While thus detained at Cyprus, Bruce's thoughts and dreams were enthusiastically filled with the distant object of his ambition; and, as Mohammed is said to have once walked to the mountain because it declined to visit him, so did Bruce indulge himself with the opposite idea, that he saw the waters of the Nile flying towards him in the heavens of Cyprus. "We observed," says he, "a number of thin, white clouds moving with great rapidity from south to north, in direct opposition to the course of the Etesian winds; these were immensely high. It was evident they came from the mountains of Abyssinia, where, having discharged their weight of rain, and being pressed by the lower current of heavier air from the northward, they had mounted to possess the vacuum, and returned to restore the equilibrium to the northward, whence they were to come back, loaded with vapour from Mount Taurus, to occasion the overflowing of the Nile, by breaking against the high and rugged mountains of the south. Nothing could be more agreeable to me than that sight, and the reasoning upon it. I already, with pleasure, anticipated the time in which I should be a spectator first, afterward an historian of this phenomenon, hitherto a mystery through all ages: I exulted in the measures I had taken!" But Bruce has already sailed from Cyprus; and, previous to his first introduction to the waters of the Nile, it may not be improper for one moment calmly and dispassionately to consider how far he was qualified for the attempt which he was about to undertake. Being thirty-eight years of age, he was at that period of life in which both the mind and body of man are capable of their utmost possible exertions. During his travels and residence in Europe, Africa, and Asia, he had become practically acquainted with the religion, manners, and prejudices of many countries differing from his own; and he had learned to speak the French, Italian, Spanish, modern Greek, Moorish, and Arabic languages. Full of enterprise, enthusiastically devoted to the object he had in view, accustomed to hardship, inured to climate as well as to fatigue, he was a man of undoubted courage. In stature he was six feet four inches, and with this imposing appearance possessed great personal strength; and, lastly, in every proper sense of the word, he was a gentleman; and no man about to travel can give to his country a better pledge for veracity than when, like Bruce, his mind is ever retrospectively viewing the noble conduct of his ancestors; thus showing that he considers he has a stake in society which, by the meanness of falsehood or exaggeration, he would be unable to transmit unsullied to his posterity. FOOTNOTES: