The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller

by Sir Francis Bond Head

Nothing, therefore, remained for him but to present a letter, which he had received from his friend Janni, to Negade Ras Mohammed, who was chief of the Moors at Gondar, and the principal merchant of Abyssinia. However, on inquiring for this person, he learned that he also was with the king and the army. In this dilemma, a Moor intimately acquainted with Negade Ras Mohammed conducted Bruce to a house in the Moorish town, where he promised that he should be screened from the priests until he could procure protection from the government, or from the great people of the country. He was to be supplied with flour, honey, and such food as Moors and Christians may eat together; but, although there was a great abundance of animal food, yet, as it had been killed by Mohammedans, Bruce did not dare to touch it.

Ayto Aylo, the queen's chamberlain, was not only the constant patron of the Greeks in Abyssinia, but was privately a great enemy to the priests of his own country; and he had often declared that he would willingly abandon the title and estates which he held in Abyssinia, and go to Jerusalem, to finish the remainder of his days in the Convent of the Holy Sepulchre.

Late in the evening of his arrival, Bruce's landlord was alarmed at seeing a number of armed men at his door; and his surprise was still greater at seeing Ayto Aylo, who had probably never before been in the Moorish town, descend from his mule, uncovering his head and shoulders as if he had been approaching a person of distinction.

On his entering the house, a contention of civilities ensued. Bruce offered to stand until Aylo was covered, while he refused to sit until Bruce was seated. Their discourse commenced in Arabic, but it was soon carried on in Tigré, the language most used in Gondar. Aylo seemed astonished to hear Bruce speak this language so well; and, turning round to the by-standers, he observed, "Come, come, he'll do! if he can speak, there is no fear of him; he'll make his own way!"

Aylo then told Bruce that Welled Hawaryat, the son of Ras Michael, had arrived from the camp ill of a fever, which was supposed to be the smallpox; and Janni having reported that Bruce had saved the lives of many young people at Adowa, the iteghe, or queen-mother, had sent to desire that he would come the next morning to her palace at Koscam. Accordingly, Bruce, dressed in a Moorish costume, and attended by his landlord and Yasine, went early the next day to Ayto Aylo, and thence, with their heads uncovered, the whole party rode in state to Koscam, where they alighted, and were shown into a low room in the palace. Ayto Aylo went by himself to his mistress the queen, with whom he remained more than two hours. On returning to Bruce, he said that Welled Hawaryat had received much benefit from a saint of Waldubba, who had administered some medicine, which consisted of certain characters written with common ink upon a tin plate, and then washed off and given him to drink. Aylo therefore dismissed Bruce, but appointed a meeting with him at his own house in the evening.

When Bruce returned home, he found that Petros, Janni's brother, had arrived from the army, and was waiting for him. Alarmed by the priests, who had told him of Bruce's arrival at Gondar, Petros (as has been already stated), in great tribulation, had fled to consult Ras Michael. On approaching his tent, however, he suddenly recognised the stuffed skin of a very intimate friend swinging from a tree and drying in the wind. Terrified and horror-struck at the spectacle, he was scarcely able to communicate to a person who met him the intelligence of Bruce's arrival; and, as soon as he had done this, without seeing the ras, he returned, haunted by the ghost of his friend's skin, to Gondar, in still greater fear than he had left it; and even there continued to be so much alarmed, that Bruce found it necessary to give him some laudanum, and send him to bed.

He had scarcely retired, when Ayto Aylo came to Bruce to say that Welled Hawaryat was so very ill, that his mother, Ozoro Esther, the beautiful wife of old Ras Michael, and the iteghe, or queen-mother, desired that Bruce, on the following day, would come to see him, and some others who were also sick.

"Look!" said Bruce to Ayto Aylo, "the smallpox is a disease that will have its course; and, during the long time the patient is under it, if people feed them and treat them according to their own ignorant prejudices, my seeing him or advising him is in vain. This morning you said a man had cured him by writing upon a tin plate, and, to try if he was well, they have since crammed him with raw beef. I do not think the letters that he swallowed will do him any harm, neither will they do him any good; but I shall not be surprised if the raw beef kills him, and the sick daughter too, before I see them to-morrow."

In the morning Petros was still ill and feverish from fatigue and fright. However, Bruce left him, and, accompanied by Aylo, again proceeded towards Koscam. They were just entering the palace door when they saw a numerous procession of monks and priests, carrying a large cross, also a picture in an old, dirty gilt frame; and they were informed that three great saints from Waldubba, one of whom declared that he had neither eaten nor drank for twenty years, had come to cure Welled Hawaryat by laying upon him a cross and a picture of the Virgin Mary; in consequence of which, Bruce was requested not to meddle with the patient. "I assure you, Ayto Aylo," replied Bruce, "I shall strictly obey you. If they can cure him by a miracle, I am sure it is the easiest kind of cure of any, and will not do his constitution the least harm afterward, which is more than I will promise for medicines in general; but remember what I say to you, it will be a miracle indeed if both the father and daughter are not dead before to-morrow night."