The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller

by Sir Francis Bond Head

Bruce's first attention was to the camels, to whom he gave that day a double feed of dora, that they might drink sufficient for the rest of their journey, should the wells in the way prove scanty of water. He then bathed in a large pool of very cold water, in a cave covered with rock, and inaccessible to the sun in any direction. All the party seemed to be greatly refreshed except the Tucorory, one of whom died about an hour after his arrival, and another early the next morning.

With the corpses of his companions at his side, with dangers of every sort before him, lame and exhausted, Bruce, as usual, deliberately unpacked his instruments, to determine, notwithstanding the piercing glare of the sun and the weakness of his eyes, the longitude and latitude of Chiggre. Regularly, at noon, he had described, in a rough manner, his course through the day, carrying always a compass, with a needle of five inches radius, round his neck. His ink was fixed to his girdle, and his notes were written on very long, narrow strips of drawing paper, cut for the purpose.

But subordination was now at an end, and Bruce had great difficulty in persuading his own servants to assist him in setting up his large quadrant, in order that he might determine the situation of the place.

On the 17th they left Chiggre. Ismael and Georgis, the blind Greek, had complained of shivering all night, and Bruce began to be very apprehensive that some violent fever was to follow. Their perspiration had not returned since their coming out of the cold water. The day, however, was insufferably hot, and their complaints insensibly vanished. A little before eleven they were again terrified by an army of sand pillars, whose march was constantly south. At one time a number of these pillars faced to the east, and seemed to be coming directly upon them; but Bruce began now to be reconciled to this phenomenon, and the magnificence of its appearance seemed in some measure to indemnify them for the panic it had first occasioned: it was otherwise, however, with the simoom, for they all were firmly persuaded that another passage of that purple meteor would cause their deaths.

At half past four they alighted in a vast plain, bounded on all sides by low sandy hills, which seemed to have been just produced. These hillocks were from seven to thirteen feet high, formed into perfect cones, with very sharp points and well-proportioned bases. The sand was of an inconceivable fineness, having been the sport of hot winds for thousands of years. "There could be no doubt," says Bruce, "that the day before, when it was calm, and we suffered so much by the simoom between El Mout and Chiggre, the wind had been raising pillars of sand in this place, called Umdoom; marks of the whirling motion of the pillars were distinctly seen in every heap, so that here again, while we were repining at the simoom, Providence was busied keeping us out of the way of another scene, where, if we had advanced a day, we had all of us been involved in inevitable destruction."

On the 18th they left Umdoom at seven in the morning, their course being N., a little inclined to W. At nine o'clock Idris pointed to some sandy hillocks, where the ground seemed to be more elevated than the rest; and he told Bruce that one of the largest caravans which ever came out of Egypt was there buried with sand, to the number of some thousands of camels. At five o'clock in the evening they alighted at an Oasis called Terfowey, full of trees and grass. As soon as they had chosen a proper place where the camels could feed, they unloaded the baggage, and sent the men to clean the well and wait the filling of the skins. They then lighted a large fire, for the nights felt excessively cold, though the thermometer was at 53°; and that degree of cold occasioned Bruce inexpressible pain in his feet, which were now swelled to a monstrous size, inflamed, and excoriated. The camels were always fastened by the feet, and the chain secured by a padlock, lest they should wander in the night, or be stolen or carried off. While Bruce was occupied in deep thought, he heard the chain of the camels clink, as if somebody was unloosening them, and then, by the gleam of the fire, he distinctly saw a man pass swiftly by, stooping as he went along, his face almost close to the ground. A little time after this he heard another clink of the chain, as if from a sharp blow, and immediately after a movement among the camels. He instantly rose, and called out in a threatening tone in Arabic. Mohammed, Idris's nephew, hearing Bruce's voice, came running up from the well to see what was the matter. They went down together to the camels, and, upon examination, found that the links of one of the chains had been broken, but the opening was not large enough to let the whole link through. A hard blue stone was also driven through a link of one of the chains of another camel, and left sticking there, the chain not being entirely broken through; they saw, besides, the print of a man's feet on the sand; and they found that several articles belonging to the party had been stolen. This sufficiently showed the presence of hidden enemies.

"Our situation," says Bruce, "was one of the most desperate that could be figured. We were in the middle of the most barren, inhospitable desert in the world, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, from day to day, we could carry wherewithal to assuage our thirst. We had with us the only bread it was possible to procure for some hundred miles; lances and swords were not necessary to destroy us; the bursting or tearing of a girba, the lameness or death of a camel, a thorn or sprain in the foot, which might disable us from walking, were as certain death to us as a shot from a cannon. There was no staying for one another; to lose time was to die, because, with the utmost exertion our camels could make, we scarce could carry along with us a scanty provision of bread and water sufficient to keep us alive."

That desert, which did not afford inhabitants for the assistance or relief of travellers, contained, nevertheless, more than sufficient for destroying them; for large tribes of Arabs (two or three thousand encamped together) were cantoned wherever there was water enough to supply their numerous herds of cattle, and Bruce fully expected that in the morning he should be attacked by these merciless robbers.

He therefore briefly addressed his people, who uttered a loud cry, "God is great! let them come!" but, when the day broke, no Arabs appeared; all was still: Bruce, however, took Ismael and two Barbarins along with him, to see who these neighbours could be. They soon traced in the sand the footsteps of the man who had been at their camels; and, following them behind the point of a rock which seemed calculated for concealing thieves, they saw two ragged, old, dirty tents, pitched with grass cords.

The two Barbarins entered one of them, and found a naked woman there. "Ismael and I ran," says Bruce, "briskly into the largest, where we saw a man and a woman, both perfectly naked, frightful, emaciated figures, not like the inhabitants of this world. The man was partly sitting on his hams; a child, seemingly of the age to suck, was on a rag at the corner, and the woman looked as if she wished to hide herself. I sprang forward upon the man, and, taking him by the hair of the head, pulled him upon his back on the floor; setting my foot upon his breast, and pointing my knife to his throat, I said to him sternly, 'If you mean to pray, pray quickly, for you have but this moment to live.' The fellow was so frightened he scarce could beg us to spare his life; but the woman, as it afterward appeared, the mother of the sucking child, did not seem to copy the passive disposition of her husband; she ran to the corner of the tent, where was an old lance, with which, I doubt not, she would have sufficiently distinguished herself, but it happened to be entangled with the cloth of the tent, and Ismael felled her to the ground with the butt-end of his blunderbuss, and wrested the lance from her. A violent howl was set up by the remaining woman, like the cries of those in torment. 'Tie them,' said I, 'Ismael; keep them separate, and carry them to the baggage till I settle accounts with this camel-stealer, and then you shall strike their three heads off, where they intended to leave us miserably to perish with hunger; but keep them separate.' While the Barbarins were tying the woman, the one that was the nurse of the child turned to her husband and said, in a most mournful, despairing tone of voice, 'Did I not tell you you would never thrive if you hurt that good man? did I not tell you this would happen for murdering the aga?'"