"Within the outer gate of the church, below the steps, are three small square enclosures, all of granite, with small octagon pillars in the angles, apparently Egyptian; on the top of which formerly were small images of the dog-star, probably of metal. Upon a stone in the middle of one of these the king sits and is crowned, and always has been since the days of paganism; and below it, where he naturally places his feet, is a long oblong slab like a hearth, which is not of granite, but of freestone. The inscription, though much defaced, may be safely restored.
ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΕΥΕΡΓΕΤΟΥ
ΒΑΣΙΑΕΩΣ.
[Greek: PTOLEMAIOU EUERGETOU
BASILEÔS]."
Bruce made a sketch of the principal obelisk at Axum. Salt, who also visited Axum, says: "I went to take a drawing of the obelisk still erect. I found it to be extremely different from the representation of it given by Bruce; the ornaments which he is pleased to call triglyphs and metopes, and guttæ, being most regularly, instead of irregularly, disposed, as will be seen in my representation of it. I am now perfectly satisfied that all Bruce's pretended knowledge of drawing is not to be depended on, the present instance affording a striking example of his want of veracity and uncommon assurance." Again, Salt says: "From my account of Axum, it will appear that Bruce's description of 'the mountain of red marble' of the 'wall, cut out of the same five feet high,' with its 'one hundred and thirty-three pedestals, on which stood colossal statues of the dog-star, two of which only were remaining,' and of the road cut between the wall and the mountain, are statements contrary to the existing fact, or, at least, so extremely exaggerated as to cast strong doubts upon his authority."
Again, Salt says, "I made a drawing of the Ozoro (a lady of rank), which I can assure the reader gives an accurate delineation of the costume of a lady of her rank, although it has no resemblance to the fancy figures given in the last edition of Bruce as Abyssinian princesses." "It is extremely vexatious," says Lord Valentia at Masuah, "that Mr. Bruce's assertion of blue cloth being preferred by the Bedouee should have prevented our bringing any white, which would have ensured us a ready supply of all we wished."
Nothing can more evidently show the narrow and prejudiced feelings with which Salt travelled than the above observations. Neglecting the great book of nature which lay open before him, he seemed to have been only occupied with a paltry desire minutely to criticise Bruce's volumes, as he carried them along in his hand. With respect to the ruins of Axum, travellers have always been permitted to form their own conjectures on subjects of this kind, without being accused of "falsehood," or even of "exaggeration;" and every person who has attempted to copy inscriptions in hieroglyphics, the meaning of which he cannot penetrate, will admit that parts and figures, which to him appear highly important, might very excusably be passed over by another as unworthy of attention.
Again, with respect to the costume of the Abyssinian ladies, more than one third of a century had elapsed between Bruce's departure from Abyssinia and Salt's arrival in that country, and why should Mr. Salt have taken it for granted that this costume must necessarily have continued invariably the same? But, what is still more to the point, the Ozoros, of whose costumes Bruce has given drawings, were ladies of another province—the province of Gondar! Bruce never asserted that the fashions of Abyssinia were unalterable, nor that the Bedouee would always prefer blue cloth to white.
It is not a little surprising that Salt and Lord Valentia should have indulged in these censures against Bruce, while the former admits that his general history and observations are invariably correct. Even at Axum, Salt says, "In the evening I wrote down the best account I could get from the books of Axum of Ras Michael, and his rebellion in Tigré against the Emperor Yasous; his standing a siege on the mountain of Samargat; and his subsequent concession and pardon, to which the emperor with difficulty acceded; all which confirms the historical account of the same transactions as related by Bruce." "The revolutions," he continues, "have been still more frequent since the departure of Mr. Bruce, whose history is in general accurate."... Again, page 227, he says, "We also derived some benefit from the information, relative to the history of Abyssinia, which we had acquired from Bruce and Poncet, and which was to the natives a source of perpetual astonishment. Bruce's drawings of Gondar and its vicinity, which we showed to the Baharnagash, tended to raise us in his opinion almost beyond the level of mortality." If, then, Bruce's historical account of Abyssinia, as is admitted, be correct, ought he to have been accused of "falsehood," "exaggeration," and "want of veracity" by men of rank and education, because, after a lapse of thirty-five years, certain antiquities which he described had disappeared, and the dresses of the ladies were found to be different from his account of them?
Salt gives a translation of one of the inscriptions at Axum, which shows, he says, that the Abyssinian monarchs have no claim to a descent from Solomon, but that they considered themselves descended from Mars! The inscription runs thus: "We Aeizanus, sovereign of the Axomites" (&c., &c., &c.), "king of kings, son of God the invincible Mars."
Lord Valentia, of course, supports Mr. Salt's interpretation: he says, "The account of the descent from Solomon is now proved to be false by the inscription of Axum." Still this inscription says nothing against the descent from King Solomon. Aeizanus certainly calls himself "son of the invincible Mars;" but this, within the tropics, may, after all, have been only an hyperbole, meaning that he considered himself a hero, a vanity by no means uncommon among men in every climate. Bruce, however, nowhere says that the kings of Abyssinia were descended from Solomon; he merely states that this tradition is still believed by the Abyssinians and all the surrounding nations; and this, it is not denied, is perfectly true.