Here I must make a digression to follow Bruce on his route to Hydra, which time did not permit us actually to visit. The following account is taken partly from his rough notebook, and partly from the narrative written on his return from Abyssinia:—
November 16, 1765.—Continued our course near northwards; decamped at half-past eight. At two o’clock passed the Wed Hataab as before, near the tents of the Welled Hassan. At night encamped on the west side of the plain among the Welled Hassan, called Ghazelma,[158] part of Majerg.[159] This was about three miles south-west of a steep precipice of reddish stone, called Keff, away about twenty-two miles from our last lodging.
November 17.—At the ordinary time, between eight and nine, decamped and continued our course till ten. Passed Keff, away along the plains filled with tents of the Dreedy and their camels, after which turned due west, continued our course along a plain, in the middle of which was a rivulet, so had this day good water. At night came to an encampment of Welled Seel, under the mountain Jibbel Henneish, west of the Marabout Sidi Abdel Azeez twenty-six miles, and due south of Gella Adjmaar.[160]
This was November 18. The mountains were covered with cedars[161] and fir[162] very thick, the resort of lions. The plains below partly waste, partly cultivated by the Ghazelma.
The 19th, arrived at Hydera. Began immediately designing the triumphal arch, which was finished the day after—the 20th.
Hydera belongs to the Algerines,[163] though it is inhabited by the Welled Boogannim, Moors of Tunis, whose saint is here buried. By the instructions of their founder they are obliged to live off lions’ flesh, as far as they can procure it, and in consideration of the utility of their vow they are not taxed, like the other Arabs, with payments to the State. The consequence of this life is that they are excellent and well-armed horsemen, exceedingly bold and undaunted hunters. It is generally imagined that these considerations, and that of their situation on the frontier, have as much influence in procuring them exemption from taxes as the utility of their vow.
Before Dr. Shaw’s travels first acquired the celebrity that they have maintained ever since, there was a circumstance that very near ruined their credit. He had ventured to say, in conversation, that these Welled Sidi Boogannim were eaters of lions, and this was considered at Oxford, the university where he had studied, as a traveller’s licence on the part of the doctor. They thought it a subversion of the natural order of things that a man should eat a lion, when it had long passed as almost the peculiar province of the lion to eat the man. The doctor flinched under the sagacity and severity of this criticism. He could not deny that the Welled Sidi Boogannim did eat lions, as he had repeatedly said; but he had not yet published his travels, and therefore left it out of his narrative, and only hinted at it in his appendix.
With all submission to that learned university, I will not dispute the lion’s title to eating men, but since it is not founded upon patent, no consideration will make me stifle the merits of the Welled Sidi Boogannim, who have turned the chase upon the enemy. It is an historical fact, and I will not suffer the public to be misled by a misrepresentation of it. On the contrary, I do aver, in the face of these fantastic prejudices, that I have eaten the flesh of lions—that is, part of three lions—in the tents of the Welled Sidi Boogannim. The first was a he-lion, tough, and smelling violently of musk, and had the taste which I imagine old horseflesh would have. The second was a lioness, which they said had been barren that year; she had a considerable quantity of fat within her, and had it not been for the musky smell which the flesh had, though in a lesser degree than in the former, and for our foolish prejudices against it, the meat, when broiled, would not have been very bad. The third was a lion whelp, six or seven months old; it tasted, on the whole, the worst of the three.
I confess I have no desire of being again served with such a morsel, but the Arabs, a brutish and ignorant folk, will, I fear, notwithstanding the disbelief of the University of Oxford continue to eat lions as long as they exist.
Hydera is about two miles in length, and a quarter in breadth, along a riverside well watered with springs, likewise a fine natural cascade, below the castle, which is a modern building.