“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, ‘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, Bruce 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 next 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 to-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 over 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.”