Many people still agree with Lord Valentia in maintaining very positively that Bruce never was below Loheia, and consequently that he never went to the Straits of Babelmandel: because, say they, this part of his voyage is not mentioned in the private journal either of Bruce or his draughtsman Balugani. But how often has an eager traveller like Bruce, baffling all sober calculation, suddenly neglected everything else to visit a barren spot, for the empty satisfaction of being able to say, or only to feel, that he has been there; and surely no man was more likely to do this than Bruce, whose life was so much of it spent in attempting to gain such trophies. Bruce declares that he left Cosseir with a determination to make a survey of the Red Sea; and, steering direct north to Tor, his track shows the plan upon which he had embarked. On his arrival at Loheia he had sailed over nearly three quarters of the gulf; and, this being the case, is it not consistent with Bruce's general character to suppose that he should have felt a very strong inclination to conclude his survey, and especially to reach a point of so much geographical importance as the Straits of Babelmandel, which were, comparatively speaking, close to him? And if it is likely that he should have entertained this feeling, there was nothing to prevent him from gratifying it. He had time, wind, water, a vessel, and provisions, and what could he have asked for more?
FOOTNOTES:
[21] By a letter which Bruce addressed from London to his friend Mr. Wood, it appears that it was on the 16th of March he left Kenné for Cosseir, but the 16th of February is the day stated in his "Travels."
[22] Salt's Voyage to Abyssinia, p. 267.
[23] Four hundred miles in four days is not five miles an hour.
CHAPTER VI.
Previous to Bruce's landing at Masuah, the ancient port of Abyssinia, it would seem proper to lay before the reader some account of this country, and of the continent to which it belongs.
Of Africa in general it may be justly said, that ninety-nine parts of it are unknown; and that, at several points, a man might travel from the Mediterranean very nearly to the Cape of Good Hope, and from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, over ground which has never been trodden or seen by any European traveller.
We have surveyed its coasts; we are acquainted with part of the Nile; and, in a very few directions, we have attempted to penetrate into the interior of the country; but it must be confessed that Africa is an immense blank in geography which remains yet to be filled up. Instead, therefore, of presuming to offer a map of this continent, we propose to attempt nothing more than a short verbal description of its general features, with a few observations thereon; and as Bruce's memoranda on the topography and history of Abyssinia are, with little attention to arrangement, scattered over the seven volumes of his travels, and would alone fill three or four times as many pages as the whole of this little book contains, we shall merely add to our sketch of Africa a slight descriptive outline of the kingdom of Abyssinia, and an abstract of its history up to the time when Bruce landed in that country.