The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African TravellerHead, Francis Bond, Sir
History
The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller
Head, Francis Bond, Sir
Bruce, James, 1730-1794; Ethiopia -- Description and travel
At three quarters after one they arrived at the top of the mountain,
from whence they had a distinct view of all the remaining territory of
Sacala, the Mountain of Geesh, and the Church of St. Michael Geesh.
"Immediately below us," says Bruce, "appeared the Nile itself, strangely
diminished in size, and now only a brook that had scarcely water 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."
Bruce was roused from this revery by an alarm that Woldo the guide was
missing. The servants could not agree when they saw him last. Strates
the Greek, with another of the party, was in the wood shooting; but they
soon appeared without Woldo. They said that they had seen some enormous
shaggy apes or baboons without tails, several of which were walking
upright, and they therefore concluded either that these creatures had
torn Woldo to pieces, or that he was lagging behind for some purpose of
treachery; however, while they were thus talking, Woldo was seen
approaching, pretending to be very ill, and declaring that he could go
no farther. Bruce was at this moment occupied in sketching a yellow
rose-tree, several of which species were hanging over the river.
"The Nile," he says, "here is not four yards over, and not above four
inches deep where we crossed; it was indeed become a very trifling
brook, but ran swiftly over a bottom of small stones, with hard black
rock appearing among them: it is at this place very easy to pass and
very limpid, but a little lower, full of inconsiderable falls; the
ground rises gently from the river to the southward, full of small hills
and eminences, which you ascend and descend almost imperceptibly. The
day had been very hot for some hours, and my party were sitting in the
shade of a grove of magnificent cedars, intermixed with some very large
and beautiful cusso-trees, all in flower; the men were lying on the
grass, and the beasts fed with their burdens on their backs in most
luxuriant herbage." Above was a small ford, where the Nile was so narrow
that Bruce had stepped across it more than fifty times: it had now
dwindled to the size of a common mill-stream.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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