The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller

by Sir Francis Bond Head

To raise Bruce's character by undervaluing that of other travellers would be an unworthy jealousy, in which we should be very sorry to indulge; yet the proper mode of penetrating Africa is a problem of such vital importance to those who may hereafter attempt it, that we cannot refrain from observing what a very remarkable difference there is between the manner in which Bruce and Burckhardt travelled between Egypt and Nubia. The former possessed the magic art of commanding, at all times, respect; and the reader has seen what was his behaviour, and the treatment which he received during this perilous undertaking.

Burckhardt's resolution was unconquerable, and his patience in the desert almost equal to that of the camel. Science had never a more faithful servant; but then he neglected to seek information by giving it, and the disguise under which he travelled concealed not only his person, but his mind. All civilized men, from the philosopher down to the mountebank, carry with them a fund either of instruction or amusement; and the old fable of the basket-maker explains how possible it is for any one to make himself, at least, useful to uncivilized tribes; but of this Burckhardt neglected to avail himself, and a few brief extracts from his travels will show the consequences.

"I gave out," he says, "I was in search of a cousin." "The son of my old friend of Daraoa, to whom I had been most particularly recommended by his father, went so far as once to spit in my face in the public market-place." "Indeed, I never met any of these Egyptians in the streets without receiving some insulting language from them, of which, had I taken notice, they would, no doubt, have carried me before the mek." "One of the slaves of Edris, to whom I had already made some little presents, tore my shirt to pieces because I refused to give it to him." "Called me boy." "I cooked my own victuals." "Was pelted with stones." "I was often driven from the coolest and most comfortable berth into the burning sun, and generally passed the midday hour in great distress." "I was afraid to take any notes." "I hid myself to do it," &c., &c., &c....

On the 11th of December Bruce embarked at Syene, and without masts being shipped or any sails set, the vessel or canja floated down the Nile.

There is no greater trial to the constitution than sudden change from an active to a sedentary life: the human frame seems made for hardship; and in the army it has been constantly remarked, that troops which have been long exposed to a bivouac become unhealthy as soon as they go into quarters.

"On the 10th of January, 1773, we arrived," says Bruce, "at the Convent of St. George at Cairo; all of us, as I thought, worse in health and spirits than the day we came out of the desert. Nobody knew us at the convent, either by our face or our language, and it was by a kind of force that we entered. Ismael and the Copht went straight to the bey; and I, with great difficulty, had interest enough to send to the patriarch and my merchants at Cairo, by employing the only two piastres I had in my pocket. It was half by violence that we got admittance into the convent. But this difficulty was to be but of short duration: the morning was to end it and give us a sight of our friends, and in the mean time we were to sleep soundly."

Bruce had scarcely enjoyed an hour's repose, when he was awakened by a number of strange voices, which called upon him to come immediately before the bey; he insisted, however, on being allowed a few moments to arrange his toilet.

"I had no shirt on," he says, "nor had I been master of one for fourteen months past. I had a waistcoat of coarse brown woollen blanket, trousers of the same, and an upper blanket of the same wrapped about me, and in these I was lying. I had cut off my long beard at Furshoot, but still wore prodigious mustaches. I had a thin white muslin cloth round a red Turkish cap, which served me for a night-cap, a girdle of coarse woollen cloth, that wrapped round my waist eight or ten times, and swaddled me up from the middle to the pit of my stomach, but without either shoes or stockings. In the left of my girdle I had two English pistols mounted with silver, and on the right hand a common crooked Abyssinian knife, with a handle of rhinoceros horn. Thus equipped, I was ushered by the banditti, in a dark and very windy night, to the door of the convent."

The sarach or commander of the party rode on a mule, and, as a mark of extreme consideration, he had brought an ass for Bruce, the only animal that a Christian was suffered to ride on in Cairo. As the beast had no saddle nor stirrups, Bruce's feet would have touched the ground had he not held them up, which he did with the utmost pain and difficulty, as they were inflamed and dreadfully sore from the march in the desert. "Nobody," says Bruce, "can ever know, from a more particular description, the hundredth part of the pain I suffered that night. I was happy that it was all external. I had hardened my heart; it was strong, vigorous, and whole, from the near prospect I had of leaving this most accursed country, and being again restored to the conversation of men."