The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller

by Sir Francis Bond Head

During his tedious detention at Sennaar, Bruce occupied himself, as usual, in making celestial observations, and in inquiring into the history of the country, a great part of which he minutely relates.

"Nothing," he says, "is more pleasant than the country around Sennaar in the end of August and beginning of September, I mean so far as the eye is concerned: instead of that barren, bare waste which it appeared on our arrival in May, the corn now sprung up, and, covering the ground, made the whole of this immense plain appear a level, green land, interspersed with great lakes of water, and ornamented at certain intervals with groups of villages, the conical tops of the houses presenting at a distance the appearance of small encampments. Through this immense plain winds the Nile, a delightful river there, above a mile broad, full to the very brim, but never overflowing. Everywhere on these banks are seen numerous herds of the most beautiful cattle of various kinds, the tribute recently extorted from the Arabs, who, freed from all their vexations, return home with the remainder of their flocks in peace, at as great a distance from the town, country, and their oppressors as they possibly can.

"The banks of the Nile about Sennaar resemble the pleasantest parts of Holland in the summer season; but, soon after, when the rains cease, and the sun exerts his utmost influence, the dora begins to ripen, the leaves to turn yellow and to rot, the lakes to putrify, smell, and be full of vermin, all this beauty suddenly disappears; bare, scorched Nubia returns, and all its terrors of poisonous winds and moving sands, glowing and ventilated with sultry blasts, which are followed by a troop of terrible attendants, epilepsies, apoplexies, violent fevers, obstinate agues, and lingering, painful dysenteries, still more obstinate and mortal.

"War and treason seem to be the only employment of this horrid people, whom Heaven has separated by almost impassable deserts from the rest of mankind."

To any one who will consider that Sennaar is only thirteen degrees from the line, it is scarcely necessary to observe that its heat is excessive, though the natives bear it with astonishing ease; for on the 2d of August, while Bruce was lying perfectly enervated in a room deluged with water, at noon, the thermometer being at 116°, he saw several black labourers working without any appearance of being incommoded.

His observations on heat are so practical, and so admirably expressed, that we give them in his own words: "Cold and hot are terms merely relative, not determined by the latitude, but elevation of the place; when, therefore, we say hot, some other explanation is necessary concerning the place where we are, in order to give an adequate idea of the sensations of that heat upon the body, and the effects of it upon the lungs. The degree of the thermometer conveys this very imperfectly; ninety degrees is excessively hot at Loheia in Arabia Felix, and yet the latitude of Loheia is but fifteen degrees, whereas ninety degrees at Sennaar is, as to sense, only warm, although Sennaar, as we have said, is in latitude thirteen degrees.

"At Sennaar, then, I call it cold when one, fully clothed and at rest, feels himself in want of fire. I call it cool when one fully clothed and at rest feels he could bear more covering all over, or in part more than he has then on. I call it temperate when a man, so clothed and at rest, feels no such want, and can take moderate exercise, such as walking about a room, without sweating. I call it warm when a man, so clothed, does not sweat when at rest, but, upon moderate motion, sweats and again cools. I call it hot when a man sweats at rest, and excessively on moderate motion. I call it very hot when a man, with thin or little clothing, sweats much, though at rest. I call it excessive hot when a man in his shirt, at rest, sweats excessively, when all motion is painful, and the knees feel feeble as if after a fever. I call it extreme hot when the strength fails, a disposition to faint comes on, a straitness is found in the temples, as if a small cord was drawn tight around the head, the voice impaired, the skin dry, and the head seems more than ordinarily large and light."

If Bruce's enemies could but have been subjected to this last degree of temperature, they would, perhaps, for once have agreed to admire the indefatigable exertions which, under such a climate, and in spite of ill health, he still continued to make. The history, ancient and modern, of the kingdom of Sennaar, its natural history, its trade, money, measures, diseases, etc., etc., were objects of his most eager inquiry; and it may truly be said, that his thirst for information seems actually to have increased with the difficulties which oppressed him.

He made every exertion to leave Sennaar: in vain were represented to him the dangers which awaited him. "I persisted," says he, "in my resolution; I was tied to the stake. To fly was impossible; and I had often overcome such dangers by braving them;" but a new difficulty now arose. His funds were exhausted, and the person with whom he had credit refused to supply him. "This was a stroke," says Bruce, "that seemed to ensure our destruction, no other resource being now left. My servants began to murmur; some of them had known of my gold chain from the beginning, and these, in the common danger, imparted what they knew to the rest. In short, I resolved, though very unwillingly, not to sacrifice my own life and that of my servants, and the finishing my travels, now so far advanced, to childish vanity. I determined, therefore, to abandon my gold chain, the honourable recompense of a day full of fatigue and danger.