served as a wall, and above it was thatched
with grass. Though the whole village, men, women,
182and children, crowded to see him, it was not with
the intense curiosity which their behaviour would
have exhibited had they never before beheld a white
man. Here they passed the night.
Their course had hitherto lain towards the north,
but they next morning turned round towards the
south-west. About three hours before night they
reached the edge of a large bay, where the chief
entered into a canoe, with all their baggage, and
intimating to Ledyard that he was to follow his other
companions, left him abruptly, and paddled across
the bay. Although rendered somewhat uneasy at
this movement, he proceeded along the shore with
his guides, and in about two hours observed a canoe
making towards them across the bay. Upon this
they ran down to the water’s edge, and, by shouting
and waving bushes to and fro in the air, attracted
the attention of the savages in the canoe. “It was
beginning to be dark,” says he, “when the canoe
came to us. It was a skin canoe, after the Esquimaux
plan, with two holes to accommodate two sitters.
The Indians that came in the canoe talked a
little with my two guides, and then came to me, and
desired I would get into the canoe. This I did not
very readily agree to, however, as there was no
place for me but to be thrust into the space between
the holes, extended at length upon my back, and
wholly excluded from seeing the way I went, or the
power of extricating myself upon an emergency.
But as there was no alternative, I submitted thus to
be stowed away in bulk, and went head foremost
very swift through the water about an hour, when I
felt the canoe strike a beach, and afterward lifted up
and carried some distance, and then set down again;
after which I was drawn out by the shoulders by
three or four men; for it was now so dark that I
could not tell who they were, though I was conscious
I heard a language that was new. I was conducted
by two of these persons, who appeared to be strangers,
183about forty rods, when I saw lights and a number
of huts like those I left in the morning. As we
approached one of them, a door opened and discovered
a lamp, by which, to my great joy, I discovered
that the two men who held me by each arm were
Europeans, fair and comely, and concluded from their
appearance they were Russians, which I soon after
found to be true.”
By these Russians, who had established themselves
in Onalaska for the purpose of collecting furs
for the markets of Moscow and Petersburg, Ledyard
was received and entertained in a most hospitable
manner; and when he returned to the ships was
accompanied by three of the principal persons among
them, and several inferior attendants. “The satisfaction
this discovery gave Cook,” says he, “and the
honour that redounded to me, may be easily imagined;
and the several conjectures respecting the appearance
of a foreign intercourse were rectified and confirmed.”
From Onalaska the expedition sailed southward
for the Sandwich Islands, and in two months arrived
at Hawaii. On entering a commodious bay discovered
on the southern coast of the island, they observed
on each hand a town of considerable size,
from which crowds of people, to whom the appearance
offered by the ships was totally new, crowded
down to the beach to receive the strangers. Their
number was prodigious. No less than three thousand
canoes, containing at least fifteen thousand
men, women, and children, were crowded in the bay;
and, besides these, numbers sustained themselves on
floats, or swam about in the water. “The beach,
the surrounding rocks, the tops of houses, the
branches of trees, and the adjacent hills were all
covered; and the shouts of joy and admiration proceeding
from the sonorous voices of the men, confused
with the shriller exclamations of the women,
dancing and clapping their hands, the oversetting of
184canoes, cries of the children, goods afloat, and hogs
that were brought to market squeaking, formed one
of the most curious prospects that can be imagined.”
Yet, amid all this vast multitude, no signs of hostility,
no disposition to insult or annoy the strangers
appeared. Both parties were very far at that moment
from anticipating that tragical event which
shortly afterward died their shores with blood, and
rendered the name of Hawaii memorable in the history
of discovery.
However, for the first few days extraordinary harmony
prevailed. Visits were made and returned;
fireworks were exhibited by the English; wrestling,
boxing, and various other kinds of athletic exercises
by the savages. During this continuance of good-humour
Ledyard obtained permission to make a tour
in the interior of the island, for the purpose of examining
the nature of the country, and of ascending,
if possible, the peak of Mouna Roa, which, though
situated in an island not exceeding ninety miles in
diameter, is regarded as one of the loftiest in the
world. He was accompanied by the botanist and
gunner of the Resolution, and by a number of natives,
some as guides, others to carry the baggage. Admonished
by the snows which glittered in dazzling
pinnacles on the summit of Mouna Roa, they provided
themselves with additional clothing to guard
against the effects of a sudden transition from the
heat of a tropical sun to intense cold. Their road
during the first part of the journey lay through enclosed
plantations of sweet potatoes, with a soil of
lava, tilled in some places with difficulty. Here and
there, in moist situations, were small patches of
sugar-cane; and these, as they proceeded, were followed
by open plantations of bread-fruit trees. The
land now began to ascend abruptly, and was thickly
covered with wild fern. About sunset they arrived
on the skirts of the woods, which stretched round
the mountain like a belt, at the uniform distance of
185four or five miles from the shore. Here they found
an uninhabited hut, in which they passed the night.
Next morning, on entering the forests, they found
there had been heavy rain during the night, though
none of it had reached them at the distance of about
two hundred yards. They traversed the woods by
a compass, keeping in a direct line for the peak;
and, finding a beaten track nearly in their course,
were enabled on the second day to advance about
fifteen miles. At night they rested under the shelter
of a fallen tree, and early next morning recommenced
their journey. It was soon discovered,
however, that the difficulties they had hitherto
encountered were ease itself compared with those
against which they were now to contend. To persons
unaccustomed as they were to walk, a journey
of so great a length would, under any circumstances,
have been a grievous task. But they were impeded
in their movements by heavy burdens; their path
was steep, broken, and rugged; and the farther they
proceeded the more dense and impenetrable did the
thickets become. At length, it became evident that
the enterprise must be abandoned; and with those
unpleasant feelings which accompany baffled ambition,
they returned by the way they had gone to
the ships.
In less than a fortnight after their arrival at Hawaii,
the discoverers, by their impolitic, or rather insolent
behaviour, had contrived to irritate the savage natives
almost to desperation. They saw themselves
and, what perhaps was more galling, their gods
treated with silent contempt or open scorn; while
their wives and daughters were contaminated by the
brutal lusts of the sailors. How far these circumstances
were within the control of Captain Cook, or,
in other words, to what degree of blame he is liable
for what took place, it is not our present business
to inquire. But assuredly, unless we choose wholly
to reject the testimony of Ledyard, our great navigator
186seems, during the last few days of his life, to
have been urged by a kind of fatality into the commission
of actions highly despotic and unjustifiable
in themselves, and, under the circumstances in which
they were performed, little short of insane. The
mere idea of converting the fence and idols of the
morai—objects sacred to them, however contemptible
in our eyes—into firewood, argues a reprehensible
disregard of the feelings of the natives. His
offer of two hatchets to the priest in payment reminds
one of Captain Clapperton’s promise of a couple of
guns, a few flasks of powder, and some rockets to
Sultan Bello, as the price of his putting down the
slave trade. But when the priest refused the proffered
payment, not so much on account of its preposterous
inadequacy,—of which, however, savage
as he was, he must have been fully sensible,—because
in his eyes no price was an equivalent for articles to
destroy which would be sacrilege, to proceed with a
strong hand in the work of destruction, profaning the
spot which contained the ashes of their ancestors,
and throwing down and bearing away the images of
their gods;—this was an outrage which the tamest
and most enslaved race would have found it difficult
to endure.
However, force was triumphant; but from that
moment the souls of the natives were on fire, and
revenge was determined on. A relation of the various
incidents and small events by which the tragic
action moved onwards to its completion would be
incompatible with my present design. Captain Cook,
accompanied by an armed force, in which Ledyard
was included, went on shore for the purpose of
making the king a prisoner, and of keeping him in
confinement on board, until certain articles stolen by
his subjects should be restored. The savages, with a
boldness worthy of admiration, opposed his designs,
and compelled him to retreat towards his boats.
Here, as the marines were endeavouring to embark,
187a contest took place; stones were thrown by the
natives; the English flew to their firearms; and a
chief, rushing on with an iron dagger in his hand,
stabbed Cook through the body. His guards, likewise,
were all cut off excepting two, who escaped
by swimming. The cannon of the Resolution were
now fired at the crowd, and this produced an almost
instantaneous retreat; though the savages, mindful
even in the midst of danger of the gratification of
their appetite, took care to carry along with them
the bodies of their fallen enemies, in order, by feasting
upon them at their leisure, to derive some trifling
comfort from their disaster.
The business now was to retire as quickly as possible
from the island, which they did; and having
again entered Behring’s Strait, and sailed about for
some time among the ices of the Polar Sea, they
returned by way of China and the Cape of Good
Hope to England, after an absence of four years and
three months.
In 1782 Ledyard sailed on board an English man-of-war
for America, not with a design to serve against
his country, but determined on seizing the first occasion
of escape which should offer itself. An opportunity
soon occurred. On arriving at Long Island,
then in the possession of the English, he obtained
permission of seven days’ absence from the ship, for
the purpose of seeing his mother, who then kept
a boarding-house at Southold, occupied chiefly by
British officers. “He rode up to the door, alighted,
went in, and asked if he could be accommodated in
her house as a lodger. She replied that he could,
and showed him a room into which his baggage was
conveyed. After having adjusted his dress he came
out, and took a seat by the fire, in company with
several other officers, without making himself known
to his mother, or entering into conversation with
any person. She frequently passed and repassed
through the room, and her eye was observed to be
188attracted towards him with more than usual attention.
He still remained silent. At last, after looking
at him steadily for some minutes, she deliberately
put on her spectacles, approached nearer to him,
begging his pardon for her rudeness, and telling him
that he so much resembled a son of hers who had
been absent eight years, that she could not resist her
inclination to view him more closely. The scene
that followed may be imagined, but not described;
for Ledyard had a tender heart, and affection for his
mother was among its deepest and most constant
emotions.”
He now visited his old friends and many of the
places which youthful recollections rendered dear to
him. He was everywhere well received, and employed
the leisure which he now enjoyed for several
months in writing an account of his voyage round
the world with Captain Cook. But when this was
done, many motives, among which want of money
was not the least, urged him to enter upon some new
plan of life. His favourite project at this time, and
indeed throughout the remainder of his life, was a
voyage of commerce and discovery to the north-western
coast of America; and during the remainder
of his stay in his native country he made numerous
efforts to obtain wealthy co-operators in his design.
Being constantly disappointed, however, he once
more turned his thoughts towards Europe, where the
spirit of speculation was bolder and more liberal, and
proceeded to France. Here his projects were eagerly
patronised, and as easily abandoned; and during
a long stay both at L’Orient and Paris he subsisted
by shifts and expedients, associating by turns with
every variety of character, from Jefferson down to
Paul Jones.
How he existed at all, unless upon the bounty of
his friends, is altogether inexplicable. He was now
reduced to the character of a mere adventurer, and
his life during this period affords no incidents worthy
189of being described. An Englishman, who had
given him fifteen guineas at St. Germain, shortly
afterward invited him to London, and procured him
a passage in a ship bound for the Pacific Ocean,
with a promise from the captain that he would set
him on shore upon any point of the north-west coast
which he might choose. He now once more appeared
to be verging towards the accomplishment of his
dearest wishes. He embarked; the vessel sailed
down the Thames, and put out to sea; but before
they were out of sight of land the ship was brought
back by an order from the government, and the voyage
was finally abandoned.
Ledyard’s enthusiasm, however, in the prosecution
of his designs, though it is probable that few could
perceive the advantages to be derived from their
accomplishment, procured him many friends in London;
and it is said that a subscription was set on
foot by Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Hunter, Sir James
Hall, and Colonel Smith. From the result of this
measure we must inevitably infer one of two things,—either
that the liberality of those gentlemen was
exceedingly scanty, or that their opinion of Ledyard’s
prudence was very low. From several circumstances
which afterward took place the latter is the more
probable inference. Be this as it may, we find him,
on his arrival at Hamburgh, with no more than ten
guineas in his pocket; and these, with reckless and
unpardonable absurdity, he bestowed upon a Major
Langhorn, an eccentric vagabond, who, after accepting
his money and reducing him to beggary, coolly
refused to bear him company on his journey to Petersburg,
alleging as his excuse that he could travel
in the way he did with no man upon earth. What
his mode of travelling was I have no means of ascertaining;
but from his conduct in this transaction it
may be inferred, without any great stretch of uncharitableness,
that Ledyard was fortunate in getting
rid of such a companion at the expense of all he was
190worth in the world. The man who is insensible of
a generous action could be no desirable companion
in any circumstances of life; but to be linked with
such an individual in traversing a foreign land would
have been a curse which few who have not experienced
a similar calamity can conceive.
Having at the same time bade adieu to his money
and the graceless major, he began to experience the
effects of his folly; for had he not, by singular good
fortune, found a merchant who consented to accept
a bill on a friend in London, and pay him the amount,
his travels must have terminated where he was.
This supply, however, enabled him to pursue his
route.
On arriving at Stockholm, Ledyard found that the
Gulf of Bothnia was neither sufficiently frozen to
enable him to cross it upon the ice, nor yet free
enough from ice to be navigable. Under these circumstances
he formed the daring resolution of travelling
round the gulf, a distance of twelve hundred
miles, “over trackless snows, in regions thinly peopled,
where the nights are long, and the cold intense,—and
all this to gain no more than fifty miles.”
Accordingly, he set out for Tornea, in the depth of
winter, on foot, with little money in his pocket, and
no friends to whom he could apply when his small
stock should be exhausted. Of this part of his
travels no account remains. Other travellers who
have visited Tornea in winter, under the most favourable
circumstances, describe in tremendous colours
the horrors of the place. “The place,” says Maupertuis,
“on our arrival on the 30th of December,
had really a most frightful aspect. Its little houses
were buried to the tops in snow, which, if there had
been any daylight, must have effectually shut it out.
But the snow continually falling, or ready to fall,
for the most part hid the sun the few moments that
he might have showed himself at midday. In the
month of January the cold was increased to the
191extremity, that Reaumur’s mercurial thermometers,
which in Paris, in the great frost of 1709, it was
thought strange to see fall to fourteen degrees below
the freezing point, were now down to thirty-seven.
The spirit of wine in the others was frozen. If we
opened the door of a warm room, the external air
instantly converted all the air in it into snow, whirling
it round in white vortices. If we went abroad,
we felt as if the air were tearing our breasts to
pieces.”
Such was the country through which Ledyard
made his way to Petersburg, which he reached on
the 20th of March, that is, within seven weeks from
his leaving Stockholm, making the distance travelled
over about two hundred miles per week upon an
average. Here he was well received by Professor
Pallas and other scientific men; and through the
interest of Count Segur, the French ambassador, obtained
the empress’s permission to traverse her vast
dominions. As he was compelled to wait several
months, however, for this indispensable document,
and was destitute on his arrival at Petersburg of
money, and almost of clothes, he drew a bill of
twenty guineas on Sir Joseph Banks, which he was
fortunate enough to get some one to discount. This
enabled him to await the leisure of Catharine, who
was too deeply plunged in her schemes of debauchery
and ambition to afford a thought on a poor houseless
wanderer like Ledyard. But at length the passport
was granted; and a Dr. Brown happening at that
moment to be proceeding with a quantity of stores
to Yakutsk for the use of Mr. Billings, who was then
employed by the empress in exploring the remoter
parts of Siberia and Kamtschatka, our traveller obtained
permission to accompany him.
They left Petersburg on the 1st of June, and in
six days arrived at Moscow. Here they hired a kibitka,
and proceeded at the same rapid rate towards
Kazan, on the Volga, where they remained a week;
192and then set off on the full gallop for Tobolsk. It
should be remarked, that Ledyard’s object in this
journey was not to see the country, but to reach the
north-west coast of America, where he hoped to
make some useful discoveries, as quickly as possible;
otherwise it would have been far wiser to have
“made his legs his compasses,” at the risk of consuming
years in the journey. In the vast plain
which stretches from Moscow to the Ural Mountains
there was, it is true, very little of the picturesque,
and not much of the moral, to captivate the
eye or interest the mind of a traveller; but there is
no country the careful examination of which may
not be made to yield both amusement and instruction.
Ledyard, however, was not answerable for the
rapidity of his movements; he accounted himself but
too happy in being allowed to share Dr. Brown’s
kibitka; and had it been in the empress’s power to
have darted him across Siberia upon an iceberg, or
astride upon a cloud, he would not have objected to
the conveyance.
From Tobolsk they proceeded to Bernaoul, the
capital of the province of Kolyvan, where Dr. Brown’s
journey terminated. At this place Ledyard remained
a whole week, and was entertained in a very hospitable
manner by the treasurer of the mines. He observes,
that the immense plain he had traversed in
reaching this city was in many places dotted with
large mounds of earth, which very much resembled
those supposed monumental piles found among various
tribes of North America, and the barrows or
heroic tombs of ancient Europe. In the people the
Tartar features began to appear before they reached
Kazan. But there existed great variety in the population;
the same village containing every variety of
mankind, from those with fair skin, light hair, and
white eyes, to those of olive complexion, and jet-black
eyes and hair. Poverty, as may be supposed,
was no stranger in these villages; for they had not,
193like the Chremylus of Aristophanes, discovered the
secret of restoring sight to Plutus; but this did not
discourage the fair moieties of the peasants from
painting their faces, like a discontented English
beauty, both with red and white. As these damsels
are not niggardly of their kisses, it would be useless
for them to adopt the custom which prevailed among
the ancient Greek ladies, of painting the lips; but
this, it would seem, is the sole consideration which
opposes the introduction of the custom. “The
Tartar, however situated,” says Ledyard, “is a voluptuary;
and it is an original and striking trait in
their character, from the grand seignior to him who
pitches his tent on the wild frontiers of Russia and
China, that they are more addicted to real sensual
pleasure than any other people.” This is a judicious
remark, and corroborates the testimony of the ancient
historian, who tells us that the Scythian ladies were
accustomed to put out the eyes of their male slaves,
that they might be ignorant of the name and quality
of the mistresses to whose wantonness they were
made subservient.
From Barnaoul he proceeded with an imperial
courier to Tomsk, discovering as he rode along marks
of the tremendous winds which sometimes devastate
Siberia. The trees of the forest were uprooted, and
whole fields of grain were beaten into the earth.
Hurrying onward in the same rapid manner, he
crossed the Yeïusei at Krasnojarsk, and entered a
rough mountainous country covered with thick forests,
which continued all the way to Irkutsk, where
he arrived in ten days after leaving Tomsk.
During his stay in this town he made an excursion,
in company with a German colonel, to the Lake
Baikal, which, in the Kalmuck language, signifies
the “North Sea.” Arriving on the shores of the
lake, they found a galliot, which in summer plies as
a packet across the “North Sea.” In this galliot
they went out with line and lead to take soundings;
194but having only fifty fathoms of line, which at one
hundred feet from the shore was wholly taken up,
they quickly abandoned their soundings, and returned
through the rain in the galliot’s boat to Irkutsk.
On the 26th of August he quitted Irkutsk, and proceeded
towards the point where he was to embark
on the river Lena for Yakutsk. The country in this
part was well cultivated, and therefore cheerful; but
the forest trees had already begun to drop their foliage,
and put on the garb of autumn. Having proceeded
one hundred and fifty miles in his kibitka, he
embarked with Lieutenant Laxman, a Swede, in a
boat on the Lena, and commenced a voyage of fourteen
hundred miles. Their boat was carried along
at the rate of eighty or a hundred miles per day, “the
river gradually increasing in size, and the mountain
scenery putting on an infinite variety of forms, alternately
sublime and picturesque, bold and fantastic,
with craggy rocks and jutting headlands, bearing on
their brows the verdure of pines, larches, and other
evergreens, and alpine shrubs.” All the way to Yakutsk
the river was studded with islands, which,
recurring at short intervals, added to the romantic
effect of the scenery; but the weather was growing
cold, and heavy fogs hung over the river until a late
hour in the morning. The mountains flanking the
river were said to abound with wolves and bears;
and there was an abundance of wild fowl, of which
our travellers shot as many as they pleased. Salmon-trout
was plentiful in the river; and the inhabitants
fished with seines, and also with spears, like the
natives of Tahiti, by torchlight.
On the 18th of September he arrived at Yakutsk,
where he immediately waited on the commandant
with his letters of recommendation, and explained
his desire of proceeding with all possible celerity to
Okotsk, before winter should shut in and cut off his
progress. The commandant, however, had received
secret orders to detain him; and under pretence that
195the season was already too far advanced, informed
him that he must pass the winter at Yakutsk.
Though nothing could exceed the rage and vexation
of Ledyard at this unexpected disappointment, he
was sensible that it was necessary to submit; the
determination of the despots around him being as
irresistible as destiny. He therefore bent his attention
to the consideration of the objects within his
reach; and in these compulsory studies awaited the
return of spring.
Of the Russians in general Ledyard’s experience
led him to think unfavourably; but “I have observed,”
says he, “among all nations, that the women
ornament themselves more than the men; that,
wherever found, they are the same kind, civil,
obliging, humane, tender beings; that they are ever
inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest.
They do not hesitate, like man, to perform a hospitable
or generous action; not haughty, nor arrogant,
nor supercilious, but full of courtesy, and fond of
society; industrious, economical, ingenious; more
liable in general to err than man, but in general also
more virtuous, and performing more good actions
than he. I never addressed myself in the language
of decency and friendship to a woman, whether civilized
or savage, without receiving a decent and
friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise.
In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable
Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen
Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled
Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering
Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman
has ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and
to add to this virtue, so worthy of the appellation
of benevolence, these actions have been performed
in so free and so kind a manner, that if I was dry I
drank the sweet draught, and if hungry ate the coarse
morsel, with a double relish.” These remarks,
to the correctness of which every man worthy of
196the name will bear testimony, do honour to the heart
no less than to the ability of our traveller; for many
who have been no less indebted, perhaps, than he
to the inexhaustible benevolence of women have
repaid the obligation with satire against the whole
sex.
During the winter, Captain Billings, who had formerly
been assistant-astronomer in Cook’s expedition,
but was now in the Russian service, arrived
at Yakutsk. He was surprised to meet Ledyard in
the heart of Siberia; but having a disinclination to
connect himself with any person not favoured by
fortune, evinced no disposition to be of the least service
to him. It has even been suspected, and not
altogether without probability, that Billings had some
share in bringing about the unfortunate catastrophe
which terminated Ledyard’s travels in Siberia. However,
previous to this event, he invited his old shipmate
to accompany him to Irkutsk, whither they
proceeded up the frozen Lena upon sledges. Here,
soon after their arrival, Ledyard was arrested as a
French spy, placed in a kibitka with two hussars,
and hurried back with incredible speed to the frontiers
of Poland, where he was dismissed, with the
strictest injunctions never again to enter the dominions
of Russia. It would now be idle to inquire into
the motives which urged the old profligate she-despot
into the commission of this act of flagrant
injustice. She had no doubt been told (Dr. Clarke
suspects by Billings) that his success might be some
way or another detrimental to the interests of her
commerce; and, without consideration or inquiry,
perhaps in some furious fit of rage or drunkenness,
she issued the order for his recall, which was executed
with no less barbarity than it was issued.
How the poor victim found his way from Poland
to London Heaven only knows. His sufferings, he
says, were too great to be disclosed. However, he
had scarcely reached London before a proposal was
197made to him to travel for the African Association,
which, wretched as he was, he was but too happy to
accept. The object of his mission, like that of many
other brave and adventurous men who have perished
in the same track, was to explore the centre of Africa
from Sennaar westward, “in the latitude and supposed
direction of the Niger.” For this purpose he
proceeded to Egypt; but having ascended the Nile
to Cairo, and made every necessary preparation for
travelling with a caravan to Sennaar, he was suddenly
attacked by a bilious disorder, and was poisoned
by the vitriolic acid which he took as a remedy,
in the month of November, 1788.
Mr. Beaufoy, secretary to the African Association,
who had several opportunities of conversing with
Ledyard while he was in London preparing for his
travels in Africa, has drawn the following character
of him, which, to those who consider the scantiness
of his means and the boldness of his designs, will
not appear exaggerated:—“To those who have never
seen Mr. Ledyard, it may not, perhaps,” says he,
“be uninteresting to know, that his person, though
scarcely exceeding the middle size, was remarkably
expressive of activity and strength; and that his
manners, though unpolished, were neither uncivil
nor unpleasing. Little attentive to difference of rank,
he seemed to consider all men as his equals, and as
such he respected them. His genius, though uncultivated
and irregular, was original and comprehensive.
Ardent in his wishes, yet calm in his deliberations;
daring in his purposes, but guarded in his
measures; impatient of control, yet capable of strong
endurance; adventurous beyond the conception of
ordinary men, yet wary, and considerate, and attentive
to all precautions;—he appeared to be formed
by nature for achievements of hardihood and peril.”
GEORGE FORSTER.
198
Born about 1750.—Died 1791.
It is greatly to be regretted that of the life of this
able and adventurous traveller little is known, excepting
that portion which was spent in acquiring
his reputation. He seems to have been born about
the year 1750. At the usual age he entered into the
civil service of the East India Company, and was
appointed to fill the office of writer at the Madras
presidency. Here he gradually rose in the usual
manner to offices of trust and emolument until the
year 1782, when he obtained permission to visit his
friends in England. Instead of adopting the usual
mode of returning by sea, he formed the hazardous
design of proceeding through the upper provinces of
India, Afghanistân, and Persia, into the Russian empire,
and thence by sea to England.
Fully aware of the difficulties and dangers of the
route, he made every necessary preparation which
could be effected in India, obtained bills upon merchants
in various cities on his road, and, still further
to ensure his safety, determined to adopt the Mohammedan
character as soon as he should quit the British
territories. With these views he proceeded to
Calcutta in the spring of 1782, and, having remained
some time at that city, set out on the 23d of May on
his journey up the country. His mind was naturally
full of those recent and memorable events which
established the British power in India; and he visited
with peculiar interest several of those fields where
our countrymen had won their bloody laurels, and
shattered to pieces the mighty fabric of the Mogul
empire.
199Having visited Burhampore, Moorshedabad, and
other places celebrated in the history of India, he on
the 25th of June embarked in a boat on the main
branch of the Ganges. The river in this place was
four miles broad, and, being agitated by a strong
wind, which threw the water into short breaking
waves, resembled an arm of the sea. The same evening
he arrived at Rajmahal. This place, which had
lately been the principal city and favourite residence
of a powerful and opulent chief, was now reduced
to the condition of an insignificant town, which, but
for its historical importance, and the mounds of
ruins interspersed among the modern buildings, would
have possessed but few claims to the attention of
the traveller. Forster, who, though by no means of
a gloomy disposition, was rather given to moralizing
upon the wrecks of ancient grandeur,—a habit which
in a country like Hindostan may be easily indulged,—sauntered
out in the twilight among the ruined buildings
upon the banks of the river, where he found an
old man employed in digging. With this remnant
of the past age, who happened to be more intelligent
and communicative than ordinary, he entered into
conversation, and from him learned many particulars
of the history of Rajmahal. This spot, he observed,
which he was then cultivating, was the site
of the Nobet Ghah, or music-hall, of the old palace;
and that within his recollection a capacious garden
had extended in front of his little enclosure, which
the Ganges had now swept away.
From Rajmahal he proceeded to Monghee, and
from thence to Patna, where he arrived on the 5th
of July. This city, which, according to the opinion
of several modern geographers, occupies the site of
the ancient Palibothra, is still a spacious and populous
place, enriched by its opium and saltpetre manufactories.
Being here, he could not resist the desire
to visit the spot on which a number of English prisoners
were massacred in 1763, by order of Cassim
200Ali, then retreating before our army. The sanguinary
command was executed by Sumroo, a German.
A monument, but without any inscription, has been
erected on the place.
On the 26th of July he arrived at Benares, a city
which, for its wealth, costly buildings, and the number
of its inhabitants, was considered the first then
remaining in the possession of the Hindoos. Hither
the professors of the confused and intricate, but frequently
sublime, theology of Brahma had retired
from all parts of Hindostan as the most holy spot
on earth. Being conversant with the language
necessary for the conducting of such researches,
Forster devoted the time spent at Benares in endeavouring
to penetrate, as far as a stranger was permitted,
into the mysteries of Brahminism. This subject,
after all the researches which have been made
by Europeans, is still enveloped in much obscurity.
It is not known whether, commencing in the grossest
polytheism, the sages of Hindostan gradually
elevated their minds to the knowledge of one supreme
and invisible God, or, commencing with this
simple and sublime truth, degenerated into polytheism
and idolatry. The latter is the prevalent theory.
It is thought more rational to imagine, that while in
every other department of knowledge mankind proceeded
from the less to the greater, and by constant
exercise improved their mind, the only instrument
which man possesses for measuring the universe,
their progress in theology, if I may so express myself,
has in general been retrograde, at least in Hindostan.
Forster was of this opinion. “There is
reason,” he says, “to believe, that in the more early
periods of time, before the priests of the Hindoos
had found it expedient, for the firmer establishment
of their sway over the minds of the people, to raise
a huge superstructure of emblematical worship, the
temples erected to the Supreme Being were plain
and void of personification. The remains of one of
201these are now to be seen on the summit of a hill
near the city of Kashmere, which, according to tradition,
had been dedicated to the Creator of the
world. In this the prayers of those who entered
were addressed to the Deity, without supplicating
the intercession of any intermediate agent, nor had
any image or symbol of the Divine Power a place.”
He was likewise informed that at Chillambram,
about twenty miles southward of Cuddalore, there
was another Hindoo religious edifice, plain, and
without any interior figure, which was devoted to
the worship of the “Invisible God,” and was never
approached but with tokens of profound awe and
reverence.
The foundation upon which this theory, which is
totally at variance with the history of human nature,
has been erected, it is not difficult to discover. In
the most remote and barbarous ages of the world,
as in all other times, some few men of superior
intellect and genius arose, to whom profound meditation
and an ardent desire of truth revealed the
unity of the Divine nature. These men, perhaps,
uniting eloquence with the enthusiasm of virtue, became
the nucleus of a small sect of pure worshippers,
erected temples to the true God, and laboured
to transmit the light of truth to posterity. But these
could never have been more in those times than
feeble points of light in the thick moral darkness
which brooded over the globe; and although their
temples and the tradition of their creed may in some
instances have been preserved, it would be an abuse
of common sense to infer from their enlightenment
a general diffusion of knowledge in their times, in
opposition to innumerable monuments attesting their
extreme ignorance and debasement.
It is not my intention, however, to follow Mr.
Forster in his inquiries, which are curious and liberal,
into the mythology and philosophy of the Hindoos.
The subject has been discussed by others,
202whose advantages and acquirements I am very far
from possessing; and although I am not on all occasions
satisfied with the explanations of Sir William
Jones or Mr. Colebrook, I should, even with the aid
of our ingenious traveller, despair of carrying light
into the works which they have left in obscurity.
Having spent three months in conversing with the
Brahmins, and endeavouring to see his way through
the obscure mazes of their religious system, Forster
set out on the 3d of November on an excursion to
Bijjighur, a place rendered famous, he observes, in
the Bengal annals, from a large amount of plunder
acquired there by the English. His first day’s journey
brought him to Luttufghur, about eighteen miles
south of Benares. The fort, situated in the centre
of a circular range of hills, and approached on all
sides through a dense and lofty forest, was now deserted,
and the passages leading to it were nearly
choked up with trees. The circulation of the air
being greatly impeded by the hills and woods, the
atmosphere had acquired a malignant quality, which,
exerting its influence on all animal bodies, produced
what in India is termed the hill-fever. In all places
of this kind, as, for example, at the southern foot of
the Gurwal and Kemaoon mountains, the water partakes
of the baneful quality of the air, by which in
part it seems to be impregnated with its pestiferous
properties, which may, however, be aggravated by
the continual falling of branches and leaves into the
rivulets and reservoirs.
In this desolate and deserted spot, where the elements
array themselves in properties so hostile to
life, our traveller found a Mohammedan fakeer, who
had taken up his lonely residence at the gate of the
fort. He was meager, wan, and nearly consumed by
the effects of fever and ague; but when he was advised
to leave so melancholy a situation, and go to
some other place where he might recover his health,
he replied, that he preferred an existence where he
203was, though under a load of misery, to the chance
of starving in districts where he should be wholly
unknown.
The view from the fort of Bijjighur, where he
arrived next day, is highly diversified and magnificent;
but when you throw the eye on the deep and
rugged precipice beneath, the prospect is infinitely
grand, though not divested of that horror which naturally
affects the mind when contemplating objects
from so abrupt a height. The rising and setting sun
here exhibits a magnificent scene, and excites a train
of ideas strongly impressed with a grateful admiration
of the First Cause of nature. The view of the
setting sun takes in the river Saone, which is seen
winding its stream, brightened by the rays of the
western light, through a long tract of diversified
country. A fort also appears on the side of a distant hill,
which is only brought out in the evening
prospect.
Returning from thence to Benares, he assumed for
his greater safety the name of a Georgian, and on
the 12th of December set out for Allahabad. On
this road, and indeed on almost every other in India,
the traveller seldom fails meeting with a public
lodging or a reservoir of water, where he may perform
his ablutions and quench his thirst. In every
respectable village there is a caravansary, of which
the stationary tenants are frequently women, some
of whom are very pretty. These approach the traveller
on his entrance, and in alluring language describe
the various excellences of their several lodgings;
and when the choice is made, which, says
Forster, is often perplexing, so many are the inducements
thrown out on all sides, a bed is laid out for
his repose, a smoking-pipe is brought, and the utensils
are cleansed for preparing his repast.
From Allahabad he went on to Lucknow, the capital
of the kingdom of Oude, a large but irregular and
filthy city, which contains little worthy the notice
204of a traveller. Here he remained some time, however,
and then proceeded through the Delhi province
to Rampoor, near the foot of the Kemaoon hills.
On setting out from this town he enjoyed a complete
view of the Himalaya mountains, covered with eternal
snows, and forming the boundary between Hindostan
and Tibet.
On arriving at Najebabad, a town built by Najeb
ud Dowlah to facilitate the commerce of Kashmere,
he found that the only caravansary in the place was
occupied, and thought himself fortunate in being admitted
into a cook’s shop, where kabobs and beefsteaks
were dressed in savoury taste for the public.
A better place for observing the manners of the
people he could scarcely have chosen. It was what
a coffee-house is in London, the resort of all the
newsmongers, idlers, politicians, and disbanded soldiers
of the district. Here, while he was eating his
dinner, he saw a boy enter, who inquired whether
there were any travellers going to Kashmere or Jummoo,
as the kafilah would depart next day. Upon
inquiry, he found that this kafilah consisted of about
one hundred mules laden with raw silk, cotton cloths,
and ordinary calicoes for the Jummoo markets. By
a banker, to whom he had been furnished with a
letter, he was introduced to the merchants of the
kafilah, who readily received him into their company.
He now dropped the character of a Georgian,
and represented himself as a Turkish merchant going
into Kashmere to purchase shawls. To accompany
him in this journey he hired a Kashmerian servant,
“a fellow of infinite jest,” whose memory was stored
with a thousand stories, every one of which he embellished
in the telling of it. He was otherwise an
active and excellent servant.
With this kafilah he left Najebabad on the 14th
of February, 1783, and on the 15th arrived at Lolldong,
where the province of Delhi is separated from
that of Serinagur, or Gurwal, by a small rivulet. On
205the north of this rivulet the kafilah now encamped,
and each of its members was soon busily engaged in
preparing for their journey through the forest, which
it was computed would occupy three days. The
extreme heat of the weather rendering a tent or
some substitute for one absolutely necessary, Forster
purchased a large black kummul or blanket,
which, being slantingly extended over a slight bamboo
frame, composed of a ridge-pole upheld by two
supporters, and fastened below by small pins, formed
a commodious and portable lodging. His baggage,
consisting of a thin mattress, a quilt, a canvass portmanteau
containing a few changes of linen, which
served for a pillow, together with the kummul, was
stowed behind him upon his horse. The Kashmerian
followed on foot.
Leaving Lolldong on the 22d, they began to ascend
the mountains. Next day, as they continued their
march through the forest, Forster, overcome by fatigue,
sat down under a tree to enjoy his pipe; but
while he was thus engaged, having apparently sunk
into that dreaming state which smoking sometimes
induces, the kafilah moved on and disappeared. The
ground being thickly covered with leaves, no trace
of a road was discernible; and when he mounted to
proceed, his horse, either terrified by the effluvia of
wild beasts lurking among the trees, or perceiving
the embarrassment of their situation, could with
difficulty be made to proceed in any direction. However,
he was at length forcibly put in motion; but
after traversing the forest in various directions,
without perceiving either road or habitation, or the
vestige of any creature, except great quantities of
elephants’ dung, he discovered a narrow path leading
through a wilderness to a small valley, whose
inhabitants kindly conducted him to the halting-place
of the kafilah.
In two days they arrived on the banks of the
Ganges, twelve miles above Hardwar. It was here
206about two hundred yards broad, from ten to fifteen
feet deep, and rolled along rapidly through gloomy
forests or barren flats. The woods in these parts
abounded with wild peacocks. On the 6th of March
he crossed the Jumma, which here equalled the
Ganges in breadth; both, however, were at their
lowest ebb. The scenery all the way from Lolldong
to the Ganges is woody, mountainous, and picturesque;
and the principal game are wild elephants,
which are hunted merely for their tusks. Before
them, to the north, was the vast snowy range of the
Himalaya, among the inaccessible pinnacles of which
the Hindoo has placed the heaven of India. Among
the roots of this Indian Olympus, which stretch out
their rough huge masses far into the plains below,
affording safe haunts for tigers and banditti, the kafilah
toiled along, continually ascending, towards
Kashmere.
On the 20th of March they arrived at Bellaspoor,
on the frontiers of the Punjâb, or country of the five
rivers. Here they remained three days, when, growing
weary of attending the slow motions of the caravan,
our traveller, with his servant and another Kashmerian,
pushed forward, crossed the Sutlej, and on
the 25th arrived at the camp of the Rannee of Bellaspoor,
then engaged in war with the chief of Kangrah.
The encampment of these rude soldiers was
a curious spectacle. Eight thousand foot and three
hundred horse, armed with matchlocks, swords,
spears, and clubs, were huddled together in extreme
confusion on two sides of a hill, under small sheds
composed of the boughs of trees. Four ordinary
tents, the only ones in the camp, afforded shelter to
the general and the principal officers.
Forster now learned that his progress towards the
enemy’s army, unless accompanied by an escort,
would be attended with much danger; and he accordingly
applied for the necessary protection to the
commander-in-chief, whom he found sitting under
207a banyan-tree, surrounded by a number of naked
officers, and reviewing some new levies who had
just come in from the woods. These wild recruits,
hitherto accustomed to a life of licentious freedom,
appeared to be so many members of the fawn and
satyr family, so fierce were their looks, so rude their
costume. On explaining his desires to the general,
he obtained a promise to be allowed to accompany
the first messenger who should be despatched to the
Kangrah camp.
However, our traveller was shortly afterward delivered
from the necessity of depending on the protection
of this uncouth mountaineer by the arrival
of a drove of asses laden with iron, which was pursuing
the route to Kashmere. To this party he now
joined himself, and, bidding adieu to the rannee’s
army, he proceeded towards that of the Kangrah
chief, which, after plundering the ironmongers of a
considerable sum, and putting the whole body in
great terror, affected to treat them with civility. In
this army there was a large detachment of Sikh
horsemen, and it was them that Forster, who well
understood their licentious manners and habits of
plundering, principally dreaded. At this moment,
therefore, he would willingly have sacrificed the
moiety of his property to ensure the remainder. But
there was no retreating; they were already in sight;
so, assuming to the best of his ability an air of confidence
and ease, he boldly advanced into the midst
of these formidable marauders. “Imagining our
approach,” says he, “to be that of the enemy, the
Sikhs were preparing for the fight, to which they
loudly exclaimed, in the tone of religious ejaculation,
that their prophet had summoned them. In
token of respect I had dismounted, and was leading
my horse, when a Sikh, a smart fellow, mounted on
an active mare, touched me in passing. The high-mettled
animal, whether in contempt of me or my
horse, perhaps of both, attacked us fiercely from the
208rear, and in the assault, which was violent, the Sikh
fell to the ground. The action having commenced
on the top of a hill, he rolled with great rapidity to
the bottom of it, and in his way down left behind
him his matchlock, sword, and turban. So complete
a derangement I feared would have irritated the
whole Sikh body; but on evincing the show of much
sorrow for the disaster, and having assiduously
assisted in investing the fallen horseman with his
scattered appurtenances, I received general thanks.”
It was about the middle of April when Forster
arrived at Jummoo, where, being supposed to be a
merchant from whom some advantage might be derived,
he was received by a Kashmerian with truly
oriental expressions of welcome. Upon a banker in
this city he had a bill for a considerable amount;
but on examining it he found, that having been frequently
soaked by the rain, and by his having fallen
into a river on the way, the folds adhered together
as if they had been pasted. However, the banker
contrived, by steeping it in water, to decipher its
import, and at once paid the money; though its shattered
condition might have afforded him a sufficient
pretext for delay. Being thus furnished with cash,
our traveller began to think of enjoying the pleasures
of Jummoo.
The trade and consequent wealth of this city arose
from the insecurity of the road through Lahore, occasioned
by the invasion of the Sikhs, which caused
merchants to prefer this tedious and difficult but
secure route. All articles of merchandise constituting
the trade between Kashmere and Jummoo are
transported by men, principally Kashmerians, who
carry their extremely heavy burdens, two of which
are considered a load for a strong mule, upon their
back, as a soldier does his knapsack. When he desires
to rest, the porter places under his pack a kind
of short crutch, which he uses in walking. “The
shawls, when exported from Kashmere, are packed
209in an oblong bale containing a certain weight or
quantity, which in the language of the country is
termed a biddery, the outward covering of which is
a buffalo or ox’s hide, strongly sewed with leather
thongs. As these packages are supposed to amount,
with little variation, to a value long since ascertained,
they are seldom opened until conveyed to
the destined market.”
On the 17th of April he set out on foot from Jummoo,
accompanied by a Kashmerian servant. The
roads were steep and rocky; and not having been
much accustomed to travelling on foot, he soon
found that it would be necessary to proceed more
slowly. His feet, in fact, like Bruce’s in the desert
of Nubia, were so severely bruised and excoriated,
that he walked with extreme pain and difficulty;
though, somewhat to assuage his sufferings, he had
carefully wrapped them round with bandages steeped
in oil. However, the cool bracing air of the mountains,
united with a feeling of security, and the certainty
of finding commodious lodgings and a good
supper at night, prevented his spirits from sinking;
and still further to invigorate his resolution, fancy
ever and anon placed before his mind the rich smiling
landscapes and sparkling streams of Kashmere.
After a tedious and harassing journey of ten days,
they reached on the 26th the summit of a lofty
mountain, from whence he enjoyed the first glimpse
of Kashmere. He now travelled in the suite of a
Mohammedan rhan, with whom he had fallen in on
the road; and this gentleman being a native of the
country, and held everywhere in the highest esteem,
he enjoyed the rare privilege of passing the custom-house
untaxed and unmolested. He therefore entered
with an unsoured temper into the paradise of
Hindostan, where the face of nature exhibited all
those features whose tendency it is to call up in the
mind images of cheerfulness and pleasure. “The
road from Vere Nang,” says Forster, “leads through
210a country exhibiting that store of luxuriant imagery
which is produced by a happy disposition of hill,
dale, wood, and water; and that these rare excellences
of nature might be displayed in their full
glory, it was the season of spring, when the trees,
the apple, the pear, the peach, the apricot, the cherry,
and mulberry, bore a variegated load of blossom.
The clusters also of the red and white rose, with an
infinite class of flowering shrubs, presented a view
so gayly decked, that no extraordinary warmth of
imagination was required to fancy that I stood at
least on a province of fairy land.”
It is in such regions as these, and not in our northern
climates, that the month of May is a season of
beauty. The plains, dotted with numerous villages,
and intersected by small rivers, were already waving
with a rich harvest; while every copse and woody
knoll gave shelter to innumerable singing-birds,
whose notes made the whole atmosphere appear
alive with music. Having reached Pamper, our
traveller embarked in a boat on the Jylum, and proceeded
by water to the city of Serinagur, which,
with its houses covered with parterres of beautiful
flowers, possesses at a distance a splendid and imposing
aspect, answering in some degree to the idea
which the historians of the flourishing days of India
have given of it. But on entering the streets the
illusion is quickly dissipated. Slaves are invariably
filthy in their habits, and the people of Kashmere are
now the slaves of the Afghans.
One of the principal beauties of this magnificent
valley is its lake, a sheet of water five or six miles
in circumference, interspersed with numerous small
islands, and surrounded in its whole extent by shores
singularly picturesque and romantic. We have
already given, in the life of Bernier, some account
of Serinagur and its environs; but it may be interesting
to add here the picture of the Shalimar, which
our traveller drew upon the spot nearly one hundred
211and fifty years after, when the power of the Moguls
had passed away, and their palaces become the
haunts of tenants more destructive than the owls
and serpents of Babylon. “In the centre of the
plain,” says he, “as it approaches the lake, one of
the Delhi emperors constructed a spacious garden
called the Shalimar, which is abundantly stored with
fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Some of the rivulets
which intersect the plain are led into a canal at
the back of the garden, and, flowing through its
centre, or occasionally thrown into a variety of
water-works, compose the chief beauty of the Shalimar.
To decorate this spot the Mogul princes of
India have displayed equal magnificence and taste,
especially Jehangheer, who, with the enchanting
Moormahal, made Kashmere his usual residence
during the summer months, and largely contributed to
improve its natural advantages. On arches thrown
over the canal are erected, at equal distances, four
or five suites of apartments, each consisting of a saloon,
with four rooms at the angles, where the followers
of the court attend, and the servants prepare
sherbets, coffee, and the hookah. The frame of the
doors of the principal saloon is composed of pieces
of stone of a black colour, streaked with yellow
lines, and of a closer grain and higher polish than
porphyry. They were taken, it is said, from a Hindoo
temple by one of the Mogul princes, and are
esteemed of great value. The canal of the Shalimar
is constructed of masonry as far as the lower pavilion,
from whence the stream is conveyed through
a bed of earth, in the centre of an avenue of spreading
trees, to the lake, which, with other streams of
less note, it supplies and refreshes.”
The environs of the city are adorned with private
gardens. Here, and throughout the whole valley,
the oriental plane-tree is carefully cultivated, and
arrives at greater perfection than in any other country.
It commonly attains the size of an oak, and,
212with its straight taper stem, silver bark, and pale-green
leaf resembling an expanded hand, is, when in
full foliage, a splendid and beautiful tree, and affords
a grateful and refreshing shade. But the chief glory
of Kashmere is its rose, of all the vegetable world
the most exquisite production, unrivalled for its brilliancy
and delicacy of odour, and yielding an essential
oil, or attar, in comparison with which all other
perfumes are as dross. The season when the rose
first opens into blossom is celebrated as a festival
by the inhabitants of the valley, who, repairing in
crowds to the surrounding gardens, give loose to
their passions, and riot in every species of licentious
rejoicing.
But the wealth and fame of Kashmere have been
chiefly derived from the manufacture of shawls, unrivalled
for their fineness and beauty. The wool, or
rather down, from which they are fabricated is not
the growth of the country, but brought from districts
of the high table-land of Tibet, a month’s journey to
the north-east, where alone the shawl-goat will
properly thrive. Various attempts have been made
by the emperors of Hindostan and the kings of Persia
to introduce this species of goat into their dominions;
but the wool has always been found to be
of an inferior quality. The French have lately imitated
the examples of the Mogul and Persian sovereigns,
and they may no doubt succeed in procuring
a coarse kind of wool from which very useful shawls
may be manufactured; but it may without much
rashness be predicted, that in the attempt to rival
the shawls of Kashmere they will inevitably fail,
since no part of France is sufficiently analogous to
the lofty plains of Tibet to afford the shawl-goat an
exactly similar position with respect to climate,
water, and food. Of all imitations that of the Persians,
from the wool of Kerman, is said to approach
most nearly to the shawl of Kashmere.
The wool, when imported, is of a dark-gray colour,
213and is bleached in Kashmere by means of a certain
preparation of rice-flour. The whitest down,
which is said to be brought from Rodank, is reckoned
the best, and sells in the valley from ten to
twenty rupees the turruk, about twelve pounds. No
exact estimate of the number of shawls manufactured
in the year can be made. There are said to be
about sixteen thousand looms, each occupying three
men, employed; and supposing, with a contemporary
author, that five shawls on an average are made
annually to each loom, the total number would
amount to eighty thousand. The shop of the
weavers consists of a kind of framework, at which
the workmen sit on a wooden bench. Two persons
are employed on the plainest shawls, and the number
is sometimes doubled. The shuttle made use
of is long, narrow, and heavy. When the pattern of
the shawl is variegated, the flowers of figures are
worked with wooden needles, there being a separate
one for every different-coloured thread; and in such
cases the operation is exceedingly slow.
“The oostand, or head-workman,” says Hamilton,
“superintends, while his journeymen are employed
near him, under his directions. If they have any
new pattern in hand, or one with which they are not
familiar, he describes to them the figure, colour, and
threads that are to be used, while he keeps before
him the pattern on which they happen to be employed
drawn on paper. During the operation the rough
side of the shawl is uppermost on the frame, notwithstanding
which the head-workman never mistakes
the regularity of the most finished patterns.
A shop may be occupied with one shawl above a
year, provided it be a remarkably fine one, while
other shops make six or eight in the course of that
time. Of the best and most noted sorts not so much
as a quarter of an inch is completed in one day by
three persons, which is the usual number employed.
Shawls containing much work are made in separate
214pieces at different shops; and it may be observed,
that it very rarely happens, when the pieces are
completed, that they correspond in size.”
Forster was much disappointed in the women of
Kashmere. They were handsome brunettes, but by
no means endowed with that extreme beauty or elegance
of form which has been attributed to them by
other travellers. It is probable, however, that since
the period of the Afghan invasion, which introduced
into the country a rabble of adventurers from Kabul
and the neighbouring regions, the race may have
been deteriorated by a mixture with these ill-favoured
foreigners; and that poverty, compelling them to
have recourse to inferior food, and inducing habits
of filth and a general squalidness, may have considerably
aided in producing this result. In fertility
they have by no means degenerated. Their families
are numerous, whether poor or rich,—a circumstance
which our traveller, who participated in Montesquieu’s
opinion respecting the fecundity of all ichthyophagi,
partly attributes to the great abundance
of fish in their lakes and rivers.
During his stay in this country he was much
alarmed at the suspicions of a Georgian, who, on
observing the form of his head, which he averred was
too flat at the top to be that of a Mohammedan, declared
him at once to be a Christian. Forster, understanding
that this man possessed an estate at
Benares, in order to check his indiscretion or impertinence,
disclosed to him his true story, informing
him at the same time, however, that should any evil
arise from his treachery or want of discretion, his
estate would be confiscated, and the person of his
commercial partner residing in the British territories
exposed to punishment.
This circumstance, together with an increasing disgust
at the character of the people, induced Forster
to hasten as much as possible his departure from
Kashmere. But this was a measure not easily
215effected. No person could leave the province without
a passport from the governor, who, when this
document was applied for, observed, that the Turks
were good soldiers, and that as he just then happened
to be in want of men, he would employ the
traveller in his army. Forster now began to perceive
that his Turkish character, which had hitherto procured
him respect, was likely to advance him to a
post of honour which he had very little ambition to
occupy. One agent after another was employed to
obtain the passport from the governor, a ferocious
and sanguinary Afghan, who, like Charles IX. of
France, shot men for his amusement; and at length,
by dint of unremitted perseverance and a trifling
bribe, the selfsame Georgian who had conjectured
his religion from the form of his scull, with a sagacity
which would have done honour to Dr. Gall
himself, contrived to deliver him from the honour
intended him by Azad Khan, and obtain the tyrant’s
permission for his leaving the country.
Fearful lest the khan should alter his determination,
and transform him, whether he would or not,
into a trooper, he took into his service a Persian
boy, hired a horse of a native of Peshawer, who was
returning to that city, and on the 11th of June set
out from Kashmere. His evil genius, in the form
of vanity, had suggested to him the propriety of
adorning his person with a gaudy red coat, in the
pocket of which he deposited his passport. This
showy garment, which no doubt excited the envy
of many an Afghan beau, on the second day of his
journey was snatched by a thief from his bed just
as he was awaking, who, in spite of every obstacle,
succeeded in bearing off his plunder. Not having
passed the frontiers, he began to apprehend that a
return to the capital might be necessary; but found,
upon trial, that his Indian gold was considered every
whit as good as Azad Khan’s written permission.
The scenery through which his road now lay was
216of a magnificent description, mountainous, rocky,
savage, gloomy; forests below, snowy pinnacles
above, with here and there a torrent bursting and
dashing through rocky chasms with the noise of
thunder. The path, impassable to horses, which
were sent by another route, wound round the projections
of the mountains, and sometimes consisted
of a floor of planks laid over beams which were
driven into the cliff. The rivers were crossed in
baskets slung upon ropes, or on sheep’s or dogs’
skins inflated, and placed under the breast, while the
traveller impelled himself forward by the motion of
his feet. In other places a sort of bridge was formed
in the following manner:—A stout rope, fastened to
wooden posts on either shore sustained a number of
carved pieces of wood resembling oxen-yokes, with
forks placed vertically. The sides of these yokes
being embraced by smaller ropes afforded a hold to
the passengers.
On the 10th of July they crossed the Indus, about
twenty miles above the town of Attock. “The
stream,” says Forster, “though not agitated by wind,
was rapid, with a rough undulating motion, and about
three-quarters of a mile or a mile in breadth where
it was not interrupted by islands, and having, as
nearly as I could judge, a west-and-by-south course.
The water was much discoloured by a fine black
sand, which, when put into a vessel, quickly subsided.
It was so cold from, I apprehend, a large
mixture of snow then thawed by the summer heats,
that in drinking it my teeth suffered a violent pain.
In our boat were embarked seventy persons, with
much merchandise and some horses. This unwieldy
lading, the high swell of the current, and the confusion
of the frightened passengers made the passage
dangerous and very tedious.”
Next day, having crossed the Attock or Kabul
river, they arrived at Akora, where Forster entered
a spacious cool mosque to escape the intense heat
217of the sun, spread his bed, and laid himself down
quite at his ease. Here he remained until the time
of evening prayer, when he was summoned by the
moollah, or priest, to prepare himself for the ceremony.
Persons who adopt a fictitious character
commonly overact their part, and thus frequently
render themselves liable to suspicion; but Forster’s
error lay on the other side, which was perhaps the
safer; for, although it drew upon him the charge of
negligence, it by no means disposed his associates to
regard him as an infidel, their own practice too generally
corresponding with his own. In the present
case, upon his excusing himself from performing the
accustomed prayer on account of the debilitated
state of his body, the moollah replied, with extreme
contempt, that it was the more necessary to pray,
in order to obtain better health. The honest Mohammedan,
however, like the priests of Æsculapius
in Aristophanes, used, it seems, to make the tour of
the mosque at midnight, and compel his miserly
brethren to perform an act of charity in their sleep,
by disposing of a part of their substance for the benefit
of the establishment. From our traveller the
contribution attempted to be levied was his turban;
but happening unluckily to be awake, he caught the
holy marauder by the arm, and demanded who was
there. The poor man, utterly disconcerted at this
unseasonable wakefulness, replied, in a faltering
voice, that he was the moollah of the mosque,—the
same man, apparently, who had so rudely reprehended
the stranger for his neglect of prayer.
On the morrow a body of Afghan cavalry encamped
in the environs of Akora. This event spread no less
terror and consternation through the country than
if a hostile army had suddenly made an incursion
into it; for the licentious soldiery, devouring and
destroying like a swarm of locusts wherever they
appeared, conducted themselves with insufferable
insolence towards the inhabitants. It must be observed,
218however, in mitigation of the enormity of
their transactions, that they are in a measure compelled
to subsist themselves and their horses in this
manner; for their ignorant and unreflecting sovereign,
in need of their service, but unwilling to reward
them, suffers them in peaceful times to be
reduced to such distress, that they are frequently
constrained to sell their horses, arms, and even apparel,
to purchase a morsel of bread.
In three days from this they arrived at Peshawer,
a large, populous, and opulent city, founded by the
great Akbar. Of all the places visited by our traveller
in Northern India, none appeared to suffer so
intense a heat as this city; but by skirting round the
northern limits of the Punjâb he avoided Lahore,
where he would probably have found an atmosphere
equally heated with that of Peshawer. Other
cities, he observes, may be afflicted with a too-great
warmth; hot winds blowing over tracts of sand
may drive their inhabitants under the shelter of a
wetted screen; but here the air, during the middle
of summer, becomes almost inflammable. Yet, notwithstanding
this burning atmosphere, the inhabitants
enjoy exceedingly good health, and are but little
liable to epidemical disorders. This fact may easily
be accounted for. The air of Peshawer, like that
of the deserts of Arabia, in which the finest Damascus
blades may be exposed all night without contracting
the slightest rust, is extremely dry; and it
would appear that heat, however intense, is not,
when free from humidity, at all subversive of health.
Another circumstance greatly tended to increase the
salubrity of this city; provisions were excellent and
abundant, especially the mutton, the flesh of the
large-tailed sheep, said to have been first discovered
in South America.
There being no caravansary at Peshawer, Forster
took up his residence in an old mosque, where he
continued several days, melting in perpetual perspiration.
219While at Kashmere he had converted a part
of his property into a bill of five hundred rupees on
Kabul, which, in order to secure it from rain and
other accidents, he enclosed in a canvass belt which
he wore as a girdle. On examining the condition
of this bill some days after his arrival in this city,
he found that the writing had been so entirely obliterated
by perspiration that no one could read, or
even conjecture its subject, as from beginning to end
it was literally black. The discovery much disquieted
his mind, as he began to be apprehensive he
might be reduced to want money on his journey.
But his temperament was sanguine; and in order to
afford melancholy as slender an opening as possible,
he flew into society and laughed away his cares.
Still, the apprehension of a diminution in his
finances rendered him anxious to proceed; and meeting
with a man with whom he had travelled during
the early part of his journey, it was agreed they
should move on together, unite their means, and protect
each other. On inquiring into the state of his
companion’s finances, it appeared that he possessed
in cash one rupee, on which himself, a boy, and a
horse were to be subsisted until his arrival at Kabul,
a journey of twelve or fourteen days. As it seemed
clear that when this extraordinary fund should be
expended the Mohammedan would apply to Forster,
the latter, aware of the inconvenience and danger to
which a disclosure of the real amount of his property
might expose him, pretended to be but little richer,
and producing three rupees, the whole was considered
common stock; and his companion, with a face
brightened by faith and zeal, exhorted him to be of
good cheer, for that true believers were never deserted
in the hour of need.
In company with this cheerful Islamite he departed
from Peshawer, and, uniting themselves to a kafilah
proceeding in the same direction, they pushed forward
towards the west. During the second day’s march
220he discovered that rashness is not always a mark of
valour; for, advancing before the kafilah with about
thirty horsemen, who all appeared by their whiskers
to be men of desperate courage, they were met and
plundered by a small body of Afghans, who seemed
no way disturbed when the larger body of the kafilah
appeared in sight, but slowly retreated with their
booty.
During this part of the journey it was for many
reasons judged expedient by the leaders of the kafilah
to travel by night. But if they by this means
diminished the danger of falling a prey to the plundering
Afghans, they found in return that they had
other perils to encounter; for, boisterous weather
having come on, and the rain descending in torrents,
every hollow of the mountains became the bed of a
torrent, which, rushing down impetuously through
its steep channel, rolled along stones of a vast size
with a noise which, in the stillness of night, resembled
thunder. The sky, meanwhile, was overcast
with black clouds; and the roaring of the torrents
heard on all sides created in the mind of the traveller
a certain horror mingled with awe, and disposed him
involuntarily to consider this grand scene of nature
with sentiments of profound reverence.
On approaching one of these mountain streams,
which had been greatly swelled by the recent rains,
the commander of the kafilah escort, who was accompanied
by one of his favourite women, placed
her on a powerful horse, and, that she might not be
incommoded by the crowd, attempted to convey her
over first; but she had no sooner entered the water
than she was carried off among the black whirling
eddies of the current, and drowned. The Mohammedan,
thus suddenly deprived of his mistress, at
once forgot all thoughts of resignation to the decrees
of fate, and, throwing himself upon the ground in
the bitterness of his affliction, lamented his loss like
a giaour. This melancholy event occasioned the
221immediate halt of the whole kafilah, the tragical
fate of the lady having impressed their minds with
a salutary terror. Next morning, on searching along
the margin of the torrent, the body was found covered
with mud, and was interred upon the spot with
such ceremonies as time and place permitted. The
kafilah then crossed the stream, and continued its
march.
The road now lay through a black and desolate
track, scooped into hollows by torrents, or yawning
with natural chasms. It next entered a wide plain
well watered and interspersed with walled villages,
in the midst of which stands Kabul, the capital of
the Afghan empire, where they arrived safely on the
evening of the 2d of August. Here Forster took up
his abode with a Georgian named Bagdasir, to whom
he had brought a letter of introduction from his countryman
in Kashmere. To this man, as to the person
most likely to render him aid in such an affair,
he showed his bill for five hundred rupees; but when
it was found that not one single letter in it was
legible, the man shook his head, as well he might,
and predicted that no one would be found to discount
it. However, after application had in vain been
made in every other quarter, Bagdasir himself purchased
the bill for half its real amount, which, its
extraordinary condition being considered, was fully
as much as it was worth.
Not many days after his arrival at Kabul our traveller
was seized by a malignant fever, which for several
days menaced him with a much longer journey
than the one he had undertaken. Hot and cold fits
succeeded each other with singular violence; he
was tormented by insatiable thirst, and, as he endeavoured
to quench this by the constant drinking
of cold water, a most profuse perspiration was maintained,
which probably saved his life. His whole
body was covered with spots of a very bright colour,
shaded between purple and crimson, which he should
222have beheld, he says, with pleasure, supposing that
such an eruption would diminish the force of the disease,
but that some of his neighbours regarded them
as signs of the plague. This created a general
alarm, and they were about to exclude him from
their quarter, when he confidently asserted that the
fever of the plague always produced its crisis in three
days, whereas his had now continued seven; which,
together with the conduct of Bagdasir, who never
deserted him, somewhat assuaged their terrors, and
induced them to suffer his presence. His disorder
continued three weeks, and at length, when it disappeared,
left him so weak that he could with difficulty
crawl about the streets.
The religious toleration which prevailed at Kabul,
where Turk, Jew, and Christian lived equally unmolested,
induced him in an evil hour to throw off his
Mohammedan disguise and profess himself a Christian;
not considering, that however tolerant the
Afghans of this capital might be, the remainder of
his road, until he should reach the Caspian, lay
among bigots of the most desperate stamp, who regarded
the professors of all heterodox religions with
abhorrence, and reckoned it a merit to revile and
persecute them.
Having remained a full month at Kabul, he hired
one side of a camel, on which a pannier was suspended
for his accommodation, and on the 1st of
September joined a party proceeding to Kandahar.
The mode of travelling which he had now adopted
is peculiar to that part of the world, and deserves to
be particularly described. The camel appropriated
to the service of passengers, he observes, carries two
persons, who are lodged in a kind of pannier laid
loosely on the back of the animal. The pannier, in
Persian kidjahwah, is a wooden frame, with the sides
and bottom of netted cords, of about three feet long
and two broad. The depth likewise is generally
about two feet. The provisions of the passengers
223are conveyed in the kidjahwah, and, the journey
being commonly performed in the night, this swinging
nest becomes his only place of rest; for on the
kafilah’s arrival at its station he must immediately
exert himself in procuring provisions, water, and
fuel, as well as in keeping an eye over his property.
Forster soon found reason to regret his ill-timed
abjuration of the prophet. The camel upon which
he was stowed like a bale of merchandise was the
worst conditioned of the whole drove; and to comfort
him during his ride, a shrill-tongued old woman
and a crying child took up their quarters in the opposite
pannier, and contrived, the one by shrieking, the
other by scolding, effectually to chase away his
dreams. An old Afghan lady, with a very handsome
daughter and two grandchildren, occupied the panniers
of another camel. The rest were loaded with
merchandise. This old dame soon began a contest
with Dowran, the conductor of the kafilah, respecting
the mode in which the movements of the caravan
should be regulated; and after some desperate
skirmishes, in which the force of her lungs and the
piercing shrillness of her voice stood her in good
stead, victory declared on her side, and the party fell
under petticoat government.
Being now a declared infidel, and regarded by
every person as an unclean beast, whom it would be
pollution to touch, and worse than adultery to oblige
by any kind offices, our traveller enjoyed many of
the preliminaries of martyrdom, was hourly abused,
laughed at, mocked, and derided; and still further
to enhance the contempt which every person already
entertained for him, Dowran maliciously insinuated
that he was not even a Christian, but a Jew. When
the party arrived at their halting-place no one could
be tempted to assist him, not even for money;
imagining, I presume, that the gold which had lurked
beneath his “Jewish gaberdine,” like that derived
by Vespasian from a tax on urinaries, which his son
224Titus jocosely smelled in order to discover its scent,
must be accompanied by an unsavoury odour, which
might cleave to a true believer, and exclude him
after death from the arms of the houries. He was
therefore daily compelled to go himself in search of
water and dried camels’ dung to boil his tea-kettle,
and, what was much worse, to endure the smoke
which it emitted when first lighted, which entered
his eyes, and made him think that some Mohammedan
devil had transformed himself into smoke for
the purpose of tormenting him.
In the midst of this gehannum, which gave him the
more pain from its being of his own creating, he received
some consolation from the protection of the
Afghan lady, whose good-will he had won by fondling
the children and giving them sugar. Thus fortified,
he began by degrees to laugh at Dowran’s
beard; and if he did not return him the compliment
of being of the race of Abraham, it was more from
want of reflection than from apprehension of danger.
On the 26th of September they arrived at Ghizni,
the residence of the munificent and magnanimous
Mahmood, the patron of Firdoosi, and one of the
splendid princes whose actions adorn the annals of
the East. But “the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous
palaces, the solemn temples” of Ghizni had
long been trodden under foot by time; and, save
some scattered masses of misshapen ruins, not a
trace was to be seen of its former grandeur. The
tomb of Mahmood, however, still remains in the
neighbourhood of the city; and to this resting-place
of genius numerous pilgrims resort from distant
lands to say their prayers. The surrounding country
is interspersed with low hills, and, excepting in
some few cultivated spots, produces little else than
a prickly aromatic weed, which, with balls of unsifted
barley-paste, constitutes the common food of
the camel.
The kafilah arrived on the 5th of October at Kandahar,
225a flourishing and populous city, where he
remained three days, and then departed for Herat.
His camel companion now was a noisy, disputatious
theologian, who not only regaled him on the road
with menaces and arguments, but deterred a poor
half-starved Arab tailor, whose services Forster had
engaged, from eating the bread of an infidel, though
he saw clearly the poor man had no other to eat.
In this agreeable position he continued until the
2d of November, when they arrived at Herat, where
he determined once more to invest himself, if possible,
with the cloak of Mohammedanism. At the
caravansary, where he had been deposited by the
kafilah, with an ample tradition of his faith and practice,
so desirable a disguise was impracticable; but
he no sooner quitted the purlieus of his lodgings
than he became a grave hypocritical Mussulman, and
partook of the enjoyment of all his privileges. Nor
did he entertain any great fear of detection, it being
easy, in so motley a population as that of Herat, to
maintain successfully the most extraordinary disguise.
He daily frequented the eating-houses, where
all the talk of the day was circulated, and chiefly
fabricated, in conjunction with the barbers’ shops,
which in Herat have a neat appearance. In the
centre of it stands a small stone pillar, on the top of
which is placed a cup of water in readiness for operation,
while the sides of the shop are decorated with
looking-glasses, razors, and beard-combs. In one
great source of amusement Herat was at this time
deficient,—there were no dancing girls. However,
notwithstanding this remarkable desideratum, our
traveller, who was an accommodating person, and
contentedly put up with the blessings within his
reach, contrived to pass his time agreeably enough
when absent from the caravansary.
Learning at length that a kafilah was about to proceed
to Tursheez, a town of Khorasan, lying in the
direction of Mazenderan, he entered into an agreement
226with the director for a conveyance, but with a
confidential stipulation that he was to be received in
a Mohammedan character, as an Arab. The kafilah
departed from Herat on the 22d of November; and
as it had been agreed that he was to form one of the
family of the leader, he joined the party at the appointed
place, and took his station on a camel, with
a bag of rice on the opposite pannier. The advantages
of his new character were soon visible. Having
represented himself as a pilgrim going to the
shrine of Meshed, he was treated with the greatest
possible consideration by every passenger in the kafilah,
all of whom courted his society, as if holiness,
like the plague, were infectious. Our hajjî now rejoiced
and stroked his beard, to the ample dimensions
of which he owed a large portion of the veneration
which was shown him; and as he moved
along, caressed and admired by all who beheld him,
he must have felt no small gratitude towards Mohammed
for the sanctity which his religion had
thrown round the person of a pilgrim. This extraordinary
degree of respect exciting the kafilah conductor,
who considered that at this rate he might
possibly dwindle into nobody, even in the eyes of
his own camels and mules, he whispered about that
Forster in reality was no hajjî, nay, not so much as
a member of the church at all. His information,
however, was received with utter incredulity, and
attributed to his envious disposition; so that no evil
arose to the Meshed pilgrim.
It was now December, and the north wind, sweeping
with irresistible violence over the plains of Khorasan
from the frozen mountains of Tartary, brought
along with it a deluge of snow, which in a few hours
clothed the whole country in white. On arriving at
the village of Ashkara, the snow fell in such great
quantities that the roads were blocked up, while the
winds, hurling it along in tremendous drifts, seemed
to threaten the village itself with destruction. The
227whole party was admitted, after many earnest entreaties,
into a small dark room in the fort, where
they were furnished with an abundance of fuel; but
when they began to make inquiries respecting provisions,
they found with dismay that not a single
article of food was on any terms to be procured.
Yet, says the traveller, such cordial pleasures are
inherent in society, that though pent up in a dark
hovel, which afforded but a flimsy shelter against
the mounds of snow furiously hurled against it, our
good-humour with each other and an ample supply
of firing produced cheerfulness and content. A Persian
of more than ordinary education, and who possessed
a taste for poetry, amused them with reading
Jami’s story of Yousuf and Zuleikha, which, for its
scenes of wondrously pathetic adventure, and the
luxuriant genius of the poet, is admirably calculated
to soften the rigour of a winter’s day.
At this village they remained four days, during
which, though the fact is not stated, they must have
found something more substantial to subsist on than
Jami’s poetry; when, the storm having abated, they
pushed forward in the direction of Tursheez. On
arriving at this town, he found that every apartment
in the caravansary was already occupied; but a
small piece of money bestowed upon the gatekeeper
introduced him to a small chamber, in which, by submitting
to receive a partner in housekeeping, he might
reside comfortably enough during his stay. Our
traveller, on his part, regarded the companion with
still greater satisfaction than the chamber, and it
soon appeared that the feeling was mutual; for the
stranger, accosting him with evident tokens of joy,
observed, that the solitary life he had hitherto passed
at Tursheez was exceedingly tiresome, and that he
now anticipated a cordial relief by his company. It
was immediately agreed that a joint board should
be kept; that the stranger, being yet weak from a
recent sickness, should conduct the culinary operations,
228while Forster was to furnish water; a laborious
task, there being none that was good at a
nearer distance than a mile. This man, a gloomy,
mysterious person, soon departed for Herat; and
the traveller, together with a new companion, contrived
likewise to find a better apartment. This
second associate was a moollah, whose profession it
was to vend certain spells, which were powerfully
efficacious in conferring every species of worldly
happiness, and in excluding all evils. But
Nolint: atqui licet esse beatis.
The Persians of these parts had no taste for happiness;
so that this modern Thermander was, when
Forster met him, so thoroughly disgusted with his
attempts at banishing all misery from among his
countrymen, that he was willing, he said, to shut
up his book should any other prospect of a maintenance
be held out to him. When our traveller
offered him a participation of his fare, he therefore
joyfully quitted his profession as a wholesale dealer
in happiness, and consented to superintend the labours
of the kitchen, in which, by long practice, he
had attained a remarkable proficiency. “The excellent
services of my companion,” says Forster,
“now left me at liberty to walk about the town,
collect information, and frequent the public baths.
In the evening we were always at home; when the
moollah, at the conclusion of our meal, either read
the story of Yousuf and Zuleikha, which he did but
lamely, or, opening his book of spells, he would expound
the virtues of his nostrums, which embraced
so wide a compass that few diseases of mind or
body could resist their force. They extended from
recalling to the paths of virtue the steps of a frail
wife, and silencing the tongue of a scolding one, to
curing chilblains and destroying worms.”
While Forster and the moollah were enjoying this
peaceful and pleasant life, a large body of pilgrims
229from the shrine of Meshed suddenly inundated every
apartment of the caravansary; and as this motley
group of vagabonds were proceeding towards Mazenderan,
directly in his route, he was tempted to
join them and continue his journey, leaving his poor
companion to subsist once more upon the virtue of
his spells.
Accordingly, with this holy kafilah he departed
from Tursheez on the 28th of December; and being,
as the reader will have perceived, of an exceedingly
sociable disposition, he very quickly found a substitute
for the moollah in the person of a seid, or descendant
of Mohammed, who has doubtless more
descendants than any other man ever had. This
green-turbaned personage was a native of Ghilān,
and, take him for all in all, his conduct did more
honour to his great ancestor than any other member
of his family commemorated by European travellers.
With this honest man Forster very quickly entered
into partnership; but the seid being old and infirm,
the laborious portion of their operations necessarily
fell on the traveller. One little incident among
many will serve to show the terms upon which they
lived together. The kafilah having halted in a desert
on the 3d of January, 1784, at a small stream, “the
Ghilān seid and I,” says Forster, “had filled our
bottle for mutual use; and the bread, cheese, and
onions which supplied our evening meal giving me
a violent thirst, I made frequent applications to our
water stock. The seid, seeing that I had taken more
than a just portion, required that the residue should
be reserved for his ceremonial ablutions. While the
seid retired to pray I went in search of fuel, and,
returning first to our quarter, I hastily drank off the
remaining water, and again betook myself to wood-cutting,
that I might not be discovered near the
empty vessel by my associate, who had naturally an
irascible temper. When I supposed he had returned
from his prayer, I brought in a large load of wood,
230which I threw on the ground with an air of great
fatigue, and of having done a meritorious service
‘Ay,’ says he, ‘while I, like a true believer, have
been performing my duty to God, and you toiling to
procure us firing for this cold night, some hardened
kaufir, who I wish may never drink again in this
world, has plundered the pittance of water which
was set apart for my ablutions.’ He then made
strict search among our neighbours for the perpetrator
of this robbery, as he termed it; but receiving
no satisfactory information, he deliberately delivered
him or them to the charge of every devil in
the infernal catalogue, and went grumbling to sleep.”
In this way they proceeded until, having escaped
from the deserts of Khorasan, they entered the
mountainous, woody, and more thickly-peopled province
of Mazenderan, the inhabitants of which Forster
found more civilized and humane than the Khorasans.
On the night of the 24th of January, while
pushing on through the forests, most of the passengers
beheld a star with an illuminated tail, which, from
its form and quick motion, our traveller supposed to
be a comet. In several of the woods through which
their road now lay, no vestige of a habitation or
signs of culture appeared, excepting a few narrow
slips of land at the bases of the hills. But as they
proceeded the valleys soon “opened, and exhibited
a pleasing picture of plenty and rural quiet. The
village all open and neatly built, the verdant hills
and dales, encircled by streams of delicious water,
presented a scene that gave the mind ineffable delight.
The air, though in winter, was mild, and had
the temperature of an English climate in the month
of April.” Frazer, the able author of the Kuzzilbash,
has given in his travels a no less favourable idea of
the rich scenery of Mazenderan.
In a few days he arrived at Mushed Sir, on the
Caspian Sea, where he was hospitably received and
entertained by the Russian merchants established
231there. At this city he embarked for Baku, where he
shaved his beard, forswore Mohammed, and again
embarked in a Russian frigate for Astrakhan, where
he arrived on the evening of the 28th of April. From
this place, where he remained some time in order to
recruit his strength, he proceeded through Moscow
to Petersburg, which he reached on the 25th of May.
Here his stay was but short, for he had now become
impatient to visit England; and therefore, embarking
about the middle of June in a trading vessel, he
arrived in England in the latter end of July, 1784.
Forster seems to have occupied himself immediately
on his arrival in throwing into form a portion
of the literary materials which he had collected
during one of the most hazardous and adventurous
journeys that ever were performed; for in 1786 he
published in London his “Sketches of the Mythology
and Manners of the Hindoos,” which was received
with extraordinary favour by the public. How long
he remained in England after the publication of this
work I have not been able to discover; but we find
him in 1790 at Calcutta, where he published the first
volume of his “Journey from Bengal to England,”
and prepared the second volume for the press.
However, before the completion of his work, the political
troubles which at that period shook the whole
empire of Hindostan involved him in their vortex.
He was despatched by the governor-general, whose
personal friendship he would appear to have enjoyed,
on an embassy to Nagpoor, in Gundwarra, the capital
of the Bhoonsla Mahratta dynasty, where he died
about eight months after his arrival, in the month
of February, in 1791. His papers were conveyed to
England. Here, six years after his death, a complete
edition of his travels appeared, in two volumes
quarto; but the person who undertook the task of
editor, with a degree of negligence which cannot be
sufficiently admired, not only omitted to give the
public any account of the author, but, which is more
232unpardonable, did not even condescend to inform
them when, how, and from whom the manuscript
was obtained. However, the extraordinary merit
of the work, and the lively, laughing style in which
it is written, quickly recommended it sufficiently to
the literary world. The celebrated Meiners, professor
of philosophy in the university of Göttingen,
translated it into German; and Langlès, the well-known
orientalist, published in 1802 a French translation,
with copious notes, a chronological notice on
the khans of the Krimea, and a map of Kashmere.
In English there has not, I believe, appeared any
new edition,—none, at least, which has acquired any
reputation; though there are extremely few books
of travels which better deserve to be known, or
which, if properly edited, are calculated to become
more extensively popular. Forster was a man of
very superior abilities; and his acquirements—whatever
M. Langlès, a person ill calculated to judge,
may have imagined—were various and extensive.
He possessed an intimate knowledge of the Persian,
and the popular language of Hindostan; and appears
to have made a considerable progress even in Sanscrit.
Neither was he slightly conversant with
modern literature; and although it may be conjectured
from various parts of his work that the history
of ancient philosophy and literature had occupied
less of his attention, he may yet be regarded as one
of the most accomplished and judicious of modern
travellers. This being the case, it is difficult to explain
why he should now be less read than many
other travellers, whose works are extremely inferior
in value, and incomparably less amusing.
JAMES BRUCE.
233
James Bruce, one of the most illustrious travellers
whom any age or country has produced, was born
on the 14th of December, 1730, at Kinnaird, in the
county of Stirling, in Scotland. His mother, who
died of consumption when he was only three years
old, seemed to have bequeathed to him the same
fatal disorder; for during childhood his health was
bad, and his constitution, which afterward acquired
an iron firmness, appeared to be particularly feeble.
His father, who had married a second wife, by
whom he had a large family, sent James at the age
of eight years to London, where he remained under
the care of his uncle, counsellor Hamilton, until 1742,
when he was placed at Harrow school. Here he
remained four years, during which he made considerable
progress in his classical studies; and while
he commanded the enthusiastic approbation of his
teachers (one of whom observed, that for his years
he had never seen his fellow), he laid the foundations
of many valuable friendships which endured
through life.
On leaving school at the early age of sixteen,
Bruce, who at that time could of course understand
nothing of his own character, imagined himself admirably
adapted for the study of divinity and the
tranquil life of a clergyman; but his inclination not
receiving the approbation of his father, he necessarily
abandoned it, and prepared, in obedience to paternal
authority, to study for the Scottish bar. He
returned to Scotland in 1747, and, having spent the
234autumn of that year in destroying wild fowl and other
game, for which noble and rational species of recreation
he always, we are told, retained a peculiar predilection,
he resumed his studies, which, as they now
led him through the dusty mazes of ancient and
modern law, seem to have possessed much fewer
charms for our future traveller than shooting grouse
upon the mountains. Two years, however, were
uselessly consumed in this study. At the termination
of this period it was discovered that it was not
as a lawyer that Bruce was destined to excel; and
therefore, abandoning all thoughts of a career for
which he had himself never entertained the least
partiality, he returned in a considerably impaired
state of health to his favourite field sports in Stirlingshire.
Here he lived about four years, undetermined what
course of life he should pursue; but at length, having
resolved to repair as a free trader to Hindostan,
he proceeded to London in 1753 for the purpose of
soliciting permission from the directors. An event
now occurred, however, which promised to determine
for ever the current of his hopes and pursuits.
Conceiving an attachment for the daughter of an eminent
wine-merchant, who, on dying, had bequeathed
considerable wealth and a thriving business to his
widow and child, Bruce relinquished his scheme of
pushing his fortunes in the East, married, and became
himself a wine-merchant. But Providence had otherwise
disposed of his days. In a few months after
his marriage, consumption, that genuine pestilence
of our moist climates, deprived him of his amiable
wife at Paris, whither he had proceeded on his way
to the south of France. For some time after this
event he continued in the wine trade, the interests
of which requiring that he should visit Spain and Portugal,
he applied himself during two years to the study
of the languages of those countries, of which he is
said to have possessed a very competent knowledge.
235This preliminary step having been made, he may
be said to have commenced his travels with a voyage
to the Peninsula. Landing on the northern coast
of Spain, he traversed Gallicia, spent four months
in Portugal, and then, re-entering Spain, made the
tour of a large portion of Andalusia and New Castile,
and then proceeded to Madrid. His enthusiasm
and romantic character, which had probably a new
accession of ardour from the wild scenes still redolent
of ancient chivalry which he had just visited,
recommended him strongly to the Spanish minister,
who used many arguments to induce him to enter
the service of his Catholic majesty. This by no
means, however, coincided with Bruce’s views.
That restlessness which the man who has once conceived
the idea of travelling ever after feels, unfitted
him in reality for all quiet employment. He felt
himself goaded on by the desire of fame; to be in
motion seemed to be on the way to acquire it. He
therefore proceeded across the Pyrenees into France,
and thence, through Germany and Holland, to England,
where he arrived in July, 1758.
He had learned at Rotterdam the death of his
father, by which he succeeded to the family estate
at Kinnaird. He likewise continued during another
three years to derive profit from his business as a
wine-merchant; but at the termination of that period
the partnership was dissolved. All this while, however,
his leisure had been devoted to the acquisition
of the Arabic and other eastern languages, among
the rest the Ethiopic, which probably first directed
his attention to Abyssinia. In the mean while, an
idea which he had conceived while at Ferrol in Gallicia
was the means of bringing him into communication
with the English ministry; this was, that in
case of a rupture with Spain, Ferrol would be the
most desirable point on the Spanish coast for a descent.
Should the scheme be adopted, he was ready
to volunteer his services in aiding in its execution.
236The plans appeared feasible to Lord Chatham, with
whom Bruce had the honour of conversing on the
subject. But this great man going out of office
before any thing definitive had been concluded on,
Bruce began to imagine that the plan had been abandoned;
but was for some time longer amused with
hopes by the ministers, until the affair was finally
dropped at the earnest solicitation of the Portuguese
ambassador.
He now retired in apparent disgust to his estate
in Scotland; but shortly afterward, Lord Halifax,
who seems to have penetrated into Bruce’s character,
recalled him to London, and proposed to him, as
an object of ambition, the examination of the architectural
curiosities of Northern Africa, and the discovery
of the sources of the Nile. This latter achievement,
however, was spoken of in an equivocal manner,
and as if, while he mentioned it, his lordship
had entertained doubts of Bruce’s capacity for successfully
conducting so difficult and dangerous an
enterprise. Such a mode of proceeding was well
calculated, and was probably meant, to pique the
vanity of Bruce, and urge him, without seeming to
do so, into the undertaking of what with great reason
appeared to be an herculean labour. But whatever
may have been Lord Halifax’s intentions, which is
now a matter of no importance, the hint thus casually
or designedly thrown out was not lost. Bruce’s
imagination was at once kindled by the prospect of
achieving what, as far as he then knew, no man had
up to that moment been able to perform; and secretly
conceiving that he had been marked out by
Providence for the fulfilment of this design, he eagerly
seized upon the idea, and treasured it in his
heart.
Fortune, moreover, appeared favourable to his
views. The consulship of Algiers, the possession of
which would greatly facilitate his proceedings in the
early part of the scheme proposed, becoming vacant
237at an opportune moment, he was induced to accept
of it; and, having been appointed, he immediately
furnished himself with astronomical instruments and
all other necessaries, and set out through France
and Italy for the point of destination.
During a short stay in Italy, spent in the assiduous
study of antiquities, he engaged Luigi Balugani,
a young Bolognese architect, to accompany him as
an assistant on his travels; and, having received his
final instructions from England, he embarked at Leghorn,
and arrived at Algiers in the spring of 1763.
The leisure which Bruce now enjoyed, interrupted
occasionally by business or altercations with the dey,
was devoted to the earnest study of the Arabic, in
which his progress was so rapid, that in the course
of a year he considered himself fully competent to
dispense with the aid of an interpreter. In the Ethiopic
want of books alone prevented his making equal
progress; for with him the acquiring of a language
was a task of no great difficulty. He was now,
having thus qualified himself for penetrating into the
interior with advantage, peculiarly desirous of commencing
his travels; for to continue longer at Algiers
would, he rightly considered, be uselessly to sacrifice
his time; and he repeatedly requested from Lord
Halifax permission to resign his consulship. For a
considerable time, however, his desires were not
complied with. The critical position of the British
in that regency required a firm, intelligent consul;
and until a dispute which had just then arisen with
the dey respecting passports should be settled, it
was not judged expedient to recall Bruce, whose
intrepidity, which was thus tacitly acknowledged,
admirably adapted him to negotiate with barbarians.
The dispute arose out of the following circumstances:—On
the taking of Minorca by the
French, a number of blank Mediterranean passports
fell into their hands. These, in the hope of embroiling
the English and Algiers, they filled up and sold
238to the Spaniards and other nations inimical to the
Barbary powers. The effect desired was actually
produced. Ships were taken bearing these forged
passports; and although, upon examination, the
fraud was immediately detected by the British consul,
Bruce’s predecessor, it was not easy to calm the
violent suspicions which had thus been excited in
the mind of the dey, that the English were selling
their protection to his enemies. In fact, the conduct
of the governor of Mahon and Gibraltar, who, as a
temporary expedient, granted what were termed passavants
to ships entering the Mediterranean, strongly
corroborated this suspicion; for these ill-contrived,
irregular passports appeared to be purposely framed
for embarrassing or deluding the pirates. Bruce
endeavoured, with all imaginable firmness and coolness,
to explain to the dey that the first inconvenience
originated in accident, and that the second
was merely a temporary expedient; but it is probable
that had not the regular admiralty passports arrived
at the critical moment, he might have lost his life in
this ignoble quarrel.
This disagreeable affair being terminated, he with
double earnestness renewed his preparations for departure.
Aware that a knowledge of medicine and
surgery, independently of all considerations of his
own health, might be of incalculable advantage to
him among the barbarous nations whose countries
he designed to traverse, he had, during the whole of
his residence at Algiers, devoted a portion of his
time to the study of this science, under the direction
of Mr. Ball, the consular surgeon; and this knowledge
he afterward increased by the aid of Dr. Russel
at Aleppo.
The chaplain of the factory being absent, to avoid
the necessity of taking the duties of burying, marrying,
and baptizing upon himself, he took into his
house as his private chaplain an aged Greek priest,
whose name was Father Christopher, who not only
239performed the necessary clerical duties, but likewise
read Greek with our traveller, and enabled him, by
constant practice, to converse in the modern idiom.
The friendship of this man, which he acquired by
kindness and affability, was afterward of the most
essential service to him, and contributed more, perhaps,
than any other circumstance to preserve his
life and forward his views in Abyssinia.
At length, in the month of August, 1765, Bruce
departed from Algiers, furnished by the dey with
ample permission to visit every part of his own dominions,
and recommendatory letters to the beys of
Tunis and Tripoli. He first sailed to Port Mahon,
and then, returning to the African shore, landed at
Bona. He then coasted along close to the shore,
passed the little island of Tabarca, famous for its
coral fishery, and observed upon the mainland prodigious
forests of beautiful oak. Biserta, Utica, Carthage
were successively visited; and of the ruins of
the last, he remarks, that a large portion are overflowed
by the sea, which may account, in some measure,
for the discrepancy between the ancient and
modern accounts of the dimensions of the peninsula
on which it stood.
At Tunis he delivered his letters, and obtained the
bey’s permission to make whatever researches he
pleased in any part of his territories. He accordingly
proceeded with an escort into the interior, visited
many of the ruins described or mentioned by Dr.
Shaw, feasted upon lion’s flesh, which he found exceedingly
tough and strongly scented with musk,
among the Welled Sidi Booganim, and then entered
the Algerine province of Kosantina. Here, he observes,
he was greatly astonished to find among the
mountains a tribe of Kabyles, with blue eyes, fair
complexions, and red hair. But he ought not to have
been astonished; for Dr. Shaw had met with and
described the same people, and supposed, as Bruce
does, that they were descendants of the Vandals
who anciently possessed this part of Africa.
240Having visited and made drawings of numerous
ruins, the greater number of which had previously
been described more or less accurately by Dr. Shaw,
he returned to Tunis, and, after another short excursion
in the same direction, proceeded eastward by
Feriana, Gaffon, and the Lake of Marks, to the shores
of the Lesser Syrtis. Here he passed over to the
island of Gerba, the Lotophagitis Insula of the ancients,
where, he observes, Dr. Shaw was mistaken
or misinformed in imagining that its coasts abounded
with the seedra, or lotus-tree. He must have spoken
of the doctor’s account from memory; for it is of
the coasts of the continent, not of the island, that
Dr. Shaw speaks in the passage alluded to.
In travelling along the shore towards Tripoli
Bruce overtook the Muggrabine caravan, which was
proceeding from the shores of the Atlantic to Mecca,[8]
and his armed escort, though but fifteen in number,
coming up with them in the gray of the morning,
put the whole body, consisting of at least three thousand
men, in great bodily terror, until the real character
of the strangers was known. The English consul
at Tripoli received and entertained our traveller
with distinguished kindness and hospitality. From
hence he despatched an English servant with his
books, drawings, and supernumerary instruments to
Smyrna, and then crossed the Gulf of Sidra, or
Greater Syrtis, to Bengazi, the ancient Berenice.
Here a tremendous famine, which had prevailed
for upwards of a year, was rapidly cutting off the
inhabitants, many of whom had, it was reported, endeavoured
to sustain life by feeding upon the bodies
of their departed neighbours, ten or twelve of whom
were every night found dead in the streets. Horror-stricken
241at the bare idea of such “Thyestœan feasts,”
he very quickly quitted the town, and proceeded to
examine the ruins of the Pentapolis and the petrifactions
of Rao Sam, concerning which so many
extraordinary falsehoods had been propagated in
Europe. From thence he returned to Dolmetta
(Ptolemata), where he embarked in a small junk for
the island of Lampedosa, near Crete. The vessel
was crowded with people flying from the famine.
They set sail in the beginning of September, with
fine weather and a favourable wind; but a storm
coming on, and it being discovered that there were
not provisions for one day on board, Bruce hoped to
persuade the captain, an ignorant landsman, to put
into Bengazi, and would no doubt have succeeded;
but as they were making for the cape which protects
the entrance into that harbour, the vessel
struck upon a sunken rock, upon which it seemed to
be fixed. They were at no great distance from the
shore, and as the wind had suddenly ceased, though
the swell of the sea continued, Bruce, with a portion
of his servants and a number of the passengers, lowered
the largest boat, and, jumping into it, pushed
off for the shore. “The rest, more wise,” he observes,
“remained on board.”
They had not rowed twice the length of the boat
from the vessel before a wave nearly filled the boat,
at which its crew, conscious of their helplessness,
uttered a howl of despair. “I saw,” says Bruce, “the
fate of all was to be decided by the very next wave
that was rolling in; and apprehensive that some
woman, child, or helpless man would lay hold of me,
and entangle my arms or legs, and weigh me down,
I cried to my servants, both in Arabic and English,
‘We are all lost; if you can swim, follow me.’ I
then let myself down in the face of the wave. Whether
that or the next filled the boat I know not, as I
went to leeward, to make my distance as great as
possible. I was a good, strong, practised swimmer,
242in the flower of life, full of health, trained to exercise
and fatigue of every kind. All this, however,
which might have availed much in deep water, was
not sufficient when I came to the surf. I received a
violent blow upon my breast from the eddy wave and
reflux, which seemed as given by a large branch of
a tree, thick cord, or some elastic weapon. It
threw me upon my back, made me swallow a considerable
quantity of water, and had then almost suffocated
me.
“I avoided the next wave, by dipping my head and
letting it pass over; but found myself breathless, and
exceedingly weary and exhausted. The land, however,
was before me, and close at hand. A large
wave floated me up. I had the prospect of escape
still nearer, and endeavoured to prevent myself from
going back into the surf. My heart was strong, but
strength was apparently failing, by being involuntarily
twisted about, and struck on the face and breast
by the violence of the ebbing wave. It now seemed
as if nothing remained but to give up the struggle
and resign to my destiny. Before I did this I sunk
to sound if I could touch the ground, and found that
I reached the sand with my feet, though the water
was still rather deeper than my mouth. The success
of this experiment infused into me the strength of
ten men, and I strove manfully, taking advantage of
floating only with the influx of the wave, and preserving
my strength for the struggle against the ebb,
which, by sinking and touching the ground, I now
made more easy. At last, finding my hands and
knees upon the sands, I fixed my nails into it, and
obstinately resisted being carried back at all, crawling
a few feet when the sea had retired. I had perfectly
lost my recollection and understanding, and,
after creeping so far as to be out of the reach of
the sea, I suppose I fainted, for from that time
I was totally insensible of any thing that passed
around me.”
243In giving the history of this remarkable escape of
Bruce, I have made use of his own words, as no
others could bring the event so vividly before the
mind of the reader. He seems, in fact, to rival in
this passage the energetic simplicity and minute
painting of Defoe. The Arabs of the neighbourhood,
who, like the inhabitants of Cornwall, regard a shipwreck
as a piece of extraordinary good fortune, soon
came down to the shore in search of plunder; and
observing Bruce lying upon the beach, supposed him
to be drowned, and proceeded at once to strip his
body. A blow accidentally given him on the back
of the neck restored him to his senses; but the
wreckers, who from his costume concluded him to
be a Turk, nevertheless proceeded, with many blows,
kicks, and curses, to rifle him of his few garments,
for he had divested himself of all but a waistcoat,
sash, and drawers in the ship, and then left him, to
perform the same tender offices for others.
He now crawled away as well as his weakness
would permit, and sat down, to conceal himself as
much as possible among the white sandy hillocks
which rose upon the coast. Fear of a severer chastisement
prevented him from approaching the tents,
for the women of the tribe were there, and he was
entirely naked. The terror and confusion of the
moment had caused him to forget that he could
speak to them in their own language, which would
certainly have saved him from being plundered.
When he had remained some time among the hillocks
several Arabs came up to him, whom he addressed
with the salaam alaikum! or “Peace be with
you!” which is a species of shibboleth in all Mohammedan
countries. The question was now put to
him whether he was not a Turk, and, if so, what he
had to do there. He replied, in a low, despairing
tone, that he was no Turk, but a poor Christian physician,
a dervish, who went about the world seeking
to do good for God’s sake, and was then flying from
244famine, and going to Greece to get bread. Other
questions followed, and the Arabs being at length
satisfied that he was not one of their mortal enemies,
a ragged garment was thrown over him, and he was
conducted to the sheikh’s tent. Here he was hospitably
received, and, together with his servants,
who had all escaped, entertained with a plentiful
supper. Medical consultations then followed; and
he remained with the sheikh two days, during which
every exertion was made on the part of the Arabs
to recover his astronomical instruments, but in vain.
Every thing which had been taken from them was
then restored, and they proceeded on camels furnished
by the Arabs to Bengazi.
At this port he embarked on board of a small
French sloop, the master of which had formerly received
some small favours from Bruce at Algiers,
which he now gratefully remembered, and sailed for
Canea, in Crete; from whence he proceeded to
Rhodes, where he found his books, to Casttrosso, on
the coast of Caramania, and thence to Cyprus and
Sidon. His excursions in Syria were numerous, and
extended as far as Palmyra; but I omit to detail
them, as of minor importance, and hasten to follow
him into Egypt and Abyssinia.
On Saturday, the 15th of June, 1768, he set sail
from Sidon, and touching by the way at Cyprus, his
imagination, which was on fire with the ardour of
enterprise, beheld on the high white clouds which
floated northward above the opposite current of the
Etesian winds messengers, as it were, from the
mountains of Abyssinia, come to hail him to their
summits. Early in the morning of the fifth day he
had a distant prospect of Alexandria rising from the
sea; and, upon landing, one of the first objects of
his search was the tomb of Alexander, which Marmol
pretended to have seen in 1546; but although
his inquiries were numerous, they were perfectly
fruitless.
245From this city he proceeded by land to Rosetta,
and thence up the Nile to Cairo. Here he was hospitably
received by the house of Julian and Bertran,
to whom he had been recommended; and he likewise
received from the principal bey and his officers,
men of infamous and odious characters, very extraordinary
marks of consideration, his cases of instruments
being allowed to pass unexamined and free of
duty through the custom-house, while presents were
given instead of being exacted from him by the bey.
These polite attentions he owed to the opinion created
by the sight of his astronomical apparatus that
he was a great astrologer,—a character universally
esteemed in the East, and held in peculiar reverence
by the secretary of the bey then in office, from his
having himself some pretensions to its honours.
This man, whose name was Risk, in whom credulity
and wickedness kept an equal pace, desired to
discover, through Bruce’s intimate knowledge of the
language of the stars, the issue of the war then pending
between the Ottoman empire and Russia, together
with the general fortunes and ultimate destiny of the
bey. Our traveller had no predilection for the art
of fortune-telling, particularly among a people where
the bastinado or impaling-stake might be the consequence
of a mistaken prediction; but the eulogies
which his kind host bestowed upon the laudable
credulity of the people, and perhaps the vanity of
pretending to superior science, overcame his reluctance,
and he consented to reveal to the anxious
inquirer the fate of empires. In the mean while he
was directed to fix his residence at the convent of
St. George, about three miles from Cairo. Here he
was visited by his old friend Father Christopher,
with whom he had studied modern Greek at Algiers,
and who informed him that he was now established
at Cairo, where he had risen to the second dignity
in his church. Understanding Bruce’s intention of
proceeding to Abyssinia, he observed that there were
246a great number of Greeks in that country, many of
whom were high in office. To all of these he undertook
to procure letters to be addressed by the
patriarch, whose commands they regarded with no
less veneration than holy writ, enjoining them as a
penance, upon which a kind of jubilee was to follow,
says Bruce, “that laying aside their pride and vanity,
great sins with which he knew them much infected,
and, instead of pretending to put themselves on a
footing with me when I should arrive at the court
of Abyssinia, they should concur heart and hand in
serving me; and that before it could be supposed
they had received instructions from me, they should
make a declaration before the king that they were
not in condition equal to me; that I was a free citizen
of a powerful nation, and servant of a great king;
that they were born slaves of the Turk, and at best
ranked but as would my servants; and that, in fact,
one of their countrymen was in that station then
with me.”[9]
Our traveller was soon called upon to perform in
the character of an astrologer. It was late in the
evening when he one night received a summons to
appear before the bey, whom he found to be a much
younger man than he had expected. He was sitting
upon a large sofa covered with crimson cloth of gold;
his turban, his girdle, and the head of his dagger all
247thickly covered with fine brilliants; and there was
one in his turban serving to support a sprig of diamonds,
which was among the largest Bruce ever
saw. Abruptly entering upon the object of their
meeting, he demanded of the astrologer whether he
had ever calculated the consequences of the war
then raging between the Turks and Russians? “The
Turks,” replied Bruce, “will be beaten by sea and
land wherever they present themselves.” The bey
continued, “And will Constantinople be burned or
taken?”—“Neither,” said the traveller; “but peace
will be made after much bloodshed, with little advantage
to either party.” At hearing this the bey
clapped his hands together, and, having sworn an
oath in Turkish, turned to Risk, who stood before
him, and said, “That will be sad indeed! but truth
is truth, and God is merciful.”
This wonderful prophecy procured our traveller a
promise of protection from the bey, to whom a few
nights afterward he was again sent for near midnight.
At the door he met the janizary aga, who, when on
horseback, had absolute power of life and death,
without appeal, all over Cairo; and, not knowing
him, brushed by without ceremony. The aga, however,
stopped him just at the threshold, and inquired
of one of the bey’s people who he was. Upon their
replying “It is the hakim Inglese” (English physician),
he politely asked Bruce in Turkish “if he would
go and see him, for he was not well;” to which the
latter replied in Arabic, “that he would visit him
whenever he pleased, but could not then stay, as he
had just received a message that the bey was waiting.”—“No,
no; go, for God’s sake go,” said the
aga; “any time will do for me!”
Upon entering the bey’s apartment, he found him
alone, sitting, leaning forward, with a wax taper in
one hand, and in the other a small slip of paper,
which he was reading, and held close to his eyes, as
if the light were dim or his sight weak. He did not,
248or affected not, to observe Bruce until he was close
to him, and started when he uttered the “salām.”
He appeared at first to have forgotten why he had
sent for the physician, but presently explained the
nature of his indisposition; upon which, among
other questions, Bruce inquired whether he had not
been guilty of some excess before dinner. The bey
now turned round to Risk, who had by this time entered,
and exclaimed, “Afrite! Afrite!”—(He is a
devil! he is a devil!) Bruce now prescribed warm
water, or a weak infusion of green tea, as an emetic,
and added, that having taken a little strong coffee,
or a glass of spirits, he should go to bed. At this
the bey exclaimed, “Spirits! do you know I am a
Mussulman?”[10]—“But I,” replied the traveller, “am
none. I tell you what is good for your body, and
have nothing to do with your religion or your soul.”
The bey was amused at his bluntness, and said, “He
speaks like a man!” The traveller then retired.
Our traveller now prepared to depart; and having
obtained the necessary letters and despatches both
from the patriarch and the bey, commenced his
movements with a visit to the Pyramids. He then
embarked in a kanja, and proceeded up the river,
having on the right-hand a fine view of the pyramids
of Gizeh and Saccara, with a prodigious number of
others built of white clay, which appeared to stretch
away in an interminable line into the desert. On
reaching Metraheny, which Dr. Pococke had fixed
upon as the site of Memphis, Bruce discovered what
he thought sufficient grounds for concurring in opinion
with that traveller in opposition to Dr. Shaw,
who contends in favour of the claims of Gizeh. The
249Serapium, the Temple of Vulcan, the Circus, and the
Temple of Venus, the ruins of which should be found
on the site of Memphis, are nowhere discoverable
either at Metraheny or Gizeh, and are not improbably
supposed by Bruce to be buried for ever beneath
the loose sands of the desert. A man’s heart fails
him, he says, in looking to the south and south-west
of Metraheny. He is lost in the immense expanse
of desert which he sees full of pyramids before him.
Struck with terror from the unusual scene of vastness
opened all at once upon leaving the palm-trees,
he becomes dispirited from the effect of sultry climates,
shrinks from attempting any discovery in the
moving sands of the Saccara, and embraces in safety
and in quiet the reports of others, who, he thinks,
may have been more inquisitive and more adventurous
than himself.
Continuing to stem the current of the Nile, admiring
as they moved along the extraordinary scenery
which its banks presented, they arrived at the village
of Nizelet ul Arab, where the first plantations
of sugar-cane which Bruce had met with in Egypt
occurred. A narrow strip of green wheat bordered
the stream during the greater part of its course,
while immediately behind a range of white mountains
appeared, square and flat like tables on the
summit, and seeming rather to be laid upon the earth
than to spring out of and form a part of it. The
villages on the shore were poor, but intermingled
with large verdant groves of palm-trees, contrasting
singularly with the arid and barren aspect of the
rocky ridges behind them; and presenting many
features of novelty, they were not without their
interest.
On arriving at Achmim he landed his quadrant and
instruments for the purpose of observing an eclipse
of the moon; but the heavens soon after her rising
became so obscured by clouds and mist, that not a
star of any size was to be seen. Malaria here produced
250extraordinary effects upon the inhabitants, or
rather on the female portion of them; for while the
men were vigorous and active, from their constant
motion and change of air, the women, who remained
more at home, were of a corpse-like colour, and
looked more aged at sixteen than many Englishwomen
at sixty. They were nubile, however, at ten
years old; and Bruce saw several who had not yet
attained the age of eleven who were about to become
mothers.
In the afternoon of December 24th they arrived
in the vicinity of Dendera, which they visited next
morning, and found it in the midst of a thick grove
of palm-trees. Having examined its gigantic temples,
sculptures, and hieroglyphics, he returned to
his station on the river. It was in this neighbourhood
that he first saw the crocodiles. They were
lying in hundreds, like large flocks of cattle, upon
every island, yet inspired little or no terror in the
inhabitants, who suffered their beasts of every kind
to stand in the water for hours; while the women
and girls who came to fetch water in jars waded up
to their knees in the stream.
They arrived, January 7, 1769, at El Gourni, which
in Bruce’s opinion formed a part of ancient Thebes.
The stupendous character of the ruins, the temples,
the palaces, the sepulchres, the sarcophagi, the antique
paintings,—every thing appeared equally to
deserve attention; but his time was short, and he
employed it in copying a curious fresco executed in
brilliant colours on the wall of a tomb. He would
have remained longer, but his guides, pretending
apprehension of danger from the robbers of the
neighbouring mountain, refused to continue their
aid, and, dashing their torches against the walls,
retreated, leaving him and his people in the dark.
He then visited Saxor and Karnac, where he observed
two beautiful obelisks and two vast rows of
mutilated sphinxes, which, with similar lines of dog-headed
251figures, probably formed the avenue of some
magnificent structure.
From thence they proceeded to Sheikh Ammor,
the encampment of the Ababdé Arabs. Bruce had
met with Ibrahim, the sheikh’s son, at Furshoot; and
now, upon his arrival, this young man came forth
with twelve armed followers to meet him, and, conducting
him into a tent, presented him to his father,
Sheikh Nimmer, or the “Tiger Chief.” The old
man was ill, and Bruce’s medical knowledge now
enabled him, by allaying the sufferings of the sheikh,
to acquire a powerful and a grateful friend. Observing
the hospitable and friendly manner of Nimmer,
our traveller said, “Now tell me, sheikh, and
tell me truly upon the faith of an Arab,—would your
people, if they met me in the desert, do me any
wrong?”
The old man upon this rose from his carpet and
sat upright, and a more ghastly and more horrid
figure, says Bruce, I never saw. “No,” he replied;
“cursed be those of my people or others that ever
shall lift up their hands against you, either in the
deserts or the tell (the uncultivated land). As long
as you are in this country, or between this and Kosseir,
my son shall serve you with heart and hand.
One night of pain from which your medicines have
relieved me would not be repaid were I to follow you
on foot to Misr” (Cairo).
They then discussed together the means of facilitating
Bruce’s entrance into Abyssinia, and, after
much consideration, it was agreed that the most
practicable route was by way of Kosseir and Jidda.
The principal persons of the tribe then bound themselves
by an oath not to molest or injure the traveller;
but, on the contrary, in case he should ever
require it, to protect him at the hazard of their lives.
They would have extended their liberality still further,
intending to present him with seven sheep, but
these, as he was going among Turks who were
252obliged to maintain him, he requested they would
keep for him until his return. They then parted.
At Assuan, which he next day reached, he was
very politely entertained by the Turkish aga, who
had received instructions from the bey to behave
respectfully towards the stranger. From thence he
proceeded, on beasts furnished by the aga, to the
cataracts. On leaving the town they passed over a
small sandy plain, where there were numerous tombs
with Arabic inscriptions in the Kufic character; and
after riding about five miles farther, arrived at the
cataracts. The fall of the waters is here so inconsiderable
that vessels are able to pass up and down;
but the bed of the river, which may perhaps be about
half a mile in breadth, is divided into numerous small
channels by enormous blocks of granite, from thirty
to forty feet in height. Against these the river,
running over a sloping bottom, through a channel of
insufficient breadth, dashes with extreme noise and
violence, and is thrown back in foam and a thousand
whirling eddies, which, eternally mingling with each
other, produce a disturbed and chaotic appearance
which fills the mind with confusion.
On the 26th of January, after much altercation
with his host, he embarked in his kanja, and began
to descend the river. Having reached Badjoura, he
employed himself until the departure of the caravan,
with which he was to cross the desert to Kosseir, in
examining the observations he had made, and in preparing
his journal for publication; in order that,
should he perish, the labours he had already achieved
might not be lost. This done, he forwarded them
to his friends at Cairo till he should return, or news
should arrive that he was otherwise disposed of.
On the 16th of February the caravan set out from
Ghena (the Cæne Emporium of antiquity), and proceeded
over plains of inconceivable sterility towards
the Red Sea. “The sun,” says Bruce, “was burning
hot, and, upon rubbing two sticks together, in
253half a minute they both took fire and flamed; a mark
how near the country was reduced to a general conflagration!”
It was whispered about in the caravan that the
Atouni Arabs were lying in wait for them somewhere
on the road; and on their arrival at the wells of El
Egheita, therefore, they halted to wait for the coming
up of the caravans of Cus, Esneh, and Ebanout,
in order to oppose as formidable a number as possible
to the enemy. While they were at this place,
Abd el Gin, or the “Slave of the Genii,” an Arab
whom Bruce had received into his kanja on the Nile,
and treated with much kindness, came up to him,
and requested that he would take charge of his
money, which amounted to nineteen sequins and a
half. “What, Mohammed!” said Bruce, “are you
never safe among your countrymen, neither by sea
nor land?”—“Oh, no,” replied Mohammed; “the difference
when we were on board the boat was, we
had three thieves only; but when assembled here,
we shall have above three thousand. But I have a
piece of advice to give you.”—“And my ears, Mohammed,”
said the traveller, “are always open to
advice, especially in strange countries.”—“These
people,” continued Mohammed, “are all afraid of the
Atouni Arabs, and, when attacked, they will run away
and leave you in the hands of these Atouni, who will
carry off your baggage. Therefore, as you have
nothing to do with their corn, do not kill any of the
Atouni if they come, for that will be a bad affair, but
go aside, and let me manage. I will answer with
my life, that though all the caravan should be stripped
stark naked, and you loaded with gold, not one article
belonging to you shall be touched.” And upon
putting numerous questions to the man, Bruce was
so well satisfied with his replies that he determined
to conform in every respect to his advice.
While the minds of all present were busied in
calculating the extent of their dangers, and the probabilities
254of escape, twenty Turks from Caramania,
mounted on camels, and well armed, arrived at the
camp, and learning that the principal tent belonged
to an Englishman, entered it without ceremony.
They informed our traveller they were hajjis, going
on pilgrimage to Mecca, and had been robbed upon
the Nile by those swimming banditti, who, like the
Decoits of the Ganges, are indescribably dexterous in
entering vessels by night, and plundering in silence.
By the people of the country they had, in fact, been
ill-treated, they said, ever since their landing at
Alexandria; but that having now found an Englishman,
whom they regarded as their countryman,
since the English, according to their historical hypothesis,
came originally from Caz Dangli in Asia
Minor, they hoped, by uniting themselves with him,
to be able to protect themselves against their enemies.
This preference was flattering, and “I cannot
conceal,” says Bruce, “the secret pleasure I had in
finding the character so firmly established among
nations so distant, enemies to our religion, and
strangers to our government. Turks from Mount
Taurus, and Arabs from the desert of Libya, thought
themselves unsafe among their own countrymen,
but trusted their lives and their little fortunes implicitly
to the direction and word of an Englishman
whom they had never before seen!”
On the 19th they continued their journey over the
desert between mountains of granite, porphyry,
marble, and jasper, and pitched their tents at Mesag
el Terfowy, in the neighbourhood of the Arab encampment.
This, under most circumstances, is a
position of considerable danger; for, as there are
generally thieves in all caravans, as well as in all
camps, marauders from one side or the other commonly
endeavour to exercise their profession in the
night, and embroil their companions. Such was the
case on the present occasion. The thieves from the
Arab camp crept unseen into Bruce’s tent, where
255they were detected, endeavouring to steal a portmanteau.
One of them escaped; but the other, less
nimble, or less fortunate, was taken, and beaten so
severely, that he shortly afterward died. At this
moment Bruce was absent; but on his return, a
messenger from Sidi Hassan, chief of the caravan,
summoned him to appear before him. It being late,
our traveller refused. Other messengers followed—the
camp was kept in unintermitted anxiety all
night—and after much altercation and gasconading
on both sides, fear of the Atouni Arabs at length
induced them to calm their passions and consult
their interest.
Proceeding in their course, however, without encountering
an enemy of any kind, they arrived on
the morning of the 21st in sight of the Red Sea,
and in little more than an hour after entered Kosseir.
Here he established himself in a house, and
amused himself with observing the manners of the
motley crowds assembled in the town. Next morning,
being in a fishing-dress on the beach, seeking
for shells, a servant came running in great haste to
inform him that the Ababdé Arabs, to the number
of four hundred, had arrived, and that having met
with Mohammed Abd el Gin, whom they discovered
to be an Atouni, had hurried him away with intent
to cut his throat, there being blood between his tribe
and theirs.
Together with this news the servant had brought
a horse, and Bruce, without a moment’s reflection,
sprang upon his back, and driving through the town
in the direction which had been pointed out, quickly
arrived at the Ababdé encampment. Upon his
drawing near a number of them surrounded him on
horseback, and began to speak together in their own
language. The traveller now began to think he had
advanced a step too far. They had lances in their
hands, one thrust of which would have stretched
him upon the earth; and by their looks he did not
256think they were greatly averse to using them.
However, there was no retreating, so he inquired
whether they were Ababdé, from Sheikh Ammor,
and if so, how was the Nimmer, and where was
Ibrahim. Upon their acknowledging that they were
Ababdé, he gave them the salaam; but, without returning
it, one of them demanded who he was.
“Tell me first,” replied Bruce, “who is this you have
before you?”—“He is an Arab, our enemy,” said
they, “guilty of our blood.”—“He is my servant,”
replied the traveller; “a Howadat, whose tribe lives
in peace at the gates of Cairo!—but where is Ibrahim,
your sheikh’s son?”—“Ibrahim is at our head,
he commands us here; but who are you?”—“Come
with me, and show me Ibrahim, and you shall see!”
replied Bruce.
They had already thrown a rope about the neck
of their prisoner, who, though nearly strangled,
conjured Bruce not to leave him; but the latter, observing
a spear thrust up through the cloth of one
of the tents, the mark of sovereignty, hastened
towards it, and saw Ibrahim and one of his brothers
at the door. He had scarcely descended, and taken
hold of the pillar of the tent, exclaiming Fiar duc,
“I am under your protection,” when they both recognised
him, and said, “What, are you Yagoube,
our physician and friend?”—“Let me ask you,”
replied Bruce, “if you are the Ababdé of Sheikh
Ammor, who cursed yourselves and your children
if ever you lifted a hand against me or mine, in the
desert or in the ploughed field? If you have repented
of that oath, or sworn falsely on purpose to
deceive me, here I am come to you in the desert.”—“What
is the matter?” said Ibrahim; “we are
the Ababdé of Sheikh Ammor—there are no other—and
we still say, ‘Cursed be he, whether our
father or children, who lifts his hand against you, in
the desert or in the ploughed field!’”—“Then,”
replied Bruce, “you are all accursed, for a number
257of your people are going to murder my servant.”—“Whew,”
said Ibrahim, with a kind of whistle,
“that is downright nonsense. Who are those of
my people who have authority to murder and take
prisoners while I am here! Here, one of you, get
upon Yagoube’s horse, and bring that man to me.”
Then turning to Bruce, he desired him to go into the
tent and sit down; “for God renounce me and
mine,” said he, “if it is as you say, and one of them
hath touched the hair of his head, if ever he drinks
of the Nile again!”
Upon inquiry it was discovered that Sidi Hassan,[11]
the captain of the caravan, had been the cause of
this attempt at murder; having, in revenge for Ab
del Gin’s discovering the robber in Bruce’s tent, denounced
him to the Ababdé as an Atouni spy.
While waiting for a ship bound for Tor, he undertook
a short voyage to the Mountains of Emeralds,
or Jibbel Zumrud, where he found the ancient pits,
and many fragments of a green crystalline mineral
substance, veiny, clouded, but not so hard as rock-crystal.
This he supposed was the smaragdus of
the Romans, and the siberget and bilur of the Ethiopians,
but by no means identical with the genuine
emerald, which is equal in hardness to the ruby.
Returning to Kosseir, he forthwith commenced his
survey of the Red Sea. Having visited the northern
portion of the gulf, he arrived, almost overcome
with fatigue, and suffering much from ague, at Jidda,
where there were a great number of Englishmen,
258from whom he very naturally expected a hospitable
reception.
It must be acknowledged, however, that on this
occasion, as on many others, Bruce’s conduct bordered
strongly upon the absurd. His dress and
whole appearance were those of a common Turkish
sailor, which as long as he remained on board might
be very prudent; but when he came to present himself
before his countrymen, from whom he expected
the treatment due to a gentleman, it would have
been decorous either to have improved his costume,
or have given two or three words of explanation.
He did neither, but desired the servant of the Emir
el Bahr, or “harbour-master,” who had run over the
names of all the English captains then in port, to
conduct him to a relation of his own, who, when
they arrived, was accidentally leaning over the rail
of the staircase leading up to his own apartment.
Bruce saluted him by his name, but without announcing
his own; and the captain, no less hasty
than himself, fell into a violent rage, called him
“villain, thief, cheat,” and “renegado rascal,” declaring
that if he attempted to proceed a step farther,
he would throw him over the stairs. The traveller
went away without reply, followed by the curses
and abuse of his polite relative.
“Never fear,” said the servant, shrugging up his
shoulders, “I will carry you to the best of them
all.” He was now conducted to the apartment of
Captain Thornhill, but having entered the room, “I
was not,” says Bruce, “desirous of advancing much
farther, for fear of the salutation of being thrown
down stairs again. He looked very steadily, but
not sternly, at me; and desired the servant to go
away and shut the door. ‘Sir,’ says he, ‘are you
an Englishman? You surely are sick, you should
be in your bed: have you been long sick?’ I said,
‘Long, sir,’ and bowed. ‘Are you wanting a passage
to India?’ I again bowed. ‘Well,’ says he,
259‘you look to be a man in distress; if you have a
secret I shall respect it till you please to tell it me,
but if you want a passage to India, apply to no one
but Thornhill of the Bengal Merchant. Perhaps
you are afraid of somebody, if so, ask for Mr.
Greig, my lieutenant, he will carry you on board
my ship directly, where you will be safe.’ ‘Sir,’
said I, ‘I hope you will find me an honest man: I
have no enemy that I know, either in Jidda or elsewhere,
nor do I owe any man any thing.’ ‘I am
sure,’ says he, ‘I am doing wrong in keeping a poor
man standing who ought to be in his bed. Here!
Philip, Philip!’ Philip appeared. ‘Boy,’ says he,
in Portuguese, which, as I imagine, he supposed I
did not understand, ‘here is a poor Englishman that
should be either in his bed or his grave; carry him
to the cook, tell him to give him as much broth
and mutton as he can eat. The fellow seems to
have been starved—but I would rather have the
feeding of ten to India, than the burying of one at
Jidda.’”
Bruce kept up the farce some time longer; despatched
the mutton and the broth; and then threw
himself at full length upon the mat in the courtyard,
and fell asleep. The arrival of the Vizier of Jidda,
who, in the traveller’s absence, had opened his
trunks, and been terrified at the sight of the grand
seignior’s firman, now disclosed Bruce’s rank and
consequence to the English factory, and his acting
the poor man was laughed at and excused.
His countrymen, when his objects and purposes
were explained, did whatever was in their power for
the furtherance of his views. Letters to the governor
of Masuah, the King of Abyssinia, Ras Michael,
and the King of Sennaar, were procured from Metical
Aga and other influential persons, and a person
who required a few weeks to prepare for the journey
was appointed to accompany him. The time
which must elapse before this man could be ready,
260Bruce employed in completing his survey of the
Red Sea.
Having been joined at Loheia by Mohammed
Gibberti, the person commissioned by the authorities
of Jidda to accompany him to Masuah, he sailed
from that part of Yemen on the 3d of September,
1769, and on the 19th cast anchor in the harbour of
Masuah. This is a small island, lying directly
opposite the town of Arkeeko, on the Abyssinian
shore; and at the time of Bruce’s visit was under
the authority of a governor holding his title by firman
from the Ottoman Porte, under condition of
paying an annual tribute. The Turkish power
having greatly decayed in the Red Sea, this governor,
or naybe, had gradually assumed the independent
authority of a sovereign; though, in order to
command a sufficient supply of provisions from
Abyssinia, he had agreed to share with the sovereign
of that country the customs of the port. Observing,
however, the disorderly state of the government, he
had lately withheld from the Abyssinian monarch
his portion of the revenue, which had so far irritated
Ras Michael, then at the head of the government,
that he had caused it to be signified to the naybe
“that, in the next campaign, he would lay waste
Arkeeko and Masuah, until they should be as desert
as the wilds of Samhar!”
While affairs were in this position, the naybe received
intelligence that an English prince was about
to arrive at Masuah on his way to Abyssinia; and it
was forthwith debated by him and his counsellors in
full divan, whether he should be hospitably received
or murdered immediately upon his arrival. Through
the influence of Achmet, the nephew and heir-apparent
of the governor, pacific measures were resolved
upon.
Being desirous of enjoying one night’s repose to
prepare him for the toilsome contentions which he
foresaw would arise, Bruce did not land until the
261next day; but Mohammed Gibberti went immediately
on shore, and contrived to despatch letters to
the court of Abyssinia, announcing Bruce’s arrival,
and requesting that some one might be sent to protect
him from the well-known rapacity and cruelty
of the governor. He then waited upon this petty
despot and his nephew, and artfully endeavoured
to inspire them with very exalted notions of our
traveller’s rank and consequence. The way being
thus skilfully paved, Bruce himself landed next
morning. He was received in a friendly manner
by Achmet, who, when they had seated themselves,
after the usual salutation, commanded coffee to be
brought in, as a sign to the traveller that his life
was not in danger. He then observed, with a somewhat
serious air, “We have expected you here
some time, but thought you had changed your mind,
and were gone to India.”—“Since sailing from
Jidda,” replied Bruce, “I have been in Arabia Felix,
the Gulf of Mokha, and crossed last from Loheia.”—“Are
you not afraid,” said he, “so thinly attended, to
venture upon these long and dangerous voyages?”—“The
countries where I have been,” Bruce replied,
“are either subject to the Emperor of Constantinople,
whose firman I have now the honour to present
you, or to the Regency of Cairo, and Port of
Janizaries—here are their letters—or to the Sheriff
of Mecca. To you, sir, I present the sheriff’s letters;
and, besides these, one from Metical Aga,
your friend, who depending on your character, assured
me this alone would be sufficient to preserve
me from ill-usage, so long as I did no wrong. As
for the danger of the road from banditti and lawless
persons, my servants are indeed few, but they are
veteran soldiers, tried and exercised from their infancy
in arms, and I value not the superior numbers
of cowardly and disorderly persons.”
To this Achmet made no reply, but returning him
the letters, said, “You will give these to the naybe
262to-morrow. I will keep Metical’s letter, as it is to
me, and will read it at home.” He put it accordingly
in his bosom; and on Bruce’s rising to take
his leave, he was wet to the skin by a deluge of
orange-flower water, poured upon him from silver
bottles by his attendants. He was now conducted
to a very decent house, which had been assigned
him, whither his baggage was all sent unopened.
Late in the evening he was surprised by a visit
from Achmet, who came alone, unarmed, and half-naked.
Bruce expressed his acknowledgments for
the civility which had been shown him in sending
his baggage unopened; but Achmet, more solicitous
to do good than listen to compliments, at once turned
the discourse into another channel; and, after several
questions respecting his rank and motives for
travelling, advised him by no means to enter Abyssinia,
and let fall some few hints respecting the
character of the people of Masuah. To express
his gratitude, and secure a continuance of his good
offices, Bruce begged his acceptance of a pair of
pistols.
“Let the pistols remain with you,” says Achmet,
“till I send you a man to whom you may say any
thing; and he shall go between you and me, for
there is in this place a number of devils, not men.
But, Ullah kerim! (God is merciful.) 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. You may send by him to me
any thing you choose. In the mean time sleep sound,
and fear no evil; but never be persuaded to trust
yourself to the Kafro of Habesh at Masuah.”
Next morning the governor returned from Arkeeko,
attended by three or four servants miserably
mounted, and about forty naked savages on foot,
armed with short lances and crooked knives. Before
him was beaten a drum, formed of an earthen
jar, such as they send butter in to Arabia, covered
263over at the mouth with a skin, like a jar of pickles.
Bruce’s reception by this ferocious despot was inauspicious.
On his presenting to him the firman of
the grand seignior, upon seeing which the greatest
pacha in the Turkish empire would have risen, kissed
it, and lifted it to his forehead; he pushed it back contemptuously,
and said, “Do you read it all to me,
word for word.” Bruce replied that it was written in
the Turkish language, of which he comprehended not
a word. “Nor I neither,” said the naybe, “and I
believe I never shall.”
The traveller then gave him his letters of recommendation,
which he laid down unopened beside
him, and said, “You should have brought a moollah
along with you. Do you think I shall read all these
letters? Why, it would take me a month!” And
while he spoke he glared upon his guest with his
mouth open, so extremely like an idiot, that it was
with the utmost difficulty Bruce kept his gravity.
However, he replied, “Just as you please—you
know best.”
After a short conversation in Arabic, which the
naybe at first affected not to understand, our traveller
brought forward his present, which the naybe
understood without the assistance of a moollah, and
shortly afterward took his leave.
The inhabitants of Masuah were at this time
dying so rapidly of the small-pox, that there was
some reason to fear the living would not suffice to
bury the dead. The whole island was filled with
shrieks and lamentations both day and night; and
they at last began to throw the bodies into the sea,
which deprived Bruce and his servants of the support
they had derived from fish, of which some of
the species caught there were excellent.
On the 15th of October, the naybe, having despatched
the vessel in which Bruce had arrived, began
to put out his true colours, and, under various
pretences, demanded an enormous present. Bruce,
264of course, refused compliance. He then sent for
him to his house, and after venting his fury in a
storm of abuse, concluded by saying, in a peremptory
tone, that unless our traveller were ready in a
few days to pay him three ounces of gold, he would
confine him in a dungeon, without light, air, or food,
until his bones should come through his skin for
want. To aggravate the affair, an uncle of his, then
present, added, that whatever the naybe might determine
respecting his own demands, he could in
nowise abate a jot from those of the janizaries;
which, however, in consideration of the letter he
had brought from the port of the janizaries at Cairo,
were moderate—only forty ounces of gold.
To all this Bruce replied firmly, “Since you have
broken your faith with the grand seignior, the government
of Cairo, the pasha at Jidda, and Metical
Aga, 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 by daybreak.”
“I should be glad,” said the naybe, “to see that
man at Arkeeko or Masuah who would carry as
much writing from you to Jidda as would lie upon
my thumb-nail. I would strip his shirt off first, and
then his skin, and hang him up before your door to
teach you more wisdom.”
“But my wisdom,” replied Bruce, “has taught
me to prevent all this. My letter has 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 to
you that I have letters from Metical Aga and the
Sheriff of Mecca, to Michael Suhul, governor of
Tigrè, and the King of Abyssinia. I therefore would
wish that you would leave off these unmanly altercations,
which serve no sort of purpose, and let me
continue my journey.”
The naybe now muttered in a low voice to himself,
265“What, Michael too! then go your journey,
and think of the ill that’s before you!” Upon which
the traveller left him.
Other altercations, still more violent, ensued, and
attempts were made by the creatures of the naybe
to break into his house and murder him in the night;
but these were constantly defeated by the courage
and fidelity of his servants. Achmet, too, the
nephew of the naybe, exerted whatever influence he
possessed in behalf of the traveller; who, in return,
was, under Providence, the means of preserving his
life; for Achmet at this time falling ill of an intermittent
fever, Bruce assiduously attended and prescribed
for him, and in the course of a few days had
the satisfaction of pronouncing him out of danger.
On the morning of the 6th of November, while at
breakfast, Bruce received the agreeable intelligence
that three servants had arrived from Tigrè; one
from Jamai, the Greek, the other two from Ras
Michael, both wearing the royal livery. Ras Michael’s
letters to the naybe were short. He said
the king’s health was bad, and that he wondered
the physician sent to him by Metical Aga from
Arabia had not been instantly forwarded to him at
Gondar, as he had heard of his having been some
time at Masuah. He therefore commanded the
naybe to despatch the physician without loss of time,
and to furnish him with all necessaries.
To these peremptory orders the naybe felt himself
compelled to yield obedience; and accordingly
Bruce was at length suffered to depart. In order,
however, to make one attempt more at murdering
the stranger, for which the old man appeared to
have acquired a kind of passion, he furnished him
with a guide and several attendants, who, it was
suspected by the nephew, had received secret orders
to cut him off upon the road. To counteract the
designs of this worthy old relative, Achmet removed
these attendants, and replaced them by servants of
266his own; and prevailing upon Bruce to proceed by a
different route from that recommended by the naybe,
for which purpose he supplied him with another
guide, he took his leave, saying, “He that is your
enemy is mine. You shall hear from me by Mohammed
Gibberti.”
Bruce now proceeded over a plain partly covered
with groves of acacia-trees, in full flower, towards
the mountains, upon the ascent to which he met
with considerable numbers of the wild mountain
shepherds, descending with their families and flocks
to the seashore, drawn thither by the fresh grass
which springs up in October and November all
along the coast. Their path, from the time they
had reached the acclivity, lay over a broken, stony
road, along the bed of a mountain torrent; but
having reached a small green hill at some distance
from the stream, they pitched their tent; and, it
being near evening, prepared to pass the night there.
The weather, which had hitherto been fine, now
seemed to threaten rain. The loftier mountains,
and a great portion of the lower ones, were quite
hidden by thick clouds; the lightning was very frequent,
broad, and deeply tinged with blue; and long
peals of thunder were heard at a distance. “The
river,” says Bruce, “scarcely ran at our passing it.
All on a sudden, however, 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 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.”
During this day’s march he first saw the dung of
elephants, full of thick pieces of undigested branches;
and observed in the tracks through which they had
267passed several trees thrown down or broken in the
middle, while the ground was strewed with half-eaten
branches. The wild tribes who inhabited these
mountains were a small, active, copper-coloured
race, who lived in caves, or cages covered with an
ox’s hide, and large enough to hold two persons.
Though possessed of numerous herds of cattle, they
abstained, like the Brahmins, from animal food, and
subsisted entirely upon milk.
For some time after leaving this station their
road lay through groves of acacia-trees, the prickly
branches of which striking against their faces and
hands quickly covered them with blood. They then
proceeded through grassy valleys, and over mountains,
bleak, bare, and desolate, until they arrived at
a place called Tubbo, a picturesque and agreeable
station, where they pitched their tent, and remained
several hours. The mountains were here very steep,
and broken abruptly into cliffs and precipices. The
trees were thick, in full leaf, and planted so closely
together that they seemed to have been intended for
arbours, and afforded abundance of dark cool shade.
Their boughs were filled with immense numbers of
birds, variegated with an infinity of colours, but destitute
of song; others, of a more homely and more
European appearance, diverted the travellers with a
variety of wild notes, in a style of music still distinct
and peculiar to Africa; as different, says Bruce,
in the composition from that of our linnet and goldfinch
as our English language is from that of Abyssinia.
Yet, from frequent and attentive observation,
he found that the skylark at Masuah sang the
same notes as in England.
The whole country between this and Mount Taranta
abounded in game, and more particularly in
partridges and antelopes, the latter of which, without
exhibiting any signs of fear, moved out of the
way to let them pass; or stood still and gazed at
them. When they arrived at the foot of the mountain,
268the difficulties which presented themselves were
appalling. The road, if it deserved the name, was
of incredible steepness, and intersected almost at
every step by large hollows and gullies formed by
the torrents, and by vast fragments of rock, which,
loosened from the cliffs above by the rains, had rolled
down into the chasm through which their path lay.
To carry Bruce’s telescopes, timekeeper, and quadrant
through such a path as this was by the majority
of the party declared to be impossible; and
the bearers of the quadrant now proposed to drag it
along in a way which would have quickly shattered
it to pieces. To prevent so undesirable a catastrophe
Bruce himself, assisted by a Moor named Yasine,
who, being on his way to Abyssinia, had attached
himself to our traveller’s party, undertook
the task, and after extraordinary exertions, during
which their clothes were torn to pieces, and their
hands and knees cut in a shocking manner, they
succeeded in placing the instrument in safety, far
above the stony parts of the mountain. By this
means their companions were shamed into exertion,
and every one now striving to surpass the rest, all
the instruments and other baggage were quickly got
up the steep.
Having accomplished their laborious task, they
found themselves too much fatigued to attempt the
pitching of their tents; though, had it been otherwise,
the scantiness of the soil, which was too shallow
to hold a tent-pin, would have prevented them;
they therefore betook themselves to the caves which
they discovered in the rocks, and there passed the
night. Next morning they proceeded to encounter
the remaining half of the mountain, which, though
steeper, was upon the whole less difficult than the
part they had already passed; and in two days came
in sight of Dixan, a city built on the summit of a
hill, perfectly in the form of a sugar-loaf, surrounded
on all sides by a deep valley like a trench, and approached
269by a road which winds spirally up the hill
till it ends among the houses.
The inhabitants of this place enjoyed throughout
the country the reputation of superior wickedness,
and appeared fully to deserve it; for, whether Christians
or Moors, the only traffic in which they were
engaged was in children. These were stolen in
Abyssinia, frequently by the priests; and being
brought to Dixan, were there delivered over to the
Moors, who conveyed them to Masuah, from whence
they were transported to Arabia or India. Bernier
found this trade in active operation in his time; and
it has probably subsisted from the earliest ages, since
Abyssinian girls have always been in request among
the Arabs, while the boys are more valued farther
eastward, where they are generally converted into
eunuchs.
From Dixan they set forward November 25, and
encamped at night under a tree. They had now
been joined by about twenty loaded asses and two
loaded bulls driven by Moors, who, in consideration
of the protection they expected from our traveller,
bound themselves by an oath to obey him punctually
during the journey, and in case of attack to stand
by him to the last. Next morning they proceeded
over a plain covered with wheat and Indian corn,
and on looking back towards Taranta, beheld its summit
capped with black clouds, which emitted vivid
streams of lightning, and frequent peals of thunder.
Towards noon they encamped at the foot of a mountain,
on the top of which was a village, the residence
of an Abyssinian nobleman, called the Baharnagash,
who, with a very ragged retinue, visited Bruce in his
tent. Among the horses of his attendants there was
a black one which Bruce desired to possess. When
the chief had returned to his village he therefore
despatched two persons to him to commence negotiations.
The bargain, however, was soon concluded,
and the money, about 12l., paid in merchandise;
270but by the time he had reached the encampment,
the black horse had been converted into a
brown one, which, if he wanted an eye, had the
recommendation of great age and experience. This
ancient charger was returned, and, after considerable
shuffling and equivocation, the genuine black
horse, sixteen and a half-hands high, and of the
Dongola breed, was obtained. The noble animal,
which had been half-starved by the Baharnagash,
was named Mirza, and intrusted to the care of an
Arab from the neighbourhood of Medina, a man well
versed in all equestrian affairs. “Indeed,” observes
Bruce, “I might say I acquired that day a companion
that contributed always to my pleasure, and more
than once to my safety; and was no slender means
of acquiring me the first attention of the king.”
Their road now lying through a country into which
the Shangalla, whom Bruce terms the ancient Cushites,
were in the habit of making incursions, the
whole party carefully examined the state of their
firearms, and cleaned and charged them anew. In
this day’s journey they passed through a wood of
acacia-trees in flower, with which was intermingled
another species of tree with large white flowers,
yielding a scent like that of the honeysuckle; and
afterward another wood, so overgrown with wild
oats that, like the jungle grass of Bengal, it covered
the men and their horses. This plain was perhaps
the most fertile in Abyssinia, but, owing to the inveterate
feuds of the villages, had long been suffered
to lie waste, or, if a small portion were cultivated,
the labours of sowing-time and harvest were performed
by the peasantry in arms, who rarely completed
their task without bloodshed.
Having crossed this plain, they entered a close
country covered with brushwood, wild oats, and
high grass, rough with rocks, and traversed by narrow
difficult passes. At one of these, called the pass
of Kella, they were detained three days by the farmers
271of the customs, who demanded more than they
thought proper to pay. During this delay a kind of
fair or bazaar was opened in the caravan, to which
hundreds of young women from the neighbouring
villages repaired, to purchase beads and other articles
of African finery; and so eager were they to get
possession of these toys, that they could be restrained
from stealing them only by being beaten unmercifully
with whips and sticks. Of chastity these Abyssinian
beauties had no conception, and abandoned themselves
to the desires of strangers without so much
as requiring a reward.
The next day, after leaving Kella, they discovered
in the distance the mountains of Adowa, which in
no respect resemble those of Europe, or of any
other country. “Their sides were all perpendicular,
high, like steeples or obelisks, and broken into a
thousand different forms.” On the 6th of December
they arrived at Adowa, having travelled for three
hours over a very pleasant road, between hedgerows
of jessamine, honeysuckle, and many other
kinds of flowering shrubs. This town, which was
made the capital of Tigrè by Ras Michael, consisted
of about three hundred houses, but each house being
surrounded by a fence or screen of trees and shrubs,
like the small picturesque homesteads which skirt
the Ghauts on the coast of Malabar, the extent of
ground covered was very considerable, and from a
distance the whole place had the appearance of a
beautiful grove. Within, however, were crime and
wretchedness. The palace of the governor, which
was now occupied by his deputy, stood upon the top
of the hill, and resembled a huge prison. Upwards
of three hundred persons were there confined in
irons, some of whom had been imprisoned more than
twenty years, solely, in most instances, for the purpose
of extorting money from them; but when they
had complied with their captor’s demands, their deliverance
by no means followed. Most of them
272were kept in cages like wild beasts, and treated with
equal inhumanity.
Here he was received in the most hospitable manner
by Janni, the Greek officer of the customs, to
whom he had been recommended by the patriarch of
Cairo. In this town there was a valuable manufacture
of coarse cotton cloth, which circulated instead
of silver money throughout Abyssinia. The houses
were built with rough stone, cemented with mud
instead of mortar—which was used only at Gondar,—and
had high conical roofs, thatched with a reedy
sort of grass, rather thicker than wheat straw.
From this place he proceeded on the 10th of January,
1770, to visit the ruins of the Jesuits’ convent
at Fremona, two miles to the north-east of the town.
It resembled a vast fortress, being at least a mile in
circumference, and surrounded by a wall, the remains
of which were twenty-five feet high, with
towers in the flanks and angles, and pierced on all
sides with holes for muskets.
Leaving Adowa on the 17th, they arrived next
morning at the ruins of Axum, which, extensive as
they were, consisted entirely of public buildings.
Huge granite obelisks, rudely carved, strewed the
ground, having been overthrown by earthquakes or
by barbarians, one only remaining erect. Colossal
statues of the latrator anubis, or dog-star, were discovered
among the ruins, evidently of Egyptian workmanship;
together with magnificent flights of granite
steps, and numerous pedestals whereon the figures
of sphinxes were formerly placed. Axum was
watered by a small stream, which flowed all the
year, and was received into a magnificent basin of
one hundred and fifty feet square, whence it was artificially
conveyed into the neighbouring gardens.
Continuing their journey through a beautiful
country, diversified with hill and dale, and covered
so thickly with flowering shrubs that the odours
exhaling from their blossoms strongly perfumed the
273air, they overtook three men driving a cow, and
Bruce had an opportunity of witnessing an operation
which, on the publication of his travels, was
almost universally treated as a fiction. On arriving
on the banks of a river, where it was supposed they
were to encamp, the three men, who from their
lances and shields appeared to be soldiers, tripped
up the cow; and as soon as she had fallen, one of
them got across her neck, holding down her head by
the horns, another twisted the halter about her fore-feet,
while the third, who held a knife in his hand,
instead of striking at the animal’s throat, to Bruce’s
very great surprise got astride upon her belly, and
gave her a very deep wound in the upper part of her
buttock. He now of course expected that the cow
was to be killed, but, upon inquiring whether they
would sell a portion of her, was informed that the
beast was not wholly theirs, and that therefore they
could not sell her. “This,” says the traveller,
“awakened my curiosity. I let my people go forward
and staid myself, till I saw, with the utmost
astonishment, two pieces, thicker and longer than
our ordinary beefsteaks, cut out of the higher part of
the buttock of the beast. How it was done I cannot
positively say; because, judging the cow was to
be killed from the moment I saw the knife drawn, I
was not anxious to view that catastrophe, which was
by no means an object of curiosity: whatever way
it was done, it surely was adroitly, and the two pieces
were spread on the outside of their shields.”
After this, the skin which covered the wounded
part was drawn together, and fastened by small
skewers or pins. A cataplasm of clay was then
placed over all, and the poor beast, having been forced
to rise, was driven on as before. This mode of cutting
beefsteaks from a living animal is no doubt
extraordinary, but I can see nothing in it that should
render it incredible, particularly to persons who
make no difficulty in believing that men eat each
274other, or fasten their own bodies on swings, by
hooks driven into the muscles of their backs, and
thus suspended, whirl round in indescribable agony
for the amusement of the bystanders. Yet this is
indubitably done every day in Hindostan. The
scorn with which Bruce met the incredulity of his
critics was natural and just. But the skepticism of
the public has now ceased. In fact, to avow it
would be to plead guilty of a degree of ignorance of
which few persons in the present day would care to
be suspected.
Proceeding on his journey, Bruce learned at Siré
that Ras Michael had defeated the rebel Fasil, who
had long made head against the royal troops, with
the loss of ten thousand men; and this intelligence
struck terror into the numerous disaffected persons
who were found throughout the country.
On the 26th they crossed the Tacazzè, one of the
pleasantest rivers in the world, shaded with fine
lofty trees, its banks covered with bushes, inferior
in fragrance to no garden in the universe; its waters
limpid, excellent, and full of fish, while the coverts
on its banks abound with game. It was about two
hundred yards broad, and about three feet deep;
and in the middle of the ford they met a deserter
from Ras Michael’s army, with his firelock on his
shoulder, driving before him two miserable girls
about ten years old, stark naked, and almost famished
to death, the part of the booty which had
fallen to his share after the battle. From this
wretch, however, they could gain no intelligence.
The country through which they now passed was
covered with ruined villages, “the marks,” says
Bruce, “of Michael’s cruelty or justice, for perhaps
the inhabitants had deserved the chastisement they
had met with.” The scenery on all sides was now
highly picturesque and beautiful. At Addergey,
where they encamped near the small river Mai-Lumi,
or the “River of Limes,” in a small plain,
275they were surrounded by a thick wood in form of an
amphitheatre, behind which arose a sweep of bare,
rugged, and barren mountains. Midway in the cliff
was a miserable village, which seemed rather to
hang than to stand there, scarcely a yard of level
ground being between it and the edge of the precipice.
The wood was full of lemons and wild citrons,
from which circumstance it derived its name. Before
them, towards the west, the plain terminated in
a tremendous precipice.
After a series of disputes with the chief of this
village, a malignant, avaricious barbarian, who seems
to have designed to cut them off, they proceeded towards
Mount Lamalmon, one of the highest points
of Abyssinia. On the way they discovered on their
right the mountains of Waldubba, inhabited by
monks and great men in disgrace. The monks are
held in great veneration, being by many supposed
to enjoy the gift of prophecy and the power of working
miracles. To strengthen their virtue, and encourage
them in their austere way of life, they are
frequently visited by certain young women, who
may be called nuns, and who live upon a very familiar
footing with these prophets and workers of miracles.
Nay, many of these, says Bruce, thinking that the
living in community with this holy fraternity has not
in it perfection enough to satisfy their devotion, retire,
one of each sex, a hermit and a nun, sequestering
themselves for months, to eat herbs together in
private upon the top of the mountains.
On the 7th of February they began to ascend the
mountains which skirt the base of Lamalmon; and
on the next day commenced the climbing of that
mountain itself. Their path was scarcely two feet
wide in any part, and wound in a most tortuous
direction up the mountain, perpetually on the brink
of a precipice. Torrents of water, which in the
rainy season roll huge stones and fragments of rock
down the steep, had broken up the path in many
276places, and opened to the travellers a view of the
tremendous abyss below, which few persons could
look upon without giddiness. Here they were compelled
to unload their baggage, and by slow degrees
crawl up the hill, carrying it a little at a time on
their shoulders round those chasms which intersected
the road. The acclivity became steeper, the
paths narrower, and the breaches more frequent as
they ascended. Scarcely were their mules, though
unloaded, able to scramble up, and fell perpetually.
To enhance their difficulty and danger, large droves
of cattle were descending, which, as they came
crowding down the mountain, threatened to push
their whole party into the gulf. However, after
vast toil they at length succeeded in reaching the
small plain near the summit, where both man and
beast halted simultaneously, perfectly exhausted
with fatigue.
The air on Lamalmon was pleasant and temperate,
and their appetite, spirits, and cheerfulness,
which the sultry poisonous atmosphere of the Red
Sea coasts had put to flight, returned. Next morning
they ascended the remainder of the mountain,
which was less steep and difficult than the preceding
portion, and found that the top, which seemed
pointed from below, spread into a large plain, part
in pasture, but more bearing grain. It is full of
springs, and seems, says Bruce, “to be the great
reservoir from whence arise most of the rivers that
water this part of Abyssinia. A multitude of streams
issue from the very summit in all directions; the
springs boil out from the earth in large quantities,
capable of turning a mill. They plough, sow, and
reap here at all seasons; and the husbandman must
blame his own indolence, and not the soil, if he has
not three harvests. We saw in one place people
busy cutting down wheat; immediately next to it
others at the plough, and the adjoining field had
green corn in the ear. A little farther it was not an
inch above the ground.”
277On the 15th of February he arrived at Gondar,
when, to his extreme vexation, he found that not
only the king and Ras Michael, but almost every
other person for whom he had letters, was absent
with the army. Petros, the brother of Janni, his
Greek friend at Adowa, to whom he had been in an
especial manner recommended, had at the news of
his coming been terrified by the priests, and fled to
Ras Michael for instructions. A friend, however,
of one of the Moors, whom Janni had interested in
his favour, received him kindly, and conducted him
to a house in the Moorish town, where he might,
he said, remain safe from the molestations of the
priests, until he should receive the protection of the
government.
Late in the evening while our traveller was sitting
quietly in his apartment reading the book of the
prophet Enoch, Ayto Aylo, the queen’s chamberlain,
who probably had never before been in the Moorish
town, came, accompanied by a number of armed
attendants, to visit him. This man, a zealous protector
of strangers, and who was desirous, as he
said, to end his days in pious seclusion either at
Jerusalem or Rome, after a long contest of civilities
and a protracted conversation, informed Bruce that
the queen-mother, who had heard of his abilities as
a physician, was desirous he should undertake the
treatment of a young prince then lying ill of the
small-pox at the palace of Koscam. On proceeding
thither next morning, however, he learned that the
patient had been placed under the care of a saint
from Waldubba, who had undertaken to cure him by
writing certain mystical characters upon a tin-plate
with common ink, and then, having washed them
off with a medicinal preparation, giving them to the
sick man to drink. Upon Bruce’s second visit to
the palace he was presented to the queen-mother,
who, after some rambling conversation respecting
Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, Mount Calvary, &c.,
278demanded of him bluntly whether he were not a
Frank, by which they mean a Catholic. The traveller,
in reply, swore to her by all the truths in the
Bible, which she had then on a table before her, that
his religion was more different from that of the
Roman Catholics than her own. The old lady appeared
to be convinced by his asseverations, and he
shortly afterward took his leave. That same evening
the prince, as well as his daughter, who had
likewise been seized by the contagion, died of the
small-pox in spite of the saints of Waldubba; and
Bruce had to congratulate himself that these honest
jugglers had taken the weight of the odium from his
shoulders upon their own, for the patients would
very probably have died whether they had been under
the care of the monks or of the physician.
However, this natural event was the death-blow
to the reputation of the saints. Bruce was required
to repair immediately to the palace, and the various
members of the royal family, as well as of the
family of the Ras, who now fell sick, were placed
with unbounded confidence under his care. Policy,
as well as humanity, rendered his attentions to his
numerous patients incessant; and very fortunately
for him only one out of the whole number died.
Ozoro Esther, the young and beautiful wife of Ras
Michael, both of whose children, the one by a former
and the other by her present husband, survived,
was unbounded in her gratitude to the man
whom she regarded as their preserver; and her
friendship, which never knew diminution, may be
regarded as one of the most valuable acquisitions
our traveller ever made in Abyssinia. As a reward
for his services he received a neat and convenient
house in the immediate vicinity of the palace.
On the 8th or 9th of March Bruce met Ras Michael
at Azazo. The old man was dressed in a
coarse dirty cloth, wrapped about him like a blanket,
while another like a tablecloth was folded about his
279head. He was lean, old, and apparently much
fatigued. When he had alighted from the mule on
which he had been riding, a Greek priest went forward
and announced Bruce, who then came up and
kissed his hand. “How do you do?” said the Ras;
“I hope you are well.” He then pointed to a place
where the traveller was to sit down, while a thousand
complaints, a thousand orders, came before
him from a thousand mouths. The king now passed,
and shortly after the traveller and his companions
returned to Koscam, very little pleased with the
reception they had met with.
Next day the army marched into the town in
triumph, the Ras being at the head of the troops of
Tigrè. He was bare-headed. Over his shoulder
hung a cloak of black velvet ornamented with silver
fringe. A boy with a silver wand about five feet and
a half in length walked close to his stirrup on his
right-hand; and behind him in a body marched all
those soldiers who had slain and spoiled an enemy
in battle, bearing upon their lances and firelocks
small shreds of scarlet cloth, one for every enemy
slain.
Behind these came the governors of Amhara and
Begunder, wearing, as well as the other governors
of provinces, one of the strangest headdresses in the
world: a broad fillet bound upon the forehead and
tied behind, in the middle of which was a horn, or
conical piece of silver, about four inches long and
richly gilt. Then followed the king, wearing upon
his forehead a fillet of white muslin about four inches
broad, which, like that of the provincial governors,
was tied behind in a large double knot, and hung
down about two feet over his back. Immediately
around him were the great officers of state, with
such of the young nobility as were without command.
The household troops followed. And after
these came the military executioners, with a man
bearing upon a pole the stuffed skin of a man who
280had been flayed alive a short time before. This
was suspended as a tasteful ornament upon a tree
directly opposite the palace, for the solace and
amusement of his majesty.
For some days after this triumphal entry, Bruce,
though he daily visited his patients at the palace,
was utterly neglected, not only by the Ras, but by
Ozoro Esther herself, and every person in Gondar,
except the Moors, who were never weary of expressing
their gratitude for his successful attention to
their children. On the 14th, however, he was once
more brought into the presence of Ras Michael, at
Koscam. Upon entering he saw the old man sitting
upon a sofa, with his white hair dressed in many short
curls. His face was lean, his eyes quick and vivid.
Bruce thought he greatly resembled Buffon in face
and person. His great capacity was clearly discernible
in his countenance. Every look conveyed
a sentiment, and he seemed to have no occasion
for other language, and indeed spoke little.
He shook the traveller by the hand, and, after a few
moments’ pause, occasioned by the entrance of a
messenger from the king, said, gravely, “Yagoube,
I think that is your name, hear what I say to you, and
mark what I recommend to you. You are a man, I
am told, who make it your business to wander in the
fields in search after trees and grass in solitary places,
and to sit up all night alone looking at the stars of
the heavens. Other countries are not like this,
though this was never so bad as it is now. These
wretches here are enemies to strangers. If they
saw you alone in your own parlour, their first
thought would be how to murder you; though they
knew they were to get nothing by it, they would
murder you for mere mischief. Therefore,” says
the Ras, “after a long conversation with your friend
Aylo, whose advice I hear you happily take, as indeed
we all do, I have thought that situation best
which leaves you at liberty to follow your own designs,
281at the same time that it puts your person in
safety; that you will not be troubled with monks
about their religious matters, or in danger from those
rascals that might seek to murder you for money.”
He then informed him that the king had appointed
him Baalomaal, and commander of the Korcob horse;
and desired him to go and kiss the ground before him
on his appointment. Bruce now expressed his acknowledgments,
and brought forward his present,
which the Ras scarcely looked at; but shortly after
observing him standing alone, commanded the door
to be shut, and then said to him, in a low voice,
“Have you any thing private to say?”—“I see you
are busy, sir,” said Bruce, “but I will speak to Ozoro
Esther.” His anxious countenance brightened up in
a moment. “That is true,” said he; “Yagoube, it
will require a long day to settle that account with
you. Will the boy live?”—“The life of man is in
the hand of God,” replied Bruce; “but I should hope
the worst is over.” Upon which he said to one of
his servants, “Carry Yagoube to Ozoro Esther.”
After an interview with this lady, towards whom
he conducted himself with a degree of familiarity
which in any other country would have been fatal
to him, he presented himself before the king, who,
after various childish questions, and detaining him
until a very late hour, dismissed him for the night.
He then proceeded, with several other officers of the
palace, to the house of a nobleman, where they had
that evening been invited to supper. Here a quarrel
took place between Bruce and a nephew of Ras
Michael, originating in the gasconading character of
both parties, the Abyssinian conducting himself like
a vain barbarian, and Bruce like a man no less vain,
but possessing the advantage of superior knowledge.
The only person who appears to any advantage in
this affair is Ras Michael, who, quelling his natural
feelings, and magnanimously taking upon himself
the protection of the weaker party, acted in a manner
282truly noble, and, whatever may have been his
crimes, stood on this occasion superior to all around
him.
This storm having blown over, Bruce assiduously
attended to the duties of his office, and by the
exercise of considerable prudence, raised himself
gradually in the estimation of the court. He had
boasted, in his quarrel with the Ras’s nephew, that
through his superior skill in the use of firearms, he
could do more execution with a candle’s end than his
antagonist with an iron ball; and one day, long after
that event, he was suddenly asked by the king
whether he was not drunk when he made this gasconade.
He replied that he was perfectly sober;
and offered to perform the experiment at once in
presence of the monarch. This, in fact, he did;
and having shot through three shields and a sycamore
table with a piece of candle, his reputation as
a magician,—for, with the exception of the king and
the Ras, they all seem to have accounted for the fact
by supernatural reasons,—was more firmly established
than ever.
About this time he lost his companion Balugani,
who had been attacked in Arabia Felix by a dysentery,
which put a period to his life at Gondar. Of
this young man Bruce has said but little in his
travels; but he regretted his death, which threw him
for a time into a state of depression and despondency.
From this, however, he was roused by the
general festivity and rejoicing which took place in
Gondar upon the marriage of Ozoro Esther’s sister
with the governor of Bergunder. The traveller
dined daily, by particular invitation, with the Ras.
Feasting, in Abyssinia, includes the gratification of
every sensual appetite. All ideas of decency are set
aside; the ladies drink to excess; and the orgies
which succeed surpass in wantonness and lack of
shame whatever has been related of the cynics of
antiquity.
283Among the patients whom Bruce had attended on
his first arrival at Gondar was Ayto Confu, the son
of Ozoro Esther by a former husband. The gratitude
of this young man for the kind attention of his
physician, which had been manifested on numerous
occasions, at length procured Bruce to be nominated
governor of Ras el Feel, a small unwholesome district
on the confines of Sennaar. To this government
our traveller never designed to attend in person;
but it enabled him to oblige his old friend
Yasine, the Moor, whom he appointed to govern the
district as his deputy.
Into the details of the civil dissensions which at
this period convulsed this barbarous country it is
altogether unnecessary to enter. Revolts, conspiracies,
rebellions, succeeded each other in the natural
course of things, and Bruce’s position compelled him
to take a more or less active part in them all. In
the spring of 1770, Fasil, the rival of Ras Michael,
being once more in motion, the royal army left
Gondar, to proceed in search of the rebels, and on
entering the enemy’s territory exercised all kinds of
barbarities and excesses.
From the king’s army he proceeded in May to
visit the cataract of Alata on the Nile. The river,
where he first came up with it, was found to run in a
deep narrow channel, between two rocks, with great
roaring and impetuous velocity. Its banks were
shaded by beautiful trees and bushes; and there was
no danger from crocodiles, as that animal does not
ascend the stream so high. “The cataract itself,”
says Bruce, “was the most magnificent sight that I
ever 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
rocks, from the water’s edge, I may venture to say
it is nearer forty feet than any other measure. The
284river 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, which
was full, and in twenty different eddies to the very
foot of the precipice, the stream, when it fell,
seeming part of it to run back with great fury upon
the rock, as well as forward in the line of its course,
raising a wave, or violent ebullition, by chafing
against each other.”
After contending that the assertion of Jerome
Lobo, that he had sat under the curve made by the
projectile force of the water rushing over the precipice,
could not be true, he adds,—“It was a most
magnificent sight, that ages, added to the greatest
length of human life, would not efface or eradicate
from my memory.” “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 extraordinarily opened, and the
destruction of a world was again begun by the
agency of water.”
His curiosity on this point having now been satisfied,
he returned to the army, which shortly after, at
Limjour, fought a desperate battle with the rebels,
in which the latter were defeated. After this, Fasil,
their commander, upon making his submission, was
received into favour, and appointed governor of
Damot and Maitsha. During these transactions,
many of the servants of Fasil visited the royal
camp, and Bruce, reflecting that the sources of the
Nile lay in their master’s government, endeavoured
285to conciliate their good wishes by his attentions and
presents. He likewise in their hearing spoke highly
of Fasil, and on their departure gave them, not only
a present for their master, but also for themselves.
These men, moreover, requested him to prescribe
something for a cancer on the lip, with which
Welleta Yasous, Fasil’s principal general, was
afflicted.
In return for this service, which they rated very
high, saying in the presence of the king that Fasil
would be more pleased with the cure of this man
than with the magnificent appointments which the
king’s goodness had bestowed upon him, Bruce only
demanded that the village of Geesh, and the source
of the Nile, should be given him; and that Fasil, as
soon as it might be in his power, should be bound by
the king to conduct him to the sources without fee
or reward. This request was granted; and Fasil’s
servants swore, in the name of their master, that
the village and the fountains should belong to Yagoube
and his posterity for ever.
On the 28th of October, 1770, Bruce and his party
set out from Gondar to explore the sources of the
Nile. Having passed by the lake of Tzana, he came
up at Bamba with Fasil’s army, which was now
once more in motion. Here he had an interview
with this rebel chieftain, who was as insolent to
strangers as he was undutiful to his sovereign.
However, after much blustering and many exhibitions
of vanity, in which Bruce, who was never at
a loss on such occasions, was fully his equal, he
seemed to relapse into what was probably his natural
disposition, and promised to afford his guest the
most ample protection. He then introduced him to
seven chiefs of the Gallas, ferocious savages, who
appeared in the eyes of Bruce to be so many
thieves; and having informed him that he might
pass in the utmost safety through their country, and
that, in fact, he would very soon be related to them
286all, as it was their custom, when visited by any
stranger of distinction, to give him the privilege of
sleeping with their sisters and daughters. Upon
this he put a question to the savages in the Galla
language, probably asking them whether it were not
so; and they all answered, says Bruce, by the
wildest howl I ever heard, and struck themselves
upon the breast, apparently assenting.
Fasil, who was fond of hearing the sound of his
own voice, now made another long speech, and then
turned to the Galla, who now got upon their feet;
and the whole party standing round in a circle, and
raising the palms of their hands, Fasil and the seven
chiefs repeated a prayer about a minute long, the
latter apparently with great devotion. “Now,” says
Fasil, “go in peace; you are a Galla. This is a
curse upon them and their children, their corn, grass,
and cattle, if ever they lift their hands against you
or yours, or do not defend you to the utmost, if
attacked by others, or endeavour to defeat any design
they may hear is intended against you.” He
then took the traveller to the door of the tent, where
there stood a handsome gray horse bridled and
saddled, and said, “Take this horse; but do not
mount it yourself. Drive it before you, saddled and
bridled as it is; no man of Maitsha will touch you
when he sees that horse.”
A guide was now given him by Fasil, and he took
his leave. The horse was driven before him, and
he proceeded towards the mysterious fountains of
the Nile, surrounded on all sides by a people ignorant,
brutal, and treacherous, and bearing a stronger
resemblance in character than any other race of men
to the profligate Mingrelians described by Chardin.
On the 3d of November he came in sight of a
triple ridge of mountains, disposed one range behind
another, nearly in form of three concentric circles,
which he supposed to be the Mountains of the Moon,
the “Montes Lunæ” of the ancients, near which the
287Nile was said to rise; and on the 4th, about three
quarters after one o’clock, “we arrived,” says Bruce,
“on the top of a mountain, whence we had a distinct
view of all the remaining territory of Saccala,
the mountain Geesh, and church of St. Michael
Geesh, about a mile and a half distant from St. Michael
Saccala, where we then were. We saw immediately
below us the Nile itself strangely diminished
in size, and now only a brook that had scarce
water enough to turn a mill. I could not satiate
myself with the sight, revolving in my mind all those
classical prophecies that had given the Nile up to
perpetual obscurity and concealment. The lines of
the poet came immediately into my mind, and I enjoyed
here, for the first time, the triumph which
already, by the protection of Providence and my
own intrepidity, I had gained over all that were
powerful and all that were learned since the remotest
antiquity.
Arcanum natura caput non prodidit ulli,
Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre;
Amovitque sinus, et gentes maluit ortus
Mirari, quam nôsse tuos.’”
[12]
His guide, who, having formerly committed a
murder in the village of Geesh, was afraid to enter
it, made a number of lame excuses for not accompanying
him to the fountains, and at length confessed
the truth. His apprehensions, however, were
not proof against his vanity and avarice. He had
long been desirous of possessing a rich sash which
Bruce wore about his waist, and was bribed by this
article of finery to approach somewhat nearer to
the scene of his past villany. After leading the
traveller round to the south of the church, beyond
the grove of trees which surrounded it, “This,”
says he, “is the hill which, when you were on the
288other side of it, was between you and the fountains
of the Nile. There is no other. Look at that hillock
of green sod in the middle of that watery spot;
it is in that the two fountains of the Nile are to be
found. Geesh is on the face of the rock where yon
green trees are. If you go the length of the fountain,
pull off your shoes as you did the other day;
for these people are pagans, and believe in nothing
that you believe, but only in this river, to which
they pray every day, as if it were God; but this,
perhaps, you may do likewise.”
“Half-undressed as I was,” says Bruce, “by the
loss of my sash, and throwing off my shoes, I ran
down the hill towards the little island of green sods,
which was about two hundred yards distant. The
whole side of the hill was thick grown over with
flowers, the large bulbous roots of which appearing
above the surface of the ground, and their skins
coming off on treading upon them, occasioned two
very severe falls before I reached the brink of the
marsh. I after this came to the island of green
turf, which was in form of an altar, apparently the
work of art, and I stood in rapture over the principal
fountain which rises in the middle of it.
“It is easier to guess than to describe the situation
of my mind at that moment, standing in that
spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry
of both ancients and moderns for the course of
near three thousand years. Kings had attempted
this discovery at the head of armies, and each expedition
was distinguished from the last only by the
difference of the numbers which had perished, and
agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly
and without exception followed them all....
Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed
here in my own mind over kings and their armies;
and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer
to presumption, when the place itself where I stood,
the object of my vainglory, suggested what depressed
289my short-lived triumph. I was but a few
minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile, through
numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which
would have overwhelmed me but for the continual
goodness and protection of Providence; I was, however,
but then half through my journey, and all those
dangers which I had already passed awaited me
again on my return. I found a despondency gaining
ground fast upon me, and blasting the crown of
laurels I had too rashly woven for myself.”
This was extremely natural. He had proposed to
himself an object in itself rather curious than useful,
and in all probability had in his imagination invested
these fountains themselves with a magnificent
or mysterious character which the realities
were found not to possess, and that depression of
spirit which is occasioned by disappointment ensued.
Besides, he could scarcely seriously disbelieve the
fact that Paez had visited the spot before him; and,
therefore, that however great his pleasure might be,
as “a private Briton,” triumphing in his own mind
over kings and their armies, he was not really the
first European who had approached these fountains;
that is, was not the discoverer of them. The talking
of kings at the head of armies having made the
discovery of the sources of the Nile their object, and
failed, is a mere rhetorical figure of speech. When
Ptolemy Euergetes was at Auxum, what was there
to hinder his proceeding to Geesh? Bruce’s mode
of describing his own achievements is pompous and
vain; but he had purchased the right to be a little
vain at so dear a rate that we readily forgive him.
Having by numerous observations discovered that
the fountains of the Nile are situated in latitude 10°
59´ 25´´ N., and in longitude 36° 55´ 30´´ E., Bruce,
after a stay of six days, prepared to return to Gondar.
While he remained at Geesh, he contrived
with his usual address to acquire the confidence of
the inhabitants, with whom he lived in great familiarity
290and harmony. These people, as his guide had
informed him, really worship the Nile. Annually,
on the first appearance of the dog-star, or eleven
days afterward according to others, the servant, or
priest, of the river assembles the heads of the clans
around the principal fountain and altar. Having
sacrificed a black heifer which has never borne a
calf, they plunge the head of the beast into the fountain,
and then draw it out, and wrap it up in the hide,
previously sprinkled on both sides with the water
of the river, so as that it may never more be seen
by mortal. The body of the heifer is then divided
into two parts, carefully cleansed, and placed upon
the hillock, where it is washed with water brought
in the hollow of the hand, for no dish must be used
by the elders or principal persons of the tribes.
The flesh is then cut into pieces, one for each clan,
and eaten raw. They then quench their thirst with
the sacred waters of the Nile, and burn the bones to
ashes on the spot where they have been sitting.
When this part of the ceremony is over, the head is
carried into a cavern, which, they assert, extends
under the fountains, and there certain mysterious
rites, the nature of which has never been revealed,
are performed. What becomes of the head is unknown.
The Abyssinians, in hatred of their pagan
subjects, assert that the powers of hell unite with
the river worshippers in devouring it; but, however
they may dispose of it, they certainly pray to the spirit
residing in the river, whom they address as the Everlasting
God, Light of the World, Eye of the World, God
of Peace, the Saviour, and Father of the Universe.
Relics of serpent-worship, which has in all ages
extensively prevailed in the East, were likewise observed
among the Agows, who use them, as the
Romans did their sacred chickens, for purposes of
divination.
On the 10th of November Bruce took his leave of
the fountains of the Nile, and returned to Gondar.
291Here, as the civil war still raged with unexampled
fury, he was during a whole year witness of all
those atrocities which ferocious barbarians exercise
towards each other when excited by ambition or
revenge. At the termination of this period, however,
notwithstanding that old law of Abyssinia forbidding
strangers to quit the country, which had a
thousand times been broken, he obtained the king’s
permission to depart, though not before he had taken
a solemn oath, which he never intended to fulfil,
that, after having visited his home and friends, he
would return.
Leaving Gondar on the 26th of December, 1771,
with a numerous suite of attendants, he proceeded
through the northern provinces of Abyssinia, the
country of the Shangalla, and crossing the rivers
Rabad, Dender, and Nile, arrived on the 29th of
April, 1772, at Sennaar, the capital of Nubia. The
next morning after his arrival he was summoned
into the presence of the king, whom he found in a
small apartment in his vast clay-built palace, dressed
very meanly, and reposing on a mattress covered
with a Persian carpet. He was a “fellow of no
mark or likelihood,” with a “very plebeian countenance;”
but he received the stranger civilly, asked
him numerous questions, and furnished him with a
very comfortable dinner of camel’s flesh. The
crowds in the streets, however, were exceedingly insolent;
and while they affronted and hooted at him
as he passed, he called to mind with horror that, but
a few years before, this same mob had murdered a
French ambassador with all his attendants.
At this city he was detained by various circumstances
until the 8th of September, and during this
period was enabled to make numerous inquiries into
the history of the country, civil and natural, together
with the manners, customs, religions, and character
of its inhabitants. But when the day of departure
arrived, he proceeded with indescribable pleasure
292on his journey, having the Nile on his right-hand,
and the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White River, which he
never approached, on the left. On the 21st he again
crossed the Nile, and after travelling along its banks
for several days, took a long leave of its stream, and
plunged into the vast desert of Nubia. The soil
here consisted of fixed gravel, of a very disagreeable
whitish colour, mixed with small pieces of white
marble and pebbles like alabaster, and wholly bare
of trees. As they proceeded, indeed, a few patches
of coarse grass, with small groves of acacia, met
and refreshed the eye. On the 14th of November
they halted in a small hollow, called Waadi-el-Halboub,
and “were here at once surprised and terrified,”
says Bruce, “by a sight surely one of the
most magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse
of desert, from west and to north-west of us
we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand, at
different distances, at times moving with great celerity,
at others stalking on with a majestic slowness.
At intervals we thought they were coming
in a very few minutes to overwhelm us, and small
quantities of sand did actually more than once reach
us. Again they would retreat, so as to be almost
out of sight, their tops reaching to the very clouds.
There the tops often separated from the bodies; and
these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did
not appear more. Sometimes they were broken
near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon-shot.
About noon they began to advance with considerable
swiftness upon us, the wind being very
strong at north. Eleven of them ranged alongside
of us about the distance of three miles. The greatest
diameter of the largest appeared to me at that distance
as if it would measure ten feet. They retired
from us with a wind at S.E., leaving an impression
upon my mind to which I can give no name, though
surely one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable
deal of wonder and astonishment. It was in
293vain to think of flying: the swiftest horse or fastest
sailing ship could be of no use to carry us out of
this danger, and the full persuasion of this riveted
me as if to the spot where I stood.”
The appearance of these phantoms of the plain,
as Bruce terms them, sent their guide to his prayers,
and together with the danger which they were now
in of perishing of thirst, produced in the whole party
nothing but murmuring, discontent, and insubordination.
Next day the moving sand-pillars again appeared.
The sublimity of the scene,—a boundless
desert, level as the sea, condemned to eternal desolation,
without sounds or signs of life, animal or
vegetable; the arid soil, drained of every particle of
moisture, reduced by perpetual attrition to almost
impalpable atoms, and raised aloft by whirlwinds into
prodigious columns, which, as if instinct with life,
glided along with preternatural rapidity,—all this, I
say, no language, however magnificent, or exalted
by metaphor and poetical fervour, could ever present
in its proper terrors to the mind. These pillars
on their second appearance were more numerous,
but of inferior dimensions to those seen at Waadi
Halboub. They had probably been careering over
the waste in the darkness and silence of night;
as, immediately after sunrise, they were observed,
like a thick wood, reaching to the clouds, and almost
darkening the sun, whose slanting rays, shining
through them as they moved along, like enormous
shadows, before the wind, gave them the appearance
of pillars of fire. Our traveller’s attendants now
became desperate: the Greeks shrieked out that the
day of judgment was come; Ismael, a Turk, said
it was hell; and the Africans exclaimed that the
world was on fire. Bruce now demanded of their
guide whether he had ever before witnessed such a
sight. “Frequently,” replied the man, “but I have
never seen a worse.” He added, however, that from
the redness of the air, he dreaded the approach of
294something much more terrible than these fiery columns,—the
simoom, which almost invariably ensued
upon such a disposition of the atmosphere. This
information greatly increased the apprehensions of
the traveller; but he entreated the man to conceal
his suspicions from their companions.
In the forenoon of the next day, being in sight of
the rock of Chiggre, where they expected to refresh
themselves with plenty of excellent water, and were
therefore in high spirits, the guide cried out with a
loud voice, “Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom!”
Bruce looked, he says, towards the south-east,
and saw “a haze come in colour like the purple
part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or
thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth,
and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It
was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very
rapidly; for I scarce could turn to fall upon the
ground with my head to the northward, when I felt
the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We
all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris (the
guide) told us it was blown over. The meteor, or
purple haze, which I saw, was indeed passed, but the
light air that still blew, was of a heat to threaten
suffocation. For my part, I found distinctly in my
breast that I had imbibed a part of it; nor was I free
of an asthmatic sensation till I had been some months
in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, near two years
afterward.”
The effect of this state of the atmosphere upon his
companions was sudden and extraordinary. They
were all seized with an unusual despondency, ceased
to speak to each other, or if they spoke it was in
whispers; from which Bruce conjectured, perhaps
without reason, that some plot was forming against
him. He therefore called them together, reprimanded
them for their fears, exhorted them to take
courage, reminded them, that whatever might be
their sufferings, his own were not less than theirs;
295desired them to look at his swollen face, his neck
blistered by the sun, his feet torn and bleeding, and
to observe his voice nearly lost by the simoom.
With respect to the scantiness of water, of which
they had complained, he was so well persuaded that
they had nothing to apprehend on this score, that he
would allow each man an additional gourd-full from
their present stock. In fact, if they lifted up their
eyes, they would perceive in the distance, the bare,
black, and sharp point of the rock Chiggre, where
there was an abundance of water. The only point,
therefore, was to hasten on in good spirits to this
spot, where all their fears of perishing from thirst in
the desert would immediately vanish. This speech
restored the courage of the whole party, and they
continued their march with something like energy.
That same evening they reached Chiggre.
On the 17th of November they left the wells, and
resumed their march through the desert. Having
journeyed on during the greater part of the day,
amused rather than terrified by the moving sand-columns,
with which they were now become familiar,
they halted late in the afternoon in a vast plain,
“bounded on all sides by low sandy hills, which seemed
to have been transported thither lately. These hillocks
were from seven to thirteen feet high, drawn
into perfect cones, with very sharp points, and well-proportioned
bases. The sand was of an inconceivable
fineness, having been the sport of hot winds
for thousands of years.” These cones, in fact,
were nothing more or less than the relics of a group
of sandy pillars, which had been perhaps on the previous
day in motion; and had they then advanced so
far, might have overwhelmed them in their fall.
Marks of the whirling motion of the pillars were
distinctly seen in every heap.
In the course of the next day they passed by the
spot where, but a few years before, one of the
largest caravans that ever came out of Egypt,
296amounting to some thousands of camels, and conducted
by the Ababdé and Bishareen Arabs, had been
overwhelmed by a sand-storm; and the heaps which
probably had collected over their bodies had somewhat
raised the level of the desert in that place.
Here numbers of gray granite rocks were scattered
over the plain. A little beyond this they came to a
wood of dwarf acacia-trees, which furnished a little
browsing to their camels.
In the night of the 19th, while they were encamped
at a well, an attempt was made by a single
robber to steal one of their camels. From this circumstance,
which informed them they were come
into the neighbourhood of man, they began to fear
that they had approached the camp of some of those
wandering Arabs who extract a scanty subsistence
out of these torrid plains, and dwell all their lives
amid simooms and pillars of moving sand, which
form the terror of all other men. In the morning,
however, no Arabs appeared; all was still; but, in
diligently scrutinizing the appearance of the sand,
they discovered the track of a man, by following
which they soon came in sight of two ragged, old,
dirty tents, pitched with grass cords. Two of Bruce’s
attendants found, on entering the smaller tent, a
naked woman; and our traveller himself, and Ismael
the Turk, saw, on entering the larger one, “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,
seeming of the age to suck, was on a rag at the
corner, and the woman looked as if she wished to
hide herself.” Upon these miserable wretches they
all immediately rushed like wild beasts, threatening
to murder them; and, in fact, brought them all bound
to their encampment, with the intention, at least on
the part of all but Bruce, to put them to death.
However, after terrifying them greatly, and learning
from them some particulars respecting the movements
297of the tribe to which they belonged, it was
resolved that the man should accompany them in
chains, as a guide; and the women, after their camels
had been lamed, left where they were until the return
of their husband. If the man led them into danger
he was to be put to death without mercy; if he
served them faithfully Bruce engaged to clothe both
him and his women, to present him with a camel,
and a load of dora for them all.
On the 22d one of the African attendants was
seized with a kind of phrensy, and, their anxiety for
their own preservation having extinguished their
humanity, was left to perish among the burning
sands. Their camels were now dropping off one by
one; their bread grew scanty; and the water they
found in the wells was so brackish that it scarcely
served to quench their thirst. Languor and inactivity
seized upon them all; all the weighty baggage
and curiosities, such as shells, fossils, minerals, the
counter-canes of the quadrant, telescopes, &c., were
abandoned, and inevitable death appeared to stare
them in the face.
Their Bishareen prisoner, however, seemed not
to be affected in the least, either by fatigue or the
hot winds, and by his ingenuity in contriving a bandage
for Bruce’s feet probably saved the traveller’s
life. Here and there upon the sands, the bodies of
men who had been murdered, and of camels which
had perished for want, met their eyes; and suggested
the thought that their own carcasses might shortly
increase the number. Two of their camels, which
kneeled down and refused to rise, they killed, preserving
their flesh for food, and taking the water
out of their stomachs, as a precious addition to their
stock. One of the party had lost an eye, and others,
more fortunate, perhaps, dropped down dead by the
brink of the well where they had been quenching
their thirst. Still they pushed forward, and at
length Bruce announced to his followers that they
298were approaching Assuan. “A cry of joy,” says
he, “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 acknowledgments 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.”
About nine o’clock next morning they beheld the
palm-trees of Assuan, and shortly afterward arrived
in a small grove in the environs of the city. The
waters of the Nile being now before them, no consideration
of prudence, no fears of the consequences
which might possibly ensue, could check Bruce’s
companions from running at once to the stream to
drink. The traveller himself sat down among the
trees, and fell asleep, overcome by heat and fatigue.
However, when his arrival was made known to the
Aga of Assuan, he was received and entertained
with distinguished hospitality, and furnished with
dromedaries to go in search of the baggage which
he had been compelled to abandon in the desert.
He then paid and discharged his guide; and to the
Bishareen, who had faithfully served him from the
day in which he took him prisoner, and was now
become particularly attached to his person, he gave
the privilege of choosing the best of his camels;
and having, as he had promised, clothed him completely,
and presented him with dresses for his wives,
and a camel-load of dora, dismissed him. The Arab,
whom almost unexampled misery had reduced to a
robber, was so far overcome by his generous treatment,
that he expressed his desires, with tears in his
eyes, to enter Bruce’s service, and follow him over
the world, having first returned into the desert, and
provided for the subsistence of his family. This,
299however, could not be, and they parted, the Arab to
his desert, and Bruce to his home.
From Syene, or Assuan, Bruce descended the Nile
to Cairo, whence, after a short stay, he proceeded
to Alexandria, and took ship for Marseilles. He remained
some time on the Continent, where he was
universally received in the most flattering manner,
before he returned to his native land, which he did
not reach until the middle of the summer of 1774,
after an absence of twelve years. In 1776 he married
a second time: by this wife he had two children,
a son and a daughter; but he was not fortunate
in his marriages, for in 1785 he again became a
widower.
Various causes, among which the principal one
appears to have been disgust at observing that his
statements were in many instances thought unworthy
of belief, retarded the composition and publication
of his travels. At length, however, in 1790,
seventeen years after his return to Europe, the result
of his labours and adventures was laid before the
world, and prejudice and ignorance united their
efforts to diminish, at least, if they could not destroy,
his chance of fame, the only reward which he coveted
for all the hardships and dangers which he had encountered.
On the 27th of April, 1794, as he was conducting
an aged lady from his drawing-room to her carriage,
down the great staircase of his house at Kinnaird,
his foot slipped, and falling with great force down
several of the steps, he pitched upon his head, and
was killed. He was buried in the churchyard of
Larbert, in a tomb which he had erected for his wife.
I have carefully avoided interrupting the course
of the narrative by entering into any discussions
respecting those points on which Bruce’s veracity
has been called in question. His detractors, without
any exception of which I am aware, consist of
men whose authority, in matters of this nature is no
300longer respected, or who never, except from their
numbers, possessed any. No man of competent
understanding and knowledge of mankind can read
Bruce’s Travels without a thorough conviction that
the writer was a person of the strictest honour and
veracity, who, though as in the case of Paez, he
might be hurried by wounded pride and indignation
into the commission of injustice, was wholly incapable
of deliberate falsehood. That the name of
Dr. Johnson is found among those of Bruce’s enemies,
is to be regretted on Dr. Johnson’s own account.
But the circumstance can excite no surprise in any
one who recollects that the doctor likewise distinguished
himself among the calumniators of Milton—a
name which has long since ranked among the first
which history records, and is the representative, as
it were, of every thing that is most sacred in genius,
and most unsullied in virtue. The other cavillers
at Bruce demand no ceremony. Their absurd rancour
has been stimulated by a secret conviction of
their own inferiority in talent and enterprise; and,
despairing of raising themselves to his level, they
have endeavoured to bring him down to their own.
Swift explains in two lines the whole philosophy
of this proceeding:—
I have no title to aspire:
Yet, if you sink, I seem the higher!
It will be remembered that Marco Polo met with
very nearly the same fate with Bruce, being not
only disbelieved during his lifetime, but having to
endure, even on his death-bed, the monstrous incredulity
of his nearest relations, who, pressing
around him, conjured him for the love of Christ, and
the salvation of his soul, to retract the fictions which
they imagined he had advanced in his writings.
With the noble intrepidity which Bruce, I doubt not,
would have shown under similar circumstances, he
refused to abate a jot of his assertions, which, he
301solemnly averred, fell far short of the truth. The
persecution of Marco Polo, however, arose wholly
from the ignorance of his contemporaries; but Bruce
had a foible, abundantly visible in his writings, from
which the great Italian traveller was altogether exempt—I
mean an arrogant and intolerable vanity.
Even the most charitable of readers must frequently,
in perusing Bruce’s writings, be angered, if not disgusted,
at its perpetual recurrence in the coarsest
and most undisguised forms; but when we reflect,
that notwithstanding this foible, or partly, perhaps,
in consequence of it, he was one of the most enterprising,
adventurous, and indefatigable of travellers,
we readily consent to overlook this defect in consideration
of the many excellences which accompany
it. As a writer he is slovenly and immethodical,
and destitute to a remarkable degree of the
graces of style; but, on the other hand, he is always
so much in earnest, and so natural, in spite of all that
has been said to the contrary, that it would argue
nothing short of actual stupidity to doubt of the truth
of what he relates.
JONAS HANWAY.
Jonas Hanway, equally celebrated as a traveller
and a philanthropist, was born on the 12th of August,
1712, at Portsmouth, in Hampshire. His father
dying while he was yet a child, he was removed
with the other members of the family to London,
where he received an education suited to the course
of life he was intended to pursue, and at the age of
seventeen was placed as an apprentice in a mercantile
house at Lisbon. Here Hanway conceived a
302passion for a lady then renowned for her beauty and
accomplishments; but being unsuccessful in his love,
he for ever renounced all idea of marriage, though
he continued to the latest hour of his life an ardent
advocate and admirer of womankind. Shortly after
the expiration of his apprenticeship he returned to
London.
Nothing remarkable occurred in the life of Hanway
until the year 1743, when he entered as a partner
into the house of Mr. Dingley, a merchant at
Petersburg, for which city he embarked in the month
of June of the same year. His character for integrity
and perseverance was soon established in Russia.
In the September of 1743, a few months after
his arrival, he was appointed agent of the Russia
Company in Persia, and intrusted with the management
of the whole Caspian trade. He very quickly
set out on his mission. His suite consisted of an
interpreter, a clerk, a Russian servant, a Tartar boy,
and a guard; and he was intrusted with twenty carriage-loads
of English cloth. With this train he
proceeded through Moscow to the banks of the
Volga, where he embarked in a vessel for Astrakhan,
from whence, after a short stay, he sailed down to
Yerkie. Here he procured a passage to Persia, and
traversing the whole length of the Caspian from
north to south, arrived on the 3d of December at
Lanjaron, in Persia. Here he was well received by
Mr. Elton, a captain in the service of Nadir Shah,
and formerly agent of the Russia merchants. With
this gentleman he remained seven days, and then
continued his voyage. As they steered towards the
east the sky grew brighter, and the air, which had
hitherto been raw and cold, became gradually
warmer. The lofty peak of Mount Demawund, thirty
leagues inland, was visible during four days. They
reached Astrabad on the 18th of December, and their
vessel, which resembled those of the Russian pirates,
who usually committed great depredations on that
303coast, caused so much terror in the inhabitants, that
they for some time refused to hold any communication
with them.
While they were lying on the shore awaiting the
reply of the governor of Astrabad to Hanway’s
application for protection, they beheld the forests
on the neighbouring mountains on fire, and the wind
blowing with violence prodigiously increased the
force of the flames, which, blazing aloft in the darkness
of the night, exhibited a magnificent but terrific
appearance. Permission being obtained, our traveller
proceeded to Astrabad, where he immediately
waited on the governor, Nazir Aga, who, in the
oriental style of compliment, assured him that the
city of Astrabad was his to do what he pleased with
it. Hanway, however, though unused to Persian
politeness, was satisfied at a much cheaper rate, and
merely requested the Aga’s protection as far as Meshed,
which was readily granted. He now despatched
the greater portion of his merchandise on camels
towards Meshed, and was patiently waiting for the
escort promised by the Aga, when news was brought
to the city that the people of the neighbouring districts
had broken out into rebellion, and being commanded
by a powerful leader, who had taken a body
of Turcomans into his pay, designed to sack the
city, for the purpose of seizing on the royal treasury
then deposited there, as well as on the European
merchandise.
Hanway was now in a position of extreme danger.
The inhabitants, who considered his presence in the
city with so much wealth as one of the principal
incitements to the present insurrection, were by no
means disposed to incur any peril on his account,
and cursed him openly. On the other hand, the
rebels looked upon his property as a desirable prey;
and as men when in the act of sacking a city are in
an ill mood for hearing remonstrance, it was probable
that, should the least opposition be shown,
304they would silence it by striking off his head. He
was therefore advised to make his escape, disguised
in a Persian dress. But he wisely repelled the idea,
knowing well that if there was danger within the
city, there was far more danger without. The governor,
however, whose case was exceedingly different,
had already fled, disguised as a peasant; and
the terrible moment was most anxiously expected
when the assault should be given and the place carried
by storm. On the approach of night Hanway
made the necessary preparations for receiving the
invaders, whom it would have been impossible to
resist, and retired to his chamber, where, having
performed his devotions, he delivered himself up
to sleep. A smart but irregular fire of musketry
awakened him at four o’clock in the morning. This
was followed by a short silence; and a few minutes
after, shouts, wild merriment, and the loud beating
of drums announced the triumph of the insurgents,
and the fall of the city.
It was not long before two of the rebel chiefs at
the head of a party of men arrived at the house of
our traveller, demanding his merchandise, and informing
him that the forty bales which he had despatched
towards Meshed were already in their hands. They
engaged, however, as soon as their government
should be established, to pay for whatever they now
seized upon, and only required, they said, a short
credit. Hanway, like the ancient sophist, was thoroughly
persuaded that there was no disputing with
a man who commanded forty legions, and therefore,
without vain opposition, suffered them to appropriate
to themselves whatever they thought proper, excepting
one hundred and sixty gold crowns, which he
succeeded in concealing about his person. The
Persians appeared exceedingly well satisfied when
they had, as they supposed, gained possession of all
his property; for they are well-bred thieves, who
rob, as it were, with a kind of honorable regret and
305a humane sympathy for the sufferers; but their soldier-like
allies, the Turcomans, looked upon the
matter as merely begun, and casting a longing eye
upon our traveller and his companions, as if they
felt a strong inclination to eat them, observed to
Zadoc, the rebel governor, “You give us the merchandise
of the Russians—will you not give us the
Russians also? They will do well to tend our
sheep!”
Notwithstanding the disturbed state of public
affairs, the breed of honest men had not become
wholly extinct. Many inhabitants of Astrabad
regretted to behold the distress of the stranger, and
being desirous of placing him beyond the reach of
the capricious insults of the rebels, not only gave
him information, but aided, as far as possible, in
enabling him to escape. While this design secretly
occupied his mind, he obtained from one of the new
chiefs a bill for the amount of his goods, and, upon
further application, an engagement to provide ten
armed men to escort him to Ghilān, in the vicinity
of which Nadir Shah was said to be encamped with
his army. The necessary precautionary measures
being taken, he departed from Astrabad under convoy
of hajjî, his brother, and two sons, with about
twenty armed villagers. This holy man appeared
to have discovered, during his pilgrimage to Mecca,
the full value of earthly as well as of heavenly possessions,
and thought that, while waiting for the
latter, the being master of the former would be no
inconvenience. He therefore exerted all his wits,
which had no doubt been much sharpened by travelling,
in the concoction of schemes for compelling
Hanway to do an act of sublime charity, by reducing
himself to destitution for the benefit of a pilgrim.
Having it in his power to accelerate or impede, as
he pleased, the movements of our traveller, he in a
great measure succeeded; after which they continued
their journey. The roads through northern
306Persia are at no time very safe, more particularly
for an infidel: but now that the shah’s tyranny had
goaded the wretched peasants into rebellion, the
danger was infinitely augmented. Accordingly, the
hajjî, who understood the character of his countrymen,
conducted their little kafilah through pathless
woods, over deep ravines and mountains, sedulously
avoiding all frequented roads, and causing them to
encamp at night in the open fields. During this
journey they passed by the ruins of the palace of
Ferhabad, once famous as the residence of the Persian
kings.
Hanway’s conductors, understanding that Nadir’s
general was levying forces at Balfroosh, the capital
of Mazenderan, now expressed their determination
to proceed no further; but observed that, as he was
near the coast, he might perform the remaining distance
by sea. “Accordingly, they conducted him
and his attendants to a fisherman’s hut on the seacoast:
the poor man had only an open boat, like a
canoe, very leaky, and barely large enough to admit
six persons; besides, it could be navigated only with
oars or paddles near the shore, where the surf then
ran very high; and the sandbanks, forming breakers,
made the sea still more dangerous. He therefore
again implored the carriers to furnish horses according
to their engagement, but they treated his request
with contempt. He threatened to use force; whereupon
two of them, being armed with matchlocks,
lighted their matches; two others had bows and
arrows, and all of them, being six in number, had
sabres. Hanway collected his company, among
whom were four muskets, a blunderbuss, and a
pair of pistols; but as he could not depend on more
than two of his servants, after a short parley he
submitted to run the risk of being drowned, rather
than engage in a fray, where no other advantage
could be gained than a precarious use of horses,
through a country utterly unknown to him; and, if
307he should fall, the cause in which he embarked must
fall with him.”
Embarking, therefore, in the fisherman’s canoe,
they coasted along the shore to Teschidezar, where
they landed. Hanway here applied for protection
to the principal of the shah’s officers, who sent him
a horse richly caparisoned for his own use, and four
mules for his servants, with which he pushed on
with all possible speed to Balfroosh. On his arrival
at this city he was somewhat comforted by the assurance
of the Persian merchants, that the shah
would certainly make good his loss. But to reach
the shah was the difficulty. No beasts, or any other
mode of conveyance, could be obtained. The general,
unable to oppose the rebels, was preparing for
flight; and fortune appeared once more disposed to
expose him to the danger of becoming a Turcoman
shepherd. At length, however, the governor of the
city munificently provided him with a horse, which,
though “galled and spavined,” was still alive, and
capable of conveying him several miles before he
died. Upon this animal, therefore, miserable as he
was, our traveller mounted; and, taking leave of all
his attendants, with whom he left the rebels’ passport
and what money he could spare, set out on his
desperate journey alone. His departure was well
timed, for the Turcomans were entering the city at
the eastern gate, while he was escaping through
the western one. “After some time,” says Pugh,
“he fell in with a party who conducted the baggage
of the admiral, and himself soon followed; but it
was not possible for him to keep pace with them.
The poor tartar boy, attached to him with more sincerity
than his other servants, had followed him on
foot; and when he fainted, Mr. Hanway took him
up behind him; but before they had rode six miles,
the horse’s hind quarters gave way, and they were
both obliged to dismount.”
His situation was now deplorable. Knowing very
308little of the language, and without a guide, it was
with extreme difficulty that he once more explored
his way to the coast. His miserable appearance,
for his clothes were worn out and in tatters, was his
only protection. This excited the pity of the inhabitants;
and when he arrived at any great river, he
was, on pleading poverty, ferried over gratis; for he
did not venture to show the money which he had
concealed about his person at Astrabad. He at
length overtook the troops of the person whom he
calls the admiral, who was flying, like himself, before
the Turcomans, and among whose followers he
found his own clerk and servant. During this rapid
flight he ate nothing for nearly forty hours excepting
a few parched peas which he found by chance in
his pocket. In the night the admiral decamped, intending
to abandon Hanway to his fate; but the
latter, rendered doubly energetic by despair, and
highly incensed at his baseness, immediately followed
at his heels. The night was dark and tempestuous;
but, by pushing vigorously forward, he
once more overtook the fugitive; and having by extraordinary
exertions kept pace with him for some
time, finding himself quite spent, and urged by despair,
he seized the bridle of the horse on which the
admiral was mounted, and in a loud, determined tone
pronounced the word shah. The idea of Nadir
brought thus suddenly to his mind seemed to have
awakened the Persian from a dream. He halted,
and, commanding his vizier to take up the traveller
behind him, while another of the company had compassion
on the poor Tartar boy, they again renewed
their flight, which was continued without intermission
from seven o’clock in the evening until next
day, in the midst of continual tempest and rain.
Rapidly as they fled, however, rumour still kept
up with them, and peopled all the woods and fastnesses
around with Turcomans. A detachment of
these ferocious soldiers were said to be posted in a
309wood in advance of the party; the admiral gave orders
to fire upon them; and when Hanway came up
to the spot he found five Afghan recruits, who had
come so far on their way to join the shah’s army,
weltering in their blood. They now, without at all
relaxing in their movements, descended to the shore
of the Caspian, which, broken and ploughed up alternately
by mountain torrents and by the sea, was
traversed with the utmost difficulty; while the surge
at intervals dashed the horsemen from their steeds,
and endangered their lives. At length, after a journey
of twenty-three days, during which he had not
enjoyed one hour of security or unbroken sleep, he
arrived at Lanjaron, where he was most hospitably
received and entertained by Captain Elton.
Here he remained several days, until, having
slightly recovered his strength and refreshed his
weary spirits, he departed for Reshed, where, in an
interview with the governor, he learned that Nadir
was shortly expected to be on the borders of Turkey.
He therefore hired horses, provided his attendants
with clothes, tents, firearms, and sabres, and set out
in search of the shah. On the 2d of March he arrived,
almost blind with the reflection of the snow,
at Casbin, where he remained nine days, until the
influence of spring, exceedingly rapid in those countries,
began to dissolve the snow. He then joined
a party of soldiers who were proceeding to the camp
of the shah, who was reported to be marching upon
Hamadan; and all the way as he went along he observed
in the extreme distress of the inhabitants the
terrible effects of Nadir’s tyranny. An air of silence
and desolation prevailed over the whole country;
for the people, taking them to be robbers or soldiers,
which was the same thing, fled to the mountains,
and left them to provide how they could for themselves.
On arriving at the shah’s camp, Hanway pitched
his tent near the royal standard; and here, after
310having escaped so many perils by land and sea, he
narrowly escaped perishing by a common accident.
One of his muskets went off, and, discharging its
contents in the roof of the tent over his head, set
the canvass on fire. Without loss of time he presented
his petition to the shah, praying to be reimbursed
the value of the goods forcibly seized by the
rebels at Astrabad; and while waiting for Nadir’s
reply, enjoyed an ample opportunity, which he usefully
turned to account, of observing the aspect and
character of this motley, extraordinary scene. He
saw the despot hemmed round by a circle of evils of
his own creating, which was every moment narrowing,
and threatening that terrible catastrophe which
shortly afterward consummated the tyrant’s fate.
Every heart was bursting with indignation, and
curses were struggling to every tongue for vent,
against the common enemy. And could he have
looked into the heart of this imperial miscreant, he
would there have beheld the vulture of which that
of Typhœus was but the type and shadow, feeding
upon apprehensions and horrors the most fearful and
odious of all earthly things.
Externally, however, the monster appeared to be
the beau idéal of imperial splendour. A harem of
sixty women, selected for their resplendent beauty;
palaces of barbaric grandeur; horses covered with
trappings set with pearls, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds
of prodigious size; and an army of two hundred
thousand men, to maintain which his country
had been ruined, and India despoiled, according to
the most moderate computation, of one hundred and
seventy millions sterling. Such was his condition.
Not long after his arrival Hanway obtained a decree
of the shah “that the particulars of his loss should
be delivered to Behbud Khan, the shah’s general,
now at Astrabad, who was to return such parts of
the goods as could be recovered, and make up the deficiency
out of the sequestered estates of the rebels.”
311Having obtained this decree, with which, as it took
him back to Astrabad, he was not altogether satisfied,
Hanway quitted the camp of Nadir on the 27th
of March. The spring in those southern regions
being already advanced, the bright pure blue of the
sky, “the falls of water from the rocks, the stupendous
mountains, far higher than any he had
seen in Europe, rising gradually one above another,
some with their summits covered with snow, and
others concealing their heads in the clouds, formed
a delightful scene. The vines were full of foliage,
the orange groves perfumed the air with their fragrance,
and the gardens were in full blossom.” The
beauty of the landscape, however, was almost entirely
the work of nature; for the husbandman, not
knowing who might reap the fruits of his industry,
had ceased to cultivate the earth, or cultivated it
with a sparing and unwilling hand. The curse of
despotism, the bane of genius and energy, submission
to which is the severest evil humanity can
suffer, was deeply felt throughout the land, where,
however, symptoms of a most salutary and just revenge,
the sacred duty of the oppressed, were beginning
to manifest themselves in a very striking
manner.
Hanway reached Lanjaron on the 5th of April,
where, being exceedingly fatigued both in body and
mind, he remained with Captain Elton until the 1st
of May. He then set forward with six well-armed
companions for Astrabad. Their way, during the
first part of their journey, lay through a forest, where
they lost their path and were benighted on the very
evening of their departure; but at length, guided by
a light which they discovered among the trees, they
found their way to a house which was barricaded
with trees. The owner of this lonely mansion, with
an inhospitable terror which was fully justified by
the circumstances of the times, refused them admittance;
upon which, like true Persians, they broke
312into his house, and, binding a rope about one of his
arms, compelled him to serve them for a guide until
they had regained their path, when our traveller took
care to reward him for his trouble. Shortly after
this two of his muleteers deserted; and in the evening,
while their beasts were at pasture, a wolf of
very extraordinary size, of which there were great
numbers in the mountains of Mazenderan, made his
appearance, but was driven off by the guard, though
not before he had killed a cow. Pallas observes
that the wolf is exceedingly timid in summer; but
an instance of its courage during the warm months,
not unlike the above, occurred to that traveller in
Siberia; and the wolves of Burgundy and the Vosges
have the reputation, I believe, of being sufficiently
ferocious throughout the year. Next morning they
overtook a small detachment of soldiers, whose
commanding officer, observing that they were pursuing
the same route, politely offered his service as
a convoy; which being readily accepted, they pursued
their journey together.
In this way they proceeded for some time; but the
officer being at length compelled to take a different
direction, granted Hanway at parting a guard of ten
men, who, however, very soon deserted him. Nevertheless
he succeeded, after much fatigue and difficulty,
in reaching Astrabad, whence the rebels had
recently been dislodged. The fate of the insurgent
chief excited his compassion. Upon the news of
the defeat of his party he had been seized by the
demoniacal slaves who now gained the ascendant,
who, having cut holes in his flesh, in which they set
lighted candles, thus paraded him naked through the
market-place, until he dropped down dead through
loss of blood. Our traveller, immediately upon his
arrival, presented to Behbud Khan, the new governor,
the decree which he had obtained of the shah,
and received a promise that it should be fulfilled to
the letter. This man appeared to have been designed
313by nature for executing the designs of such a master
as Nadir. Seated in his tent, half-surrounded by
soldiers, “judging and executing in a very summary
way the rebels who were brought before him, one
or two at a time. After a short repast, a prisoner
was brought who had two large logs of wood riveted
to the small of his legs, and a heavy triangular collar
of wood about his neck; one of the angles being
longer than the others served as a handcuff to his
left wrist, so that if he attempted to rest his arm it
must press on his neck. After being questioned for
sometime about the caravan of European cloths, of
which it appeared he knew very little, the general
ordered him to be beaten with sticks, which was
immediately performed by the executioners with the
utmost severity, as if it was intended to kill him;
and the scene was closed with an order to cut out
his eyes. Sadoc Aga was then produced. In the
hour of his short-lived prosperity, while he was a
general of the rebel troops, he had treated Hanway
with an unbecoming insolence. But how changed
was his appearance! When Mr. Hanway saw him
last he was a youth of uncommon vivacity, richly
dressed, and full of mirth; but now his garb was
mean, his voice sunk, and his eyes cut out of their
sockets. He expressed his inability to make any
restitution of the property, ‘for he had been deprived
of every thing.’ This answer the general returned
by an order to strike him on the mouth, which was
done with such violence that the blood gushed out.”
This scene was very ill calculated to entertain
such a man as Hanway, and might, perhaps, have
touched even the breast of Shylock with compassion.
He therefore retired in silence, leaving the bloody-minded
representative of the shah to glut his ferocious
appetite for slaughter at his leisure. Meanwhile,
the payment for the lost merchandise being
made very slowly, Hanway once more appealed to
the justice of the governor, who now confessed that
314a part of the money had been appropriated to the
shah’s own use, and, in default of other means, offered
in part of payment a number of female prisoners,
who might, he said, be sold for slaves. This Hanway
refused; and having obtained the greater portion
of his demand, he repaired to the seashore, and
once more embarked on the Caspian. Proceeding
along the southern shore, he disembarked at Lanjaron,
and continued his journey by land to Reshed,
where, immediately after his arrival, he was attacked
by a dangerous disorder, which detained him in that
city during nearly two months; after which he invested
his money in raw silk, and, setting sail on the
13th of September, arrived safely at Yerkie on the
mouth of the Volga. Here, as the Russian authorities
feigned to believe that the plague was raging in
Northern Persia, he was compelled to perform quarantine
during six weeks; at the expiration of which
he proceeded by land along the western bank of the
Volga to Zarytzin, and thence to Moscow, where he
arrived on the 22d of December. Here he received
letters from England, informing him that by the death
of a relation he had succeeded to a sum of money
far exceeding any advantages he could expect to
derive from the conducting of the Caspian trade.
“Providence was thus indulgent to me,” says he,
“as if it meant to reward me for the sincerity of my
endeavours.”
Hanway reached Petersburg on the 1st of January,
1745. Here he remained nearly five years engaged
in commerce; but at length, the love of gain yielding
to the love of home, he quitted the Russian capital;
visited the dry dock constructed by Peter I. at
Cronstadt; and, passing rapidly through Prussia,
Germany, and Holland, embarked in a yacht at Helvoetsluys,
and landed at Harwich, after an absence
of nearly eight years.
On the arrival of our traveller in London, he went
to reside in the Strand, at the house of his sister,
315Mrs. Townsend. Here, having now entirely abandoned
all mercantile pursuits, he lived as a private
gentleman, employed in compiling the history of his
travels, and in constant acts of benevolence. The
application to sedentary employment, which was so
little in unison with the former tenor of his life, and
which the exercise of his charity was not sufficient
to diversify, very quickly injured his health; so that
he was compelled for relaxation to travel once more,
though his excursion was confined to France and the
Netherlands. About this period the question respecting
the expediency of naturalizing the Jews
was agitated in most of the countries of Europe;
and Hanway, on most other occasions just and philanthropic,
yielded in this instance to the force of
narrow and inhuman prejudices; and argued in a
pamphlet, now very properly condemned to oblivion,
in favour of the absurd laws by which this portion
of our fellow-creatures have been in so many countries
excluded from the enjoyment of the rights of
man. His other works were devoted to better purposes;
he promoted, as far as was in his power, the
paving of the streets of London; he laboured to convince
the English people of the futility of the fears
they seemed to entertain of a French invasion, than
which nothing could be more absurd or impracticable;
he founded the Marine Society, intended to
encourage the breed of seamen; he endeavoured benevolently,
but ridiculously, to discourage the habit
of tea-drinking; he laboured to improve the Foundling
Hospital institution; was the principal means
of founding the Magdalen Hospital, or asylum for
repentant public women; advocated the cause of the
orphan poor; and, by reasoning and ridicule, exposed
the practice of vails giving, as it was termed, by
which a man who was invited to the table of the
great was made to pay threefold for his dinner.
According to Mr. Pugh, he was incited to the exposure
of this abuse by Sir Timothy Waldo. “Sir
316Timothy,” says he, “had dined with the duke (of
Newcastle), and, on his leaving the house, was contributing
to the support and insolence of a train of
servants who lined the hall, and at last put a crown
into the hands of the cook, who returned it, saying,
‘Sir, I do not take silver.’—‘Don’t you, indeed?’
said the worthy knight, putting it in his pocket,
‘then I do not give gold.’” Among the ludicrous
circumstances mentioned in Mr. Hanway’s letter is
one which happened to himself. He was paying the
servants of a respectable friend for a dinner which
their master had invited him to, one by one, as they
appeared. “Sir, your great-coat;” a shilling; “Your
hat;” a shilling; “Stick;” a shilling; “Umbrella;”
a shilling; “Sir, your gloves.”—“Why, friend, you
may keep the gloves: they are not worth a shilling.”
In 1762 he was appointed one of the commissioners
for victualling the navy; upon which, finding
that an increase of expenditure was authorized by
the augmentation of his income, he took a house in
Red Lion Square, the principal rooms of which, says
his biographer, he furnished and decorated with
paintings and emblematical devices in a style peculiar
to himself. “I found,” said he, “that my countrymen
and women were not au fait in the art of
conversation; I have therefore presented them with
objects the most attractive that I could imagine, and
such as cannot easily be imagined without exciting
amusing and instructive discourse; and when that
fails there are the cards.” Prince Eugene, who, I
suppose, found his companions in much the same
predicament, was used to have music during dinner,
and, upon being questioned respecting his reasons,
replied, “It saves you the trouble of talking.”
Among numerous other benevolent schemes of our
worthy traveller was one which had for its object the
bettering the condition of young chimney-sweepers,
who, besides the distresses which are open to general
observation, such as the contortion of their limbs
317and the stunting of their growth, are liable to a disease
peculiar to their occupation, known by the
name of the “chimney-sweepers’ cancer.” The extent
of the benefit conferred on these wretched beings—the
very Pariahs of English society—by the
exertions of Hanway cannot be exactly estimated;
but they certainly were considerable, and serve to
show that genuine benevolence can condescend to
commiserate the miserable in whatever position they
may be placed. During his labours in behalf of
these little “fathers of soot,” as an Arab would term
them, he addressed a little urchin who had just been
sweeping his own chimney:—“Suppose, now, I give
you a shilling?”—“God Almighty bless your honour,
and thank you!”—“And what if I give you a fine
tie-wig to wear on May-day, which is just at hand?”—“Ah!
bless your honour; my master won’t let
me go out on May-day.”—“No! why not?”—“He
says it’s low life!” The idea of a young chimney-sweeper,
black as if just issued from Pandemonium,
in “a fine tie-wig,” could never have suggested itself
to any but a man of original genius.
Pugh, the honest and intelligent author of Hanway’s
life, tells us an anecdote connected with our
traveller’s history, which I will relate in his words:—“To
one of his books written for the use of the
poor he prefixed a description of the frontispiece, in
which he says to the gentle reader, ‘Here you see
the grass grow and the sheep feed.’ The reviewers
fastened on this unfortunate sentence. ‘We remember,’
said they (I quote from memory after a lapse
of several years), ‘a miller, who quitted his trade to
take a public-house, and sent for a painter to paint
him the sign of the mill. “I must have the miller
looking out of the window.”—“It shall be done,”
said the painter. “But I was never seen to be idle;
you must make him pop his head in if any one looks
at him.” This also the artist promised, and brought
home the sign. “’Tis all well; but where’s the
318miller?”—“Sir, he popped his head in when you
looked.” Even so,’ said the reviewers, ‘when we
look on the benevolent author’s frontispiece, the
grass ceases to grow, and the sheep leave off feeding.’”
Hanway died on the 5th of September, 1786. His
last moments were those of a Christian and a philosopher,
calm and tranquil, indicating the firmest
reliance on the mercy and goodness of God, and a
consciousness of a life honestly and usefully spent.
It might not be difficult to collect from the history
of his life materials for forming a correct notion of
his character; but in addition to the information to
be derived from this source, Pugh enjoyed the advantage
of having lived with him in the same house
on terms of considerable familiarity. For this reason,
I prefer the adopting of the character which he
has drawn, and which appears to be sufficiently impartial,
to the maintaining of an appearance of originality,
by conveying the same idea in different
words:—“Mr. Hanway in his person was of the
middle size, of a thin spare habit, but well shaped;
his limbs were fashioned with the nicest symmetry.
In the latter years of his life he stooped very much,
and, when he walked, found it conduce to his ease
to let his head incline towards one side; but when
he went first to Russia, at the age of thirty, his face
was full and comely, and his person altogether such
as obtained for him the appellation of the ‘handsome
Englishman.’ His features were small, but without
the insignificance which commonly attends small
features. His countenance was interesting, sensible,
and calculated to inspire reverence. His blue eyes
had never been brilliant, but they expressed the utmost
humanity and benevolence; and when he spoke,
the animation of his countenance and the tone of his
voice were such as seemed to carry conviction with
them even to the mind of a stranger. When he endeavoured
to sooth distress, or point out to any
wretch who had strayed the comforts of a virtuous
319life, he was peculiarly impressive; and every thing
that he said had an air of consideration and sincerity.
In his transactions with the world he was always
open, candid, and sincere; whatever he said might
be depended on with implicit confidence. He adhered
to the strict truth, even in the manner of his
relation, and no brilliancy of thought could induce
him to vary from the fact. But although so frank
in his own proceedings, he had seen too much of life
to be easily deceived by others; and he did not often
place a confidence that was betrayed. He did not,
however, think the world so degenerate as is commonly
imagined; ‘and if I did,’ he used to say, ‘I
would not let it appear; for nothing can tend so
effectually to make a man wicked, or to keep him
so, as a marked suspicion.’ He knew well how
much the happiness of mankind is dependent on
honest industry, and received a pleasure but faintly
described in words when any of the objects of his
charity, cleanly apparelled, and with cheerful and
contented countenances, came to pay their respects
to him. He treated them as his acquaintance, entered
into their concerns with a paternal affection,
and let them know that on any real emergency they
might apply with confidence to him. It was this
rather than the largeness of his gifts that endeared
him so much to the common people. He never
walked out but he was followed by the good wishes,
silent or expressed, of some to whom he had afforded
relief. To meet the eye of the person he had served
was to him the highest luxury; and no man enjoyed
it oftener. His own misfortunes, I believe, never
caused him to shed tears; and if the miseries of
others had that effect, which was very rare indeed,
he was particularly careful to conceal it. Yet the
sight of a regiment of soldiers under exercise, of the
charity-children in their annual assembly at Saint
Paul’s, the Marine Society’s boys marching to join
their ships, or in procession, were objects which he
could not resist.”
ANTONIO DE ULLOA.
320
This great traveller, as Andiffret and Viguier observe,
was one of those men, who, in the course of
the eighteenth century, reflected the greatest honour
upon Spain. He was born at Seville on the 12th of
January, 1716. His family, already distinguished in
the navy, began to prepare him from his earliest
years for following the same career. His education
was conducted with extraordinary care. In 1733
he entered the service, and his progress very quickly
exceeded the most sanguine hopes which the first
manifestations of his character had given birth to.
The first commission with which he was intrusted
was the scientific expedition concerted between the
ministers of France and Spain, for the purpose of
measuring a degree of the meridian near the equator,
while another expedition was despatched to
measure other degrees under the polar circle, in
order to form a judgment of the different parts of
the earth’s circumference, by their equality or inequality,
and from thence to determine its magnitude
and figure.
The province of Quito, in Peru, appearing to offer
the most favourable equatorial position for performing
this enterprise, which seemed likely to be
long and laborious, the ministers of Louis XV. made
application to Philip V. of Spain, for permission to
send a certain number of French academicians into
Peru, in order to make there the necessary observations.
Philip referred the matter to the Council of
the Indies, and, on their favourable report, the license
321was granted, with all the necessary recommendations
and assurances of the royal protection to the
travellers. He moreover appointed two officers of
his navy, says Ulloa, well skilled in mathematics, to
join in the observations which were to be made, in
order to give them a greater dignity, and a more extensive
advantage; and that the Spaniards might owe
only to themselves the fruits and improvements expected
from them.
The two officers appointed for this service by
Philip were Don George Juan, and Don Antonio de
Ulloa. Previous to their departure, these two gentlemen
were promoted to the rank of lieutenant in
the royal navy. Having received their instructions,
they set sail in separate ships from Cadiz Bay, May
26th, 1735, and on the 9th of July arrived in the bay
of Carthagena. Here they found on landing that
the French academicians had not yet reached the
port, and as they had been instructed to await their
arrival at this city, they determined to employ the
interval in making nautical and astronomical observations.
They were allowed ample leisure by
the delay of the French travellers, who did hot join
them until the 15th of November, when they all proceeded
together, by the way of Porto Bello, Panama,
and Guayaquil, to their ultimate destination.
The party set sail on the 24th of November, and
reached Porto Bello on the 29th. From thence they
proceeded in small vessels up the river Chagre, the
current of which was so rapid, that their oars became
useless, and they were compelled to push the
vessels along with poles. This river was formerly
named Lagartos, from the great number of caymans
or alligators which were found in it. Its banks,
rendered impassable by woods and thickets, exhibited
a series of the richest and most magnificent landscapes:—the
groves which shade the plains, and extend
their branches to the river, the various dimensions
of the trees which cover the eminences; the
322texture of their leaves; the figure of their fruits, and
the various colours they exhibit, form a delightful
scene, which is greatly heightened by the infinite
variety of creatures with which it is diversified.
The different species of monkeys, skipping from
tree to tree, hanging from the branches; and in other
places, six, eight, or more of them linked together
in order to pass a river, and the dams with their
young on their shoulders, throwing themselves into
odd postures, making a thousand grimaces; will perhaps
appear fictitious to those who have not actually
seen it. But if the birds are considered, our reason
for admiration will be considerably augmented.
At Panama, on the Pacific, where they arrived on
the 29th of December, their stay was considerably
prolonged by various preparations indispensable for
the prosecution of their journey. This interval was
usefully employed by Ulloa: he made numerous astronomical
observations, took a plan of the city and
the adjacent coast, and observed with minuteness
and accuracy the surrounding country and its inhabitants.
Their arrangements being completed, they
embarked on the Pacific, and sailed for Guayaquil,
which they reached on the 25th of March. Here
they were received with distinguished politeness by
the corregidor, who immediately apprized the corregidor
of Guaranda of their arrival, that he might
order carriages to the port of Caracol for conveying
them to the mountains.
All things being thus prepared, they departed from
Guayaquil, and embarked on the river on the 3d of
May, 1736. The extreme velocity and strength of
the current, and several unfortunate accidents, so
greatly retarded their progress, that they did not
reach Caracol before the 11th. “The tortures we received
on the river, from the mosquitoes,” says
Ulloa, “were beyond imagination. We had provided
ourselves with quetres and mosquito-cloths;
but to very little purpose: the whole day we were
323in continual motion to keep them off; but at night
our torments were excessive. Our gloves were indeed
some defence to our hands, but our faces were
entirely exposed; nor were our clothes a sufficient
defence for the rest of our bodies, for their stings
penetrating through the cloth, caused a very painful
and fiery itching. The most dismal night we spent
on this passage, was when we came to an anchor
near a large and handsome house, but uninhabited;
for we had no sooner seated ourselves in it, than
we were attacked on all sides with innumerable
swarms of mosquitoes, so that we were so far from
having any rest there, that it was impossible for a
person susceptible of feeling to be one moment
quiet. Those who had covered themselves with
their mosquito-cloths, after taking care that none of
these malignant insects were contained in them,
found themselves in a moment so attacked on all
sides that they were obliged soon to return to the
place they had quitted. Those who were in the
house, hoping that they should find some relief in
the open fields, ventured out, though in danger of
suffering in a more terrible manner from the serpents;
but were soon convinced of their mistake, it
being impossible to determine which was the more
desirable place, within the mosquito-cloth, without
it, or in the open fields. In short no expedient was
of any use against their numbers. The smoke of
the trees we burnt to disperse these infernal insects,
besides almost choking us, seemed rather to augment
than diminish their numbers. At daybreak
we could not without concern look at each other.”
At Caracol they quitted the river, and continued
their journey on the backs of mules, through thick
forests, along the course of the river Ojibar. When,
as frequently happened, they found no habitation
near their halting-place, the inconvenience was soon
remedied by the remarkable dexterity of their Indians,
who running into the woods, quickly returned
324with branches of trees and vijahna leaves, with
which, in less than an hour, they erected several huts
large enough to contain the whole party, and so well
contrived that the rain, which fell in torrents, could
not penetrate them. They now began to ascend the
distant roots of the mountains, and felt an increasing
coldness in the air. At a place called Mamarumi, or
the “Mother of Stone,” they beheld an indescribably
beautiful cascade.
“The rock,” says Ulloa, “from which the water
precipitates itself is nearly perpendicular, and fifty
toises in height, and on both sides bordered with
lofty and spreading trees. The clearness of the
water dazzles the sight, which is however charmed
with its lustre as it falls from the precipice; after
which it continues its course in a bed along a small
descent, and is crossed by the road.”
The roads by degrees assumed an Alpine character;
in some places the declivity was so great, that
the mules could scarcely keep their footing, while in
others the acclivity was equally difficult. Occasionally
the road grew so narrow that there was scarcely
room for the mules to pass, while it lay at other
times along the edge of tremendous precipices, where,
had they made one false step, they must have inevitably
toppled over and perished. The extraordinary
dexterity of the mules in descending the fearful
slopes of these mountains is one of the most surprising
things related of the sagacity of animals.
The mules themselves are sensible of the caution
requisite in these descents; for coming at the top of
an eminence they stop, and having placed their fore-feet
close together, as in a posture of stopping
themselves, they put their hind-feet together, but a
little forwards, as if going to lie down. In this attitude,
having taken a survey of the road, they slide
down with the swiftness of a meteor. All the rider
has to do is to keep himself fast on the saddle without
checking the beast; for the least motion is sufficient
325to disorder the equilibrium of the mule; in
which case they both unavoidably perish. The address
of these creatures is here truly wonderful; for
in this rapid motion, when they seem to have lost
all government of themselves, they follow exactly
the different windings of the road, as if they had before
accurately reconnoitred, and previously settled
in their minds the route they were to follow, and
taken every precaution for their safety among so
many irregularities. There would indeed otherwise
be no possibility of travelling over such places,
where the safety of the rider depends on the experience
and address of his beast.
But the longest habit of travelling these roads
cannot entirely free them from a kind of dread or
horror, which appears when they arrive at the top
of a steep declivity; for they stop without being
checked by the rider; and, if he inadvertently endeavours
to spur them on, they continue immoveable,
nor will they stir from the place till they have put
themselves in the above-mentioned posture. Now
it is that they seem to be actuated by reason; for
they not only attentively view the road, but tremble
and snort at the danger which, if the rider be not
accustomed to these emotions, cannot fail of filling
him with terrible ideas.
On the 18th they crossed the summit of the mountain,
and descended into the province of Chimbo,
where they were met by the corregidor, the provincial
alcalde, and the principal persons of the town;
and on their nearer approach a number of Dominican
monks, with a large portion of the inhabitants,
came out with a troop of Indian dancing and singing
boys to welcome them. Here they remained three
days to refresh themselves after their fatiguing passage
across the mountains; and then, continuing
their journey, entered the desert of Chimborazo,
keeping the mountain of the same name on the left,
and travelling, over different eminences and heights,
326most of which were of sand, the snow for a great,
distance forming, as it were, the sides of the mountain.
During their journey across this desert they
suffered greatly from the cold, the severity of which
was much increased by the violence of the wind.
They lodged at night in caverns in the rock; and on
emerging from the more dreary part of the waste,
passed the ruins of a palace of the ancient incas of
Peru.
On their arrival at Quito, they were received with
splendid hospitality by Don Dioneso de Alzedo y
Herrera, who provided them with apartments in the
palace of the Andencia, while the clergy and the
principal inhabitants vied with each other in their
attention and civilities. Among the many remarkable
natural curiosities observed by our traveller
during his journey is a species of cane, from thirty-five
to fifty feet in height, and about six inches in
diameter. “From the time of their first appearance
till they attain their full perfection, when they are
cut down or begin to dry, most of the tubes contain
a quantity of water; but with this remarkable difference,
that at full moon they are entirely or very
nearly full, and with the decrease of the moon the
water ebbs, till at the conjunction little or none is
found. I have myself cut them at all seasons, so that
I here advance nothing but what I know to be true
from experience. I have also observed that the
water during the decrease appears turbid; but about
the time of the full moon it is as clear as crystal.”
The travellers had spent one whole year in reaching
Quito, and the first few days after their arrival
were necessarily devoted to rest and an exchange
of civilities with the inhabitants. They then commenced
their operations with measuring a piece of
ground, which was to be the base of the whole work,
and in this the remainder of the year 1736 was consumed.
The plain of Yaruqui, selected for this purpose,
is situated one thousand four hundred and
327ninety-four feet lower than Quito, and is four leagues
to the north-east of that city. “The quality, disposition,
and lower situation, all contribute to render
it less cold than Quito. Eastward it is defended by
the lofty cordillera of Guamani and Pambamarca,
and westward by that of Pichincha. The soil is
entirely sand; so that besides the heat naturally resulting
from the direct rays of the sun, it is increased
by the rays being reverberated by the two cordilleras:
hence it is also exposed to violent tempests of
thunder, lightning, and rain. But being quite open
towards the north and south, such dreadful whirlwinds
form here that the whole interval is filled with
columns of sand, carried up by the rapidity and gyrations
of violent eddy winds, which sometimes produce
fatal consequences; one melancholy instance
happened while we were there—an Indian, being
caught in one of these blasts, died on the spot. It
is not indeed at all strange that the quantity of sand
in one of these columns should totally stop all respiration
in any living creature who has the misfortune
of being involved in it.”
The daily labour of the whole party was measuring
the length of this plain in a horizontal direction,
while the inequalities of the ground were at the
same time corrected by means of a level. They
commenced their task early in the morning, and,
unless when interrupted by bad weather, or the too
intense heat of the sun at noon, continued actively
employed until the evening. The plain of Cazambe
had first been made choice of; but after a short trial,
during which M. Couplet, one of the French academicians,
died suddenly, this position was abandoned.
It was now determined, therefore, to continue the
series of triangles to the south of Quito, and the whole
company dividing itself into two parties, the one to
which Don George Juan was attached proceeded to
the mountain of Pambamarca, while Ulloa, La Condamine,
and Bouguer climbed up to the highest summit
328of Pichincha. “Our first scheme,” says Ulloa,
“for shelter and lodging in these uncomfortable
regions, was to pitch a field-tent for each company;
but on Pichincha this could not be done, from the
narrowness of the summit, and we were obliged to
be contented with a hut, so small that we could
hardly all creep into it. Nor will this appear strange
if the reader considers the bad disposition and smallness
of the place, it being one of the loftiest crags
of a rocky mountain, one hundred toises above the
highest part of the desert of Pichincha. Such was
the situation of our mansion, which, like all the
other adjacent parts, soon became covered with ice
and snow. The ascent up this stupendous rock,
from the base, or the place where the mules could
come to our habitation, was so craggy as only to be
climbed on foot, and to perform it cost us four hours’
continual labour and pain, from the violent efforts
of the body, and the subtilty of the air—the latter
being such as to render respiration difficult. It was
my misfortune, when I climbed something above
half-way, to be so overcome that I fell down, and
remained a long time without sense or motion, and,
I was told, with all the appearances of death in my
face. Nor was I able to proceed after coming to
myself, but was obliged to return to the foot of the
rock, where our servants and instruments remained.
The next day I renewed the attempt of climbing the
rock, though probably I should have had no better
success than before, had not some Indians assisted
me in the most steep and difficult places.”
The picture which Ulloa has given of their extraordinary
manner of living would lose so much of its
interest by being transferred into any other language
than his own, that I cannot resist the temptation to
continue the narrative in his words: “We generally
kept within one hut,” says he; “indeed, we were
obliged to do this, both on account of the intenseness
of the cold, the violence of the wind, and our being
329continually involved in so thick a fog that an object
at six or eight paces was hardly discernible. When
the fog cleared up, the clouds, by their gravity,
moved nearer to the surface of the earth, and on all
sides surrounded the mountain to a vast distance;
representing the sea, with our rock like an island in
the centre of it. When this happened, we heard the
horrid noises of the tempests, which then discharged
themselves on Quito and the neighbouring country.
We saw the lightning issue from the clouds, and
heard the thunders roll far beneath us; and while the
lower parts were involved in tempests of thunder
and rain, we enjoyed a delightful serenity; the wind
was abated, the sky clear, and the enlivening rays of
the sun moderated the severity of the cold. But
our circumstances were very different when the
clouds arose; their thickness rendered respiration
difficult; the snow and hail fell continually; and the
wind returned with all its violence; so that it was
impossible entirely to overcome the fears of being,
together with our hut, blown down the precipice on
whose edge it was built, or of being buried under it
by the daily accumulation of ice and snow.
“The wind was often so violent in these regions,
that its velocity dazzled the sight, while our fears
were increased by the dreadful concussions of the
precipice, and by the fall of enormous fragments of
rocks. These crashes were the more alarming, as
no other noises are heard in these deserts; and
during the night our rest, which we so greatly wanted,
was frequently disturbed by such sudden sounds.
When the weather was any thing fair with us, and
the clouds gathered about some of the other mountains
which had a connexion with our observations, so
that we could not make all the use we desired of this
interval of good weather, we left our huts to exercise
ourselves, in order to keep us warm. Sometimes
we descended to some small distance; and at
other times amused ourselves with rolling large fragments
330of rocks down the precipices, and these many
times required the joint strength of us all, though
we oftentimes saw the same performed by the mere
force of the wind. But we always took care in our
excursions not to go so far but that, on the least
appearance of the clouds gathering about our cottage,
which often happened very suddenly, we could
regain our shelter. The door of our hut was fastened
with thongs of leather, and on the inside not
the smallest crevice was left unstopped; besides
which it was very compactly covered with straw.
But notwithstanding all our care, the wind penetrated
through. The days were often little better
than the nights, and all the light we enjoyed was
that of a lamp or two, which we kept burning that
we might distinguish one another, and improve our
time as much as possible in reading. Though our
hut was small and crowded with inhabitants, besides
the heat of the lamps, yet the intenseness of the
cold was such, that every one of us was obliged to
have a chafing-dish of coals. These precautions
would have rendered the rigour of the climate
supportable, had not the imminent danger of perishing
by being blown down the precipices roused us, every
time it snowed, to encounter the severity of the outward
air, and sally out with shovels to free the roof of
the hut from the masses of snow that were gathering
on it. Nor would it, without this precaution, have
been able to support the weight. We were not
indeed without servants and Indians, but they were
so benumbed with cold, that it was with great difficulty
we could get them out of a small tent, where
they kept a continual fire; so that all we could
obtain from them was to take their turns in this
labour,—and even then they went very unwillingly
about it, and consequently performed it slowly.
“It may easily be conceived what we suffered from
the asperity of such a climate. Our feet were
swelled, and so tender that we could not even bear
331the heat, and walking was attended with great pain.
Our hands were covered with chilblains, our lips
swelled and chopped, so that every motion, speaking
and the like, drew blood; consequently we were
obliged to observe a strict taciturnity, and were but
little disposed to laugh—an extension of the lips
producing fissures, very painful for two or three
days together.
“Our common food in this inhospitable region was
a little boiled rice, with some flesh or fowl, which we
procured from Quito; and instead of fluid water, our
pot was filled with ice; we had the same resource
with regard to what we drank; and while we were
eating every one was obliged to keep his plate over
a chafing-dish of coals, to prevent his provisions
from freezing. The same was done with regard to
the water. At first we imagined that drinking
strong liquors would diffuse a heat through the body,
and consequently render it less sensible of the painful
sharpness of the cold; but, to our surprise, we
found no manner of strength in them, nor were they
any greater preservative against the cold than common
water. For this reason, together with the apprehension
that they might prove detrimental to our
health, besides the danger of contracting an ill habit,
we discontinued their use; having recourse to them
but very seldom, and then sparingly. We frequently
gave a small quantity to our Indians, together with
part of the provisions which were continually sent
us from Quito, besides a daily salary four times as
much as they usually earn.
“But notwithstanding all these encouragements,
we found it impossible to keep the Indians together.
On their first feeling the rigours of the climate, their
thoughts were immediately turned on deserting us.
The first instance we had of this kind was so unexpected,
that had not one of a better disposition than
the rest staid with us, and acquainted us with their
design, it might have proved of very bad consequence.
332The affair was this:—There being upon
the top of the rock no room for pitching a tent for
them, they used every evening to retire to a cave at
the foot of the mountain, where, besides a natural
diminution of the cold, they could keep a continual
fire, and consequently enjoyed more comfortable
quarters than their masters. Before they withdrew
at night they fastened on the outside the door of our
hut, which was so low that it was impossible to go
in or out without stooping; and as every night the
hail and snow which had fallen formed a wall against
the door, it was the business of one or two to come up
early and remove this obstruction, that when we
pleased we might open the door. For though our
negro servants were lodged in a little tent, their
hands and feet were so covered with chilblains that
they would rather have suffered themselves to be
killed than move. The Indians, therefore, came
constantly up to despatch this work between nine
and ten in the morning; but we had not been there
above four or five days when we were not a little
alarmed to see ten, eleven, and twelve o’clock come
without any news of our labourers; when we were
relieved by the honest servant mentioned above, who
had withstood the seduction of his countrymen, and
informed us of the desertion of the four others.
After great difficulty he opened a way for us to come
out, when we all fell to clearing our habitation from
the masses of snow. We then sent the Indian to
the corregidor of Quito with advice of our condition,
who, with equal despatch, sent others, threatening
to chastise them severely if they were wanting
in their duty.”
The fear of punishment, however, was insufficient
to reconcile the Indians to the rigours of a mountain
life, and it was found necessary to have recourse to
milder regulations. On this wild rock they continued
twenty-three days, without being able to complete
their observations; for when one of the points
333on which the signals which formed the triangles for
measuring the degrees of the meridian enjoyed fine
weather, the others were generally hid in clouds.
But at length, in the month of December, the observations
on Pichincha were completed, and they proceeded
to other points, where the same fatigues and
privations were encountered. Only the hut was
now exchanged for a field-tent, which, although in
some respects more troublesome, was less inconvenient
than their Pichincha hut. Nevertheless, as
the tents were necessarily placed in exposed situations
to serve as signals, they were frequently overthrown
by the violence of the wind, which rose in
those wild paramos to a pitch altogether indescribable.
Such was their manner of life from the beginning
of August, 1737, to the end of July, 1739, during
which space of time one of the parties occupied
thirty-five deserts, and the other thirty-two. But by
degrees their bodies became inured to the hardships
which they endured. Habit began to reconcile them
to the fearful scenery in which they existed, and
every little unaccustomed comfort which accident
threw in their way was magnified by their imaginations
into splendid luxuries. “The diminutive cabins
of the Indians,” observes Ulloa, “and the small
cattle-stalls, scattered at intervals on the skirts of
the mountains, where we used to lodge in our passage
from one desert to another, were to us spacious
palaces; mean villages appeared like magnificent
cities; and the conversation of a priest and two or
three of his companions charmed us like the
banquet of Xenophon.”
About the end of September, 1740, while they
were still busily engaged in making astronomical
observations at one of the extremities of the arch of
the meridian, which had been measured, Ulloa and
Don George Juan were suddenly called to Lima by
an order of the viceroy. War had just been declared
334between England and Spain, and the expedition
under Lord Anson menaced the seacoasts of
the Spanish possessions in South America. Ulloa
and Juan were therefore commissioned to put the
principal points in the neighbourhood of Lima in a
state of defence; after which they obtained permission
to return to Quito, to resume their scientific
observations. But scarcely had they traversed the
mountains, and arrived at the scene of their labours,
when they were recalled to the coast, the sack of
Payta by the English fleet having spread a universal
panic through the country. This visit of Ulloa to
Guayaquil was brief; but he had no sooner returned
to Quito than he was once more ordered to repair,
with George Juan, who had been detained in Guayaquil,
to Lima. Here they were honoured with the
command of two frigates, with orders to cruise along
the coasts of Chili and the island of Juan Fernandez.
The arrival of certain Spanish reinforcements at
Lima at length rendered it practicable for them to
return to their scientific occupations at Quito, from
whence all the French academicians had departed,
except Godin, in conjunction with whom they observed
the comet of 1744.
They were now become impatient to revisit Europe,
with the results of their labours, and embarked
at Callao, on board of two French ships, which
were about to sail by the way of Cape Horn, for
Brest. The two ships were separated by tempests.
The one in which Ulloa was embarked shortly after
this fell in with two other French ships, in company
with which it was attacked by two English privateers,
when it with difficulty escaped, leaving its
companions, with three millions of piastres, in their
hands. To avoid a similar fate, they now directed
their course towards the coast of North America.
But on reaching the port of Louisburg, at Cape
Breton, while the crew were congratulating themselves
on their escape from so many dangers, they
335were compelled, without firing a gun, to strike to the
English, who had just rendered themselves masters
of that city.
Ulloa was received with distinguished humanity
and politeness by Commodore Warren, the commander
of the English fleet, who invited him to his
table, and on his departure for England recommended
him to the kind treatment of the captain of
the ship in which he was to sail, with special directions
that his papers should be carefully preserved.
The voyage to England was long and tedious. They
arrived at Portsmouth December 29, 1744. From
the ship our traveller was conducted to Fareham, a
pleasant village, he observes, at the extremity of
Portsmouth harbour, which was appointed to be the
place of his captivity, as well as of all those who
had been included in the capitulation of Louisburg.
Ulloa dwells with particular pleasure on the courtesy
and generosity of Captain Butt, of the Sunderland
(the ship in which he was conveyed to England),
to all the prisoners of any rank; “whom,”
says Ulloa, “he not only admitted to his table during
the voyage, but prevailed on all the other officers to
imitate his good example, and who seemed to vie in
civilities towards us, and humanity towards the inferior
sort, sparing nothing to alleviate our misfortunes.
And let this remain a monument of my
gratitude to such a generous set of gentlemen.”
He then proceeds to relate, that the troubled state
of the country, occasioned by the wicked and insane
expedition of the Pretender, together with the bad
conduct of some prisoners, who, contrary to the
rules of honour, abused the indulgence shown them,
and violated their parole, caused the prisoners to be
deprived of several privileges, and to be confined
with greater strictness. He observes, however, that
for his own part he was treated by the commissioners,
both for French and Spanish prisoners, with
such extraordinary humanity, and received so many
336favours, accompanied with such politeness and cordiality,
that he became entirely easy under his misfortunes,
the reflections on which grew every day
less and less painful. “The commissary of the
Spanish prisoners,” says Ulloa, “was Mr. William
Rickman, under whose care, consequently, I should
have been, without the circumstance of having been
taken in a French ship. Yet, my being a Spaniard
recommended me to his kindness, which, I with
gratitude own, he carried to a very great height; and
I had a large share of those acts of goodness by
which he had deserved the universal acknowledgment
of the Spanish nation. For, from the beginning
of the war, and the taking of the Princessa, he
exerted all possible care for the comfort of the prisoners:
and the chief officers he even lodged at his
own seat, and many others at an adjacent farm-house,
called Perbrook, about a quarter of a league
from Tichfield, on the London road, and about three
miles from Fareham. He made public and private
solicitations in their behalf: he treated all with affability,
and used the greatest despatch in their several
affairs; he raised charitable contributions, which
were chiefly laid out in apparel for those of the
lower class; and the officers he in the most genteel
manner furnished with money, that they might live
in tolerable decency.”
Both Mr. Brookes, commissary for the French prisoners,
to which Ulloa, as taken in a French ship,
belonged, and Mr. Rickman, offered to unite their
interests in procuring him his papers to be returned.
For this purpose a petition was addressed to the
Duke of Bedford, first commissioner of the Admiralty;
and “the answer,” says Ulloa, “was entirely
becoming the generosity of the nation among which
the chance of war had brought me.” The Duke of
Bedford, and the other lords of the Admiralty, “unanimously,
and with pleasure, granted the contents of
my memorial; nobly adding, that they were not at
337war with the arts and sciences, or their professors;
that the English nation cultivated them; and that it
was the glory of its ministers and great men to protect
and encourage them.”
Upon making application Ulloa readily obtained
permission to repair to London, where, “on my first
attendance,” says he, “at the office for prisoners of
war, an order was shown me from my Lord Harrington,
secretary of state, for bringing me to his
house. This nobleman, having been ambassador for
some years in Spain, among his other eminent qualifications
had a great affection for the Spaniards,
which he was pleased to extend to me in a most
obliging reception, and assurances that nothing
should be wanting in him to procure me my papers,
or do me any other good offices.”
Martin Folkes, president of the Royal Society of
London, now likewise interested himself in his behalf,
and his papers were in consequence restored
to him. By his kindness Ulloa was introduced to
many distinguished literary men and other persons
of rank and consideration, as well as elected a member
of the Royal Society. “Actions like these,”
says our traveller, “convinced me of the sincerity
of the English, their candour, their benevolence,
and disinterested complaisance. I observed the
tempers, inclinations, particular customs, government,
constitution, and policy of this praiseworthy
nation, which in its economical conduct and social
virtues may be a pattern to those who boast of superior
talents to all the rest of mankind.”
Shortly after this Ulloa embarked for Lisbon, and
arrived at Madrid in 1746, in the beginning of the
reign of Ferdinand VI., eleven years and two months
after his embarkation at Cadiz. He was received
in the most flattering manner at court, and appointed
captain of a frigate and commander of the order of
St. Jago. The arrangement and composition of his
travels occupied his whole attention during the two
338following years; and in 1748 his great work on
South America, by which he will be advantageously
known to posterity, was published by the order and
at the expense of the government. When this was
accomplished, he travelled by order of the king over
a considerable portion of Europe, collecting during
his journey knowledge useful both to the state and
to the nation. As a reward for his services, he was
appointed superintendent of the mercury mine at
Guancavelica in Peru; but this did not altogether
answer his expectations. In the reign of Charles III.
he was promoted to the rank of commodore of a
squadron, and was intrusted with the command of
the fleet of the Indies. In 1762 Ulloa was commissioned
to take possession of Louisiana, which had
been recently ceded to Spain, and was at the same
time appointed governor; but met with so much resistance
on the part of the colonists, who disliked
the change, that he was compelled to re-embark.
The remainder of his life was spent in honourable
offices and in literary and scientific labours, by which
he acquired a high degree of well-merited reputation.
He died in the Isle of Leon, on the 3d of July,
1795, in the eightieth year of his age.
- Transcriber’s Notes:
- On page 23 the Hebrew word for “clay” was corrected and verified by a native Hebrew
speaker.
- On the following pages the Greek transcriptions were corrected and verified by a
native Greek speaker: 21, 43, 48 and 84.
- Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
- Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant
form was found in this book.
