"I shall not entertain the reader with the multitude of their complaints; being a lady's physician, discretion and silence are my first duties. It is sufficient to say, that there was not one part of their whole bodies in which some of them had not ailments. The three queens insisted upon being blooded, which desire I complied with, as it was an operation that required short attendance; but, upon producing the lancets, their hearts failed them. They then all cried out for the tabange, which in Arabic means a pistol; but what they meant by this word was, the cupping instrument, which goes off with a spring like the snap of a pistol. I had two of these with me, but not at that time in my pocket. I sent my servant home, however, to bring one, and, the same evening, performed the operation upon the three queens with great success. The room was overflowed with an effusion of royal blood, and the whole ended with their insisting upon my giving them the instrument itself, which I was obliged to do, after cupping two of their slaves before them, who had no complaints, merely to show them how the operation was to be performed." When the "black spirits" of these queens had somewhat revived, the creatures naturally became a little playful, and were exceedingly curious to inspect Bruce's skin. "The only terms," he says, "I could possibly, and that with great difficulty, make for myself, were, that they should be contented to strip me no farther than the shoulders and breast. Upon seeing the whiteness of my skin, they gave all a loud cry in token of dislike, and shuddered, seeming to consider it rather the effects of disease than natural. I think in my life I never felt so disagreeably. I have been in more than one battle, but surely I would joyfully have taken any chance again in any of them to have been freed from that examination. I could not help likewise reflecting that, if the king had come in during this exhibition, the consequences would either have been impaling, or stripping off that skin whose colour they were so curious about; indeed, it was impossible to be more chagrined at, or more disgusted with, my present situation than I was; and the more so, that my delivery from it appeared to be very distant, and the circumstances were more and more unfavourable every day." During his tedious detention at Sennaar, Bruce occupied himself, as usual, in making celestial observations, and in inquiring into the history of the country, a great part of which he minutely relates.