On the 21st of April Bruce and his party left Beyla. After travelling four days they crossed the Dender river, and came to a large plain, in which were a number of villages, nearly of one size, and forming a semicircle. The plain was of a red, soapy earth, and the country is in perpetual cultivation. The villages were inhabited by soldiers of the Mek of Sennaar, who have small features, but are woolly-headed and flat-nosed, like negroes. Their masters at Sennaar pretend to be Mohammedans, but they have never attempted to convert these Nuba; on the contrary, they entertain in every village a number of pagan priests, who receive soldiers' pay. These people worship the moon, and appear delighted to see her shine. Coming out of their dark huts, they express great joy at her brightness, and they celebrate the birth of every new moon. They are immoderately fond of swine's flesh, and maintain great herds of these animals. There is no running stream in the immense plain which they inhabit, and their water is all procured from draw-wells.
On the 25th Bruce set out from the villages of the Nuba, intending to reach Basboch, which is the ferry over the Nile; but he had scarcely advanced two miles into the plain when he and his party were enveloped by that sort of whirlwind which at sea forms the water-spout. "The plain," says Bruce, "was red earth, which had been plentifully moistened by a shower in the nighttime. The unfortunate camel that had been taken by the cohala seemed to be nearly in the centre of the vortex. The animal was lifted and thrown down at a considerable distance, and several of its ribs broken. Although, as far as I could guess, I was not near the centre, it whirled me off my feet and threw me down upon my face, so as to make my nose gush out with blood. Two of the servants, likewise, had the same fate. It plastered us all over with mud, almost as smoothly as could have been done with a trowel. It took away my sense of breathing for an instant, and my mouth and nose were full of mud when I recovered. I guess the sphere of its action to be about two hundred feet. It demolished one half of a small hut as if it had been cut through with a knife, and dispersed the materials all over the plain, leaving the other half standing.
"As soon as we recovered ourselves we took refuge in a village, from fear only, for we saw no vestige of any other whirlwind. It involved a great quantity of rain, which the Nuba of the villages told us was very fortunate, and portended good luck to us, and a prosperous journey; for they said that, had dust and sand arisen with the whirlwind in the same proportion it would have done had not the earth been moistened, we should all infallibly have been suffocated; and they cautioned us by saying that tempests were very frequent in the beginning and end of the rainy season; and, whenever we should see one of them coming, to fall down upon our faces, keeping our lips close to the ground, and so let it pass; and thus it would neither have power to carry us off our feet nor suffocate us, which was the ordinary case.
"Our kind landlords, the Nuba, gave us a hearty welcome, and helped us to wash our clothes first, and then to dry them. When I was stripped naked, they saw the blood running from my nose, and said they could not have thought that one so white as I could have been capable of bleeding."
These people gave Bruce a piece of roasted hog, which he ate, very much to their satisfaction. In return, as the camel was lame, Bruce ordered it to be killed, and the flesh to be given to the Nuba of the village, who feasted upon it for several days. With these people Bruce spent a very cheerful evening, and then, having a clean hut, he retired to rest from the effects of the whirlwind.
On the 26th he left the village, his way being still across an immense plain. After encountering several violent storms of thunder, lightning, and rain, he arrived at Basboch—a large collection of huts bearing the appearance of a town—where the governor, a venerable old man of about seventy, received him with no little dignity and urbanity. "Christian," said he, taking him by the hand, "what dost thou at such a time in such a country?"
Basboch is on the eastern bank of the Nile or Blue river, not a quarter of a mile from the ford below. The river here runs north and south; near the banks it is shallow, but deep in the middle, and in this part is much infested with crocodiles. Sennaar is two miles and a half S.S.W. of it. "We heard," says Bruce, "the evening drum very distinctly, and not without anxiety, when we reflected to what a brutish people, according to all accounts, we were about to trust ourselves."
After waiting at this place three days, Bruce and his party having at last received permission to enter Sennaar, the capital of Nubia,[35] they were conducted to a very spacious, good house, belonging to the sheikh himself, and about a quarter of a mile from the palace. The following morning a messenger came from the king, desiring Bruce to wait upon him.
The palace, which covers a prodigious deal of ground, is one story high, built of clay, and the floors of earth. The king was in a small room, which was covered with a Persian carpet, and the walls were hung with tapestry. He was sitting upon a mattress, laid on the ground, which was likewise covered with a Persian rug, and round him were a number of cushions of Venetian cloth of gold. His dress, however, did not correspond with this magnificence; for it was nothing but a large common loose shirt of Surat blue cloth. His head was uncovered; he wore his own short, black hair, and was as white in complexion as an Arab. He seemed to be a man about thirty-four; his feet were bare, or only covered by his shirt. "He had," says Bruce, "a very plebeian countenance, on which was stamped no decided character; I should rather have guessed him to be a soft, timid, irresolute man. At my coming forward and kissing his hand, he looked at me for a minute as if undetermined what to say. He then asked for an Abyssinian interpreter, as there are many of these about the palace. I said to him in Arabic, 'That I apprehended I understood as much of that language as would enable me to answer any question he had to put to me.' Upon which he turned to the people that were with him. 'Downright Arabic, indeed! You did not learn that language in Habesh?' said he to me. I answered, 'No; I have been in Egypt, Turkey, and Arabia, where I learned it; but I have likewise often spoken it in Abyssinia, where Greek, Turkish, and several other languages were used.' He said, 'Impossible! he did not think they knew anything of languages, excepting their own, in Abyssinia.'"
There were sitting by the side of the room, opposite to him, four men dressed in white cotton shirts, with a white shawl covering their heads and part of their face, by which it was known they were religious men, or men of learning, or of the law. Bruce presented first the Sherriffe of Mecca's letter, and then one from the King of Abyssinia. The king took them both and read them, and said, "You are a physician and a soldier." "Both, in time of need," replied Bruce. "But the sherriffe's letter," said the sheikh, "tells me, also, that you are a nobleman in the service of a great king that they call Englise-man, who is master of all the Indies, and who has Mohammedan as well as Christian subjects, and allows them all to be governed by their own laws." "Though I never said so to the sherriffe," replied Bruce, "yet it is true; I am as noble as any individual in my nation, and am also servant to the greatest king now reigning on earth, of whose dominions, it is likewise truly said, these Indies are but a small part." "How comes it," said the king, "you that are so noble and learned that you know all things, all languages, and so brave that you fear no danger, and pass, with two or three old men, into such countries as this and Habesh, where Baady, my father, perished with an army—how comes it that you do not stay at home and enjoy yourself, eat, drink, take pleasure, and rest, and not wander like a poor man, a prey to every danger?" "You, sir," replied Bruce, "may know some of this sort of men; certainly you do know them; for there are in your religion, as well as in mine, men of learning, and those, too, of great rank and nobility, who, on account of sins they have committed, or vows they have made, renounce the world, its riches, and pleasures: they lay down their nobility, and become humble and poor, so as often to be insulted by wicked and low men, not having the fear of God before their eyes." "True; these are dervis," said the three men of learning. "I am, then, one of these dervis," said Bruce, "content with the bread that is given me, and bound for some years to travel in hardships and danger, doing all the good I can to the poor and rich, serving every man and hurting none." "Tybe! that is well," said the king. "And how long have you been travelling about?" "Near twenty years," replied Bruce. "You must be very young," observed the king, "to have committed so many sins, and so early." "I did not say," replied Bruce, "that I was one of those who travelled on account of their sins, but that there were some dervises that did so on account of their vows, and some to learn wisdom." The king now made a sign, and a slave brought a cushion, which Bruce would have refused, but was forced to sit down upon it.