“It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment, standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns for the course of near three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies, and each expedition was distinguished from the last only by the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly and without exception followed them all.... Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here in my own mind over kings and their armies; and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer to presumption, when the place itself where I stood, the object of my vainglory, suggested what depressed my short-lived triumph. I was but a few minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence; I was, however, but then half through my journey, and all those dangers which I had already passed awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself.”
This was extremely natural. He had proposed to himself an object in itself rather curious than useful, and in all probability had in his imagination invested these fountains themselves with a magnificent or mysterious character which the realities were found not to possess, and that depression of spirit which is occasioned by disappointment ensued. Besides, he could scarcely seriously disbelieve the fact that Paez had visited the spot before him; and, therefore, that however great his pleasure might be, as “a private Briton,” triumphing in his own mind over kings and their armies, he was not really the first European who had approached these fountains; that is, was not the discoverer of them. The talking of kings at the head of armies having made the discovery of the sources of the Nile their object, and failed, is a mere rhetorical figure of speech. When Ptolemy Euergetes was at Auxum, what was there to hinder his proceeding to Geesh? Bruce’s mode of describing his own achievements is pompous and vain; but he had purchased the right to be a little vain at so dear a rate that we readily forgive him.
Having by numerous observations discovered that the fountains of the Nile are situated in latitude 10° 59´ 25´´ N., and in longitude 36° 55´ 30´´ E., Bruce, after a stay of six days, prepared to return to Gondar. While he remained at Geesh, he contrived with his usual address to acquire the confidence of the inhabitants, with whom he lived in great familiarity and harmony. These people, as his guide had informed him, really worship the Nile. Annually, on the first appearance of the dog-star, or eleven days afterward according to others, the servant, or priest, of the river assembles the heads of the clans around the principal fountain and altar. Having sacrificed a black heifer which has never borne a calf, they plunge the head of the beast into the fountain, and then draw it out, and wrap it up in the hide, previously sprinkled on both sides with the water of the river, so as that it may never more be seen by mortal. The body of the heifer is then divided into two parts, carefully cleansed, and placed upon the hillock, where it is washed with water brought in the hollow of the hand, for no dish must be used by the elders or principal persons of the tribes. The flesh is then cut into pieces, one for each clan, and eaten raw. They then quench their thirst with the sacred waters of the Nile, and burn the bones to ashes on the spot where they have been sitting. When this part of the ceremony is over, the head is carried into a cavern, which, they assert, extends under the fountains, and there certain mysterious rites, the nature of which has never been revealed, are performed. What becomes of the head is unknown. The Abyssinians, in hatred of their pagan subjects, assert that the powers of hell unite with the river worshippers in devouring it; but, however they may dispose of it, they certainly pray to the spirit residing in the river, whom they address as the Everlasting God, Light of the World, Eye of the World, God of Peace, the Saviour, and Father of the Universe.
Relics of serpent-worship, which has in all ages extensively prevailed in the East, were likewise observed among the Agows, who use them, as the Romans did their sacred chickens, for purposes of divination.
On the 10th of November Bruce took his leave of the fountains of the Nile, and returned to Gondar. Here, as the civil war still raged with unexampled fury, he was during a whole year witness of all those atrocities which ferocious barbarians exercise towards each other when excited by ambition or revenge. At the termination of this period, however, notwithstanding that old law of Abyssinia forbidding strangers to quit the country, which had a thousand times been broken, he obtained the king’s permission to depart, though not before he had taken a solemn oath, which he never intended to fulfil, that, after having visited his home and friends, he would return.
Leaving Gondar on the 26th of December, 1771, with a numerous suite of attendants, he proceeded through the northern provinces of Abyssinia, the country of the Shangalla, and crossing the rivers Rabad, Dender, and Nile, arrived on the 29th of April, 1772, at Sennaar, the capital of Nubia. The next morning after his arrival he was summoned into the presence of the king, whom he found in a small apartment in his vast clay-built palace, dressed very meanly, and reposing on a mattress covered with a Persian carpet. He was a “fellow of no mark or likelihood,” with a “very plebeian countenance;” but he received the stranger civilly, asked him numerous questions, and furnished him with a very comfortable dinner of camel’s flesh. The crowds in the streets, however, were exceedingly insolent; and while they affronted and hooted at him as he passed, he called to mind with horror that, but a few years before, this same mob had murdered a French ambassador with all his attendants.
At this city he was detained by various circumstances until the 8th of September, and during this period was enabled to make numerous inquiries into the history of the country, civil and natural, together with the manners, customs, religions, and character of its inhabitants. But when the day of departure arrived, he proceeded with indescribable pleasure on his journey, having the Nile on his right-hand, and the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White River, which he never approached, on the left. On the 21st he again crossed the Nile, and after travelling along its banks for several days, took a long leave of its stream, and plunged into the vast desert of Nubia. The soil here consisted of fixed gravel, of a very disagreeable whitish colour, mixed with small pieces of white marble and pebbles like alabaster, and wholly bare of trees. As they proceeded, indeed, a few patches of coarse grass, with small groves of acacia, met and refreshed the eye. On the 14th of November they halted in a small hollow, called Waadi-el-Halboub, and “were here at once surprised and terrified,” says Bruce, “by a sight surely one of the most magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, from west and to north-west of us we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand, at different distances, at times moving with great celerity, at others stalking on with a majestic slowness. At intervals we thought they were coming in a very few minutes to overwhelm us, and small quantities of sand did actually more than once reach us. Again they would retreat, so as to be almost out of sight, their tops reaching to the very clouds. There the tops often separated from the bodies; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. Sometimes they were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon-shot. About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon us, the wind being very strong at north. Eleven of them ranged alongside of us about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared to me at that distance as if it would measure ten feet. They retired from us with a wind at S.E., leaving an impression upon my mind to which I can give no name, though surely one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was in vain to think of flying: the swiftest horse or fastest sailing ship could be of no use to carry us out of this danger, and the full persuasion of this riveted me as if to the spot where I stood.”
The appearance of these phantoms of the plain, as Bruce terms them, sent their guide to his prayers, and together with the danger which they were now in of perishing of thirst, produced in the whole party nothing but murmuring, discontent, and insubordination. Next day the moving sand-pillars again appeared. The sublimity of the scene,—a boundless desert, level as the sea, condemned to eternal desolation, without sounds or signs of life, animal or vegetable; the arid soil, drained of every particle of moisture, reduced by perpetual attrition to almost impalpable atoms, and raised aloft by whirlwinds into prodigious columns, which, as if instinct with life, glided along with preternatural rapidity,—all this, I say, no language, however magnificent, or exalted by metaphor and poetical fervour, could ever present in its proper terrors to the mind. These pillars on their second appearance were more numerous, but of inferior dimensions to those seen at Waadi Halboub. They had probably been careering over the waste in the darkness and silence of night; as, immediately after sunrise, they were observed, like a thick wood, reaching to the clouds, and almost darkening the sun, whose slanting rays, shining through them as they moved along, like enormous shadows, before the wind, gave them the appearance of pillars of fire. Our traveller’s attendants now became desperate: the Greeks shrieked out that the day of judgment was come; Ismael, a Turk, said it was hell; and the Africans exclaimed that the world was on fire. Bruce now demanded of their guide whether he had ever before witnessed such a sight. “Frequently,” replied the man, “but I have never seen a worse.” He added, however, that from the redness of the air, he dreaded the approach of something much more terrible than these fiery columns,—the simoom, which almost invariably ensued upon such a disposition of the atmosphere. This information greatly increased the apprehensions of the traveller; but he entreated the man to conceal his suspicions from their companions.
In the forenoon of the next day, being in sight of the rock of Chiggre, where they expected to refresh themselves with plenty of excellent water, and were therefore in high spirits, the guide cried out with a loud voice, “Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom!” Bruce looked, he says, towards the south-east, and saw “a haze come in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very rapidly; for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground with my head to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris (the guide) told us it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw, was indeed passed, but the light air that still blew, was of a heat to threaten suffocation. For my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part of it; nor was I free of an asthmatic sensation till I had been some months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, near two years afterward.”
The effect of this state of the atmosphere upon his companions was sudden and extraordinary. They were all seized with an unusual despondency, ceased to speak to each other, or if they spoke it was in whispers; from which Bruce conjectured, perhaps without reason, that some plot was forming against him. He therefore called them together, reprimanded them for their fears, exhorted them to take courage, reminded them, that whatever might be their sufferings, his own were not less than theirs; desired them to look at his swollen face, his neck blistered by the sun, his feet torn and bleeding, and to observe his voice nearly lost by the simoom. With respect to the scantiness of water, of which they had complained, he was so well persuaded that they had nothing to apprehend on this score, that he would allow each man an additional gourd-full from their present stock. In fact, if they lifted up their eyes, they would perceive in the distance, the bare, black, and sharp point of the rock Chiggre, where there was an abundance of water. The only point, therefore, was to hasten on in good spirits to this spot, where all their fears of perishing from thirst in the desert would immediately vanish. This speech restored the courage of the whole party, and they continued their march with something like energy. That same evening they reached Chiggre.