Travels in the footsteps of Bruce in Algeria and Tunis

by Sir R. Lambert Playfair

A ragged, dirty barrican was immediately thrown over me, and I was ordered up to the tent, where there was a great spear thrust through at one end of it, a mark of sovereignty. There I saw the Sheikh of the clan, who, being in peace with the Bey, after many such questions as those I have mentioned, offered me a plentiful supper, of which all my servants partook, none having perished. A multitude of consultations ensued, of which I freed myself in the best way I could by alleging all my medicines were lost, in hopes to engage some of them to seek for my sextant at least, but all to no purpose; so that after staying two days amongst them, the Sheikh clothed me anew, gave us all the clothes we had been stripped of, and camels and a conductor to Bengazi, where we arrived on the evening of the second day.

Thence I sent a compliment to the Sheikh, and with it a man from the Bey, entreating that he would use all possible means to fish up some of my cases, and send me word, assuring him that he would not miss a handsome reward.

Promises and thanks were returned, but I never heard further of my instruments. All we recovered from the Arabs was a silver watch of Ellicot’s, its works taken out and broken to pieces, some pencils, and a Turkish leather small portfolio, in which was the sketch of the measure of Ptolometa; my pocket-book too was found, but my pencils were lost, being in a silver case, and so were all my astronomical observations since I came from Tunis.

There was lost my sextant and parallactic instrument, one timepiece, one reflecting telescope, and an acromatic one, a book with many drawings, a copy of M. de la Caille’s ‘Ephemerides,’ which I very much regretted, having a great many manuscript marginal notes, the small camera obscura, some guns and pistols, a blunderbuss and several other articles.

We found at Bengazi a small French sloop, the master of which had often been at Algiers when I was consul there. I had even, as he remembered, done him some little service, for which, contrary to the usage of that sort of folk, he was still very grateful. He had come there loaded with corn, and was going somewhere up the Archipelago or towards the Morea; the cargo he had brought was but a mite compared to the necessities of the place; it only relieved the soldiers for a time, and many people of all ages and sexes were still dying daily.

The harbour of Bengazi was full of fish, and we caught a great quantity of many excellent kinds every day with a small net. We fished, too, a multitude with the line, enough to have maintained a larger number of people than our family; we had vinegar and pepper, and some stores of onions. We had little bread, it is true; but still our industry kept us very far from starving. I endeavoured to instruct these wretches; gave them packthread and some coarse hooks, with which they could have subsisted easily with attention, and the smallest pains; but they would rather starve in multitudes, striving to pick up single grains of corn spilt upon the sand from the bursting of the sacks, or the inattention of the bearers unloading the vessels, than take pains to watch one hour with the floating tide for fish, where, after taking one, they were sure to be masters of multitudes till high water.

The captain of this small vessel lost no time; he had done his business well, and he was returning for another cargo, yet he offered me what part of his funds I needed with great frankness.

We sailed with a fair wind and in four or five days’ easy weather we landed at Canea, a small port on the western end of the island of Crete, where the French carry on a considerable trade in oil for their soap manufactories. I found myself ill there after the bathing I had got at Ptolometa, and not a bit better of the beating, signs of which I bore long afterwards.

It was one way of curing the whiteness of the skin, at which they were very much surprised, and though it did not confine me to the house, or hinder me from visiting that famous island, a violent pain in my side and down my back had taken away a great deal of my strength and activity. Sometimes I thought it was a muscular pain from cold or over-exertion; sometimes I thought it arose from a violent blow received from a stick while they were stripping me, as upon a change of weather I have felt it at times to this day.

Here ends Bruce’s narrative of his travels in the Barbary States; the remainder of his notes have reference to his excursions in Syria, especially to his visits to Baalbec and Palmyra. The drawings of Roman remains there are in no way inferior to those I have attempted to illustrate, but they do not come within the scope of the present work. These ruins have, moreover, been so fully described by other writers, and so frequently visited by the modern traveller, that they do not possess the freshness or interest attaching to the others, many of which are almost as little known at the present day as they were before Bruce’s visit a century ago.