The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller

by Sir Francis Bond Head

A cadi who was present then asked Bruce when the Hagiuge Magiuge were to arrive. "Hagiuge Magiuge," said the cadi, "are little people, not so big as bees, or like the zimb, or fly of Sennaar, that come in great swarms out of the earth, ay, in multitudes that cannot be counted; two of their chiefs are to ride upon an ass, and every hair of that ass is to be a pipe, and every pipe is to play a different kind of music, and all that hear and follow them are carried to hell." "I know them not," says Bruce, "and in the name of the Lord, I fear them not, were they twice as little as you say they are, and twice as numerous. I trust in God I shall never be so fond of music as to follow to such a place an ass, for all the tunes that he or they can play." The king laughed violently. Bruce then went away, and found a number of people in the street, who all offered him some taunt or insult. "I passed," he says, "through the great square before the palace, and could not help shuddering, upon reflection, at what had happened in that spot to the unfortunate M. du Roulé and his companions, though under a protection which should have secured them from all danger, every part of which I was then unprovided with."

The drum beat a little after six o'clock in the evening. Bruce then had a very comfortable dinner sent to him, which consisted of camel's flesh stewed with an herb, a slimy substance, called bammia. After having dined, and finished his journal of the day, he began to unpack his instruments, when a servant came from the palace, telling him to bring his present to the king. "I sorted," says Bruce, "the separate articles with all the speed I could, and we went directly to the palace. The king was then sitting in a large apartment; he was naked, but several cloths were lying upon his knee and about him, and a servant was rubbing him over with very stinking butter or grease, with which his hair was dropping, as if wet with water. Large as the room was, it could be smelled through the whole of it. The king asked me if ever I greased myself as he did. I said, 'Very seldom, but fancied it would be very expensive.' He then told me that it was elephant's grease, which made people strong, and preserved the skin very smooth."

This simple toilet being finished, Bruce produced his present, which he said the King of Abyssinia had sent, hoping that, according to the faith and customs of nations, he would transmit him safely and speedily into Egypt. The king answered, "There was a time when he could have done all this, and more: but that times were changed. Sennaar was in ruins, and was not like what it once was."

Several days having passed unsatisfactorily, Bruce was again summoned to the palace. "The king," he says, "told me that several of his wives were ill, and desired that I would give them my advice, which I promised to do without difficulty, as all acquaintance with the fair sex had hitherto been much to my advantage. I must confess, however, that calling these the fair sex is not preserving a precision in terms. I was admitted into a large square apartment, very ill-lighted, in which were about fifty women, all perfectly black, without any covering but a very narrow piece of cotton rag about their waists. While I was musing whether or not these all might be queens, or whether there was any queen among them, one of them took me by the hand, and led me rudely enough into another apartment. This was much better lighted than the first. Upon a large bench or sofa, covered with blue Surat cloth, sat three persons, clothed from the neck to the feet with blue cotton shirts.

"One of these, who I found was the favourite, was about six feet high, and corpulent beyond all proportion. She seemed to me, next to the elephant and rhinoceros, the largest living creature I had ever met with. Her features were perfectly like those of a negro; a ring of gold passed through her under lip, and weighed it down, till, like a flap, it covered her chin, and left her teeth bare, which were very small and fine. The inside of her lip she had made black with antimony. Her ears reached down to her shoulders, and had the appearance of wings; she had in each of them a large ring of gold, somewhat smaller than a man's little finger, and about five inches in diameter. The weight of these had drawn down the hole where her ear was pierced so much, that three fingers might easily pass above the ring. She had a gold necklace, like what we used to call esclavage, of several rows, one below another, to which were hung rows of sequins pierced. She had on her ankles two manacles of gold, larger than any I had ever seen upon the feet of felons, with which I could not conceive it was possible for her to walk, but afterward I found they were hollow. The others were dressed pretty much in the same manner, only there was one that had chains, which came from her ears to the outside of each nostril, where they were fastened. There was also a ring put through the gristle of her nose, and which hung down to the opening of her mouth. I think she must have breathed with great difficulty. It had altogether something of the appearance of a horse's bridle. Upon my coming near them, the eldest put her hand to her mouth, and kissed it, saying, at the same time, in very vulgar Arabic, 'Kifhalek howaja?' (How do you do, merchant?) I never in my life was more pleased with distant salutations than at this time. I answered, 'Peace be among you! I am a physician, and not a merchant.'

"I shall not entertain the reader with the multitude of their complaints; being a lady's physician, discretion and silence are my first duties. It is sufficient to say, that there was not one part of their whole bodies in which some of them had not ailments. The three queens insisted upon being blooded, which desire I complied with, as it was an operation that required short attendance; but, upon producing the lancets, their hearts failed them. They then all cried out for the tabange, which in Arabic means a pistol; but what they meant by this word was, the cupping instrument, which goes off with a spring like the snap of a pistol. I had two of these with me, but not at that time in my pocket. I sent my servant home, however, to bring one, and, the same evening, performed the operation upon the three queens with great success. The room was overflowed with an effusion of royal blood, and the whole ended with their insisting upon my giving them the instrument itself, which I was obliged to do, after cupping two of their slaves before them, who had no complaints, merely to show them how the operation was to be performed."

When the "black spirits" of these queens had somewhat revived, the creatures naturally became a little playful, and were exceedingly curious to inspect Bruce's skin.

"The only terms," he says, "I could possibly, and that with great difficulty, make for myself, were, that they should be contented to strip me no farther than the shoulders and breast. Upon seeing the whiteness of my skin, they gave all a loud cry in token of dislike, and shuddered, seeming to consider it rather the effects of disease than natural. I think in my life I never felt so disagreeably. I have been in more than one battle, but surely I would joyfully have taken any chance again in any of them to have been freed from that examination. I could not help likewise reflecting that, if the king had come in during this exhibition, the consequences would either have been impaling, or stripping off that skin whose colour they were so curious about; indeed, it was impossible to be more chagrined at, or more disgusted with, my present situation than I was; and the more so, that my delivery from it appeared to be very distant, and the circumstances were more and more unfavourable every day."