Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 3 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773
Bruce, James
Egypt -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- History; Natural history -- Ethiopia; Nile River
He said I was a Frank, and a liar, and, upon my immediately rising up,
he gave me a kick with his foot. I was quite blind with passion, seized
him by the throat, and threw him on the ground stout as he was. The
Abyssinians know nothing of either wrestling or boxing. He drew his
knife as he was falling, attempted to cut me in the face, but his arm
not being at freedom, all he could do was to give me a very trifling
stab, or wound, near the crown of the head, so that the blood trickled
down over my face. I had tript him up, but till then had never struck
him. I now wrested the knife from him with a full intention to kill
him; but Providence directed better. Instead of the point, I struck
so violently with the handle upon his face as to leave scars, which
would be distinguished even among the deep marks of the small-pox. An
adventure so new, and so unexpected, presently overcame the effects
of wine. It was too late to disturb anybody either in the palace or
at the house of the Ras. A hundred opinions were immediately started;
some were for sending us up to the king, as we were actually in the
precincts of the palace, where lifting a hand is death. Ayto Heikel
advised that I should go, late as it was, to Koscam; and Petros, that
I should repair immediately to the house of Ayto Aylo, while the two
Baalomaals were for taking me to sleep in the palace. Anthulè, in
whose house I was, and who was therefore most shocked at the outrage,
wished me to stay in his house, where I was, from a supposition that I
was seriously wounded, which all of them, seeing the blood fall over
my eyes, seemed to think was the case, and he, in the morning, at
the king’s rising, was to state the matter as it happened. All these
advices appeared good when they were proposed; for my part, I thought
they only tended to make bad worse, and bore the appearance of guilt,
of which I was not conscious.
I now determined to go home, and to bed in my own house. With that
intention, I washed my face and wound with vinegar, and found the
blood to be already staunched. I then wrapt myself up in my cloak, and
returned home without accident, and went to bed. But this would neither
satisfy Ayto Heikel nor Petros, who went to the house of Ayto Aylo,
then past midnight, so that early in the morning, when scarce light, I
saw him come into my chamber. Guebra Mascal had fled to the house of
Kefla Yasous his relation; and the first news we heard in the morning,
after Ayto Aylo arrived, were, that Guebra Mascal was in irons at the
Ras’s house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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