After an interview with this lady, towards whom he conducted himself with a degree of familiarity which in any other country would have been fatal to him, he presented himself before the king, who, after various childish questions, and detaining him until a very late hour, dismissed him for the night. He then proceeded, with several other officers of the palace, to the house of a nobleman, where they had that evening been invited to supper. Here a quarrel took place between Bruce and a nephew of Ras Michael, originating in the gasconading character of both parties, the Abyssinian conducting himself like a vain barbarian, and Bruce like a man no less vain, but possessing the advantage of superior knowledge. The only person who appears to any advantage in this affair is Ras Michael, who, quelling his natural feelings, and magnanimously taking upon himself the protection of the weaker party, acted in a manner truly noble, and, whatever may have been his crimes, stood on this occasion superior to all around him.
This storm having blown over, Bruce assiduously attended to the duties of his office, and by the exercise of considerable prudence, raised himself gradually in the estimation of the court. He had boasted, in his quarrel with the Ras’s nephew, that through his superior skill in the use of firearms, he could do more execution with a candle’s end than his antagonist with an iron ball; and one day, long after that event, he was suddenly asked by the king whether he was not drunk when he made this gasconade. He replied that he was perfectly sober; and offered to perform the experiment at once in presence of the monarch. This, in fact, he did; and having shot through three shields and a sycamore table with a piece of candle, his reputation as a magician,—for, with the exception of the king and the Ras, they all seem to have accounted for the fact by supernatural reasons,—was more firmly established than ever.
About this time he lost his companion Balugani, who had been attacked in Arabia Felix by a dysentery, which put a period to his life at Gondar. Of this young man Bruce has said but little in his travels; but he regretted his death, which threw him for a time into a state of depression and despondency. From this, however, he was roused by the general festivity and rejoicing which took place in Gondar upon the marriage of Ozoro Esther’s sister with the governor of Bergunder. The traveller dined daily, by particular invitation, with the Ras. Feasting, in Abyssinia, includes the gratification of every sensual appetite. All ideas of decency are set aside; the ladies drink to excess; and the orgies which succeed surpass in wantonness and lack of shame whatever has been related of the cynics of antiquity.
Among the patients whom Bruce had attended on his first arrival at Gondar was Ayto Confu, the son of Ozoro Esther by a former husband. The gratitude of this young man for the kind attention of his physician, which had been manifested on numerous occasions, at length procured Bruce to be nominated governor of Ras el Feel, a small unwholesome district on the confines of Sennaar. To this government our traveller never designed to attend in person; but it enabled him to oblige his old friend Yasine, the Moor, whom he appointed to govern the district as his deputy.
Into the details of the civil dissensions which at this period convulsed this barbarous country it is altogether unnecessary to enter. Revolts, conspiracies, rebellions, succeeded each other in the natural course of things, and Bruce’s position compelled him to take a more or less active part in them all. In the spring of 1770, Fasil, the rival of Ras Michael, being once more in motion, the royal army left Gondar, to proceed in search of the rebels, and on entering the enemy’s territory exercised all kinds of barbarities and excesses.
From the king’s army he proceeded in May to visit the cataract of Alata on the Nile. The river, where he first came up with it, was found to run in a deep narrow channel, between two rocks, with great roaring and impetuous velocity. Its banks were shaded by beautiful trees and bushes; and there was no danger from crocodiles, as that animal does not ascend the stream so high. “The cataract itself,” says Bruce, “was the most magnificent sight that I ever beheld. The height has been rather exaggerated. The missionaries say the fall is about sixteen ells, or fifty feet. The measuring is, indeed, very difficult; but by the position of long sticks, and poles of different lengths, at different heights of the rocks, from the water’s edge, I may venture to say it is nearer forty feet than any other measure. The river had been considerably increased by rains, and fell in one sheet of water, without any interval, above half an English mile in breadth, with a force and noise that was truly terrible, and which stunned and made me for a time perfectly dizzy. A thick fume or haze covered the fall all round, and hung over the course of the stream both above and below, marking its track, though the water was not seen. The river, though swelled with rain, preserved its natural clearness, and fell, as far as I could discern, into a deep pool or basin in the solid rock, which was full, and in twenty different eddies to the very foot of the precipice, the stream, when it fell, seeming part of it to run back with great fury upon the rock, as well as forward in the line of its course, raising a wave, or violent ebullition, by chafing against each other.”
After contending that the assertion of Jerome Lobo, that he had sat under the curve made by the projectile force of the water rushing over the precipice, could not be true, he adds,—“It was a most magnificent sight, that ages, added to the greatest length of human life, would not efface or eradicate from my memory.” “It seemed to me as if one element had broke loose from, and become superior to, all laws of subordination; that the fountains of the great deep were extraordinarily opened, and the destruction of a world was again begun by the agency of water.”
His curiosity on this point having now been satisfied, he returned to the army, which shortly after, at Limjour, fought a desperate battle with the rebels, in which the latter were defeated. After this, Fasil, their commander, upon making his submission, was received into favour, and appointed governor of Damot and Maitsha. During these transactions, many of the servants of Fasil visited the royal camp, and Bruce, reflecting that the sources of the Nile lay in their master’s government, endeavoured to conciliate their good wishes by his attentions and presents. He likewise in their hearing spoke highly of Fasil, and on their departure gave them, not only a present for their master, but also for themselves. These men, moreover, requested him to prescribe something for a cancer on the lip, with which Welleta Yasous, Fasil’s principal general, was afflicted.
In return for this service, which they rated very high, saying in the presence of the king that Fasil would be more pleased with the cure of this man than with the magnificent appointments which the king’s goodness had bestowed upon him, Bruce only demanded that the village of Geesh, and the source of the Nile, should be given him; and that Fasil, as soon as it might be in his power, should be bound by the king to conduct him to the sources without fee or reward. This request was granted; and Fasil’s servants swore, in the name of their master, that the village and the fountains should belong to Yagoube and his posterity for ever.
On the 28th of October, 1770, Bruce and his party set out from Gondar to explore the sources of the Nile. Having passed by the lake of Tzana, he came up at Bamba with Fasil’s army, which was now once more in motion. Here he had an interview with this rebel chieftain, who was as insolent to strangers as he was undutiful to his sovereign. However, after much blustering and many exhibitions of vanity, in which Bruce, who was never at a loss on such occasions, was fully his equal, he seemed to relapse into what was probably his natural disposition, and promised to afford his guest the most ample protection. He then introduced him to seven chiefs of the Gallas, ferocious savages, who appeared in the eyes of Bruce to be so many thieves; and having informed him that he might pass in the utmost safety through their country, and that, in fact, he would very soon be related to them all, as it was their custom, when visited by any stranger of distinction, to give him the privilege of sleeping with their sisters and daughters. Upon this he put a question to the savages in the Galla language, probably asking them whether it were not so; and they all answered, says Bruce, by the wildest howl I ever heard, and struck themselves upon the breast, apparently assenting.