quitted Palmyra, and travelled about one hundred and thirty miles to Baalbec, the interior of the great temple of which surpassed, in Bruce's opinion, anything he had even seen at Palmyra. Having taken a number of views, he proceeded by Tyre; and, as he says, much fatigued, but satisfied beyond measure with what I had seen,-I arrived in perfect health, and in the gayest humour possible, at the hospitable mansion of M. Clerambaut, at Sidon.'

He there found letters from Europe in reply to those which he had written, announcing the loss of his instruments at Bengazi. From his friend, Dr. Russel, at London, he learned that a reflecting telescope, as also an achromatic one by Dollond, had been forwarded to him-from Paris he received a time-piece and a stop-watch-and from Louis XV., who had heard from the Count de Buffon of Bruce's misfortune at Bengazi, he had the honour of receiving a quadrant, which had belonged to the Military Academy at Marseilles. Flattered

at the support he had thus received, and delighted with the acquisition of these instruments, he resolved no longer to delay his voyage to Egypt, particularly as three years had already elapsed since he quitted Algiers; accordingly, on the 15th of June, 1768, he sailed from Sidon for Alexandria. The vessel touched at Cyprus; but, occupied with his immense undertaking, Bruce naturally says of this island—' I had no curiosity to see it. My mind was intent upon more uncommon, more distant, and more painful voyages. But the master of the vessel had business of his own which led him thither: with this I the more readily complied,

as we had not yet got certain advice that the plague had ceased in Egypt; and it still wanted some days to the festival of St. John, which is supposed to put an end to that cruel distemper*.'

Thus detained at Cyprus, Bruce's thoughts and dreams were enthusiastically filled with the distant object of his ambition; and as Mahomet is said to have once walked to the mountain because it declined to visit him, so did Bruce indulge himself with the contrary idea, that he saw the waters of the Nile flying towards him in the heavens of Cyprus. "We observed,' he says, a number of thin white clouds moving with great rapidity from south to north, in direct opposition to the course of the Etesian winds; these were immensely high. It was evident they came from the mountains of Abyssinia, where, having discharged their weight of rain, and being pressed by the lower current of heavier air from the northward, they had mounted to possess the vacuum, and returned to restore the equilibrium to the northward, whence they were to come back, loaded with vapour from Mount Taurus, to occasion the overflowing of the Nile, by breaking against the high and rugged mountains of the south. Nothing could be more agreeable to me than that sight, and the reasoning upon it. I already with pleasure anticipated the time in which I should be a spectator first, afterwards an historian

* During the plague at Malta, the editor often heard the Maltese predict, many months before the festival of St. John, that the disorder would cease by that day, and so in fact it did. The Maltese priests, of course, declared that St. John had killed it; but the English doctors, with greater reason, attributed its departure to excessive heat, which, as well as excess of cold, has generally been observed to arrest the contagion.

of this phenomenon, hitherto a mystery through all ages: I exulted in the measures I had taken!'

These and many similar enthusiastic exclamations have severely brought upon Bruce the cold, unfeeling, sarcastic sneer of the critic. In the quiet occupations of civilized, domestic, and fashionable life, it is unusual, and it is always termed 'vulgar,' to act by or speak from the first dictates of the heart, yet, on all dangerous services, these are absolutely necessary to propel; the heart, that weak engine of life, requires, for extra work, more coals; and if, under trying circumstances, men are to be denied the natural excitement of their feelings, how are ships to be boarded-how are breaches to be mounted-how is the African traveller to be urged forwards on his course? When Captain Parry left this country, on the coldest and most cheerless expedition that man ever undertook, he sailed from us, enthusiastically hoping that he might fix the British flag on the north pole of the earth!'-' A peerage or Westminster Abbey!' exclaimed Nelson, as he rushed forward with his men to board the San Josef. Let the cynic sit in his tub, the moralist in his chair, and let the critic reign in his garret, 'the monarch of all he surveys'-the sunshine of the one, and the speculation of the others, are pleasures which they have long peacefully enjoyed; but they surely ought not to interfere with the real difficulties of life, or coldly to ridicule those eager feelings without which such difficulties positively could not be surmounted.

6

But Bruce has already sailed from Cyprus, and previous to his first introduction to the waters of the Nile, it may not be improper, for one moment,

calmly and dispassionately to consider how far he was qualified for the attempt which he was about to undertake. Being thirty-eight years of age, he was at that period of life, in which both the mind and body of man are capable of their greatest possible exertions. During his travels and residence in Europe, Africa, and Asia, he had become practically acquainted with the religion, manners, and prejudices of many countries different from his own; and he had learned to speak the French, Italian, Spanish, modern Greek, Moorish, and Arabic languages. Full of enterprise, enthusiastically devoted to the object he had in view, accustomed to hardship, inured to climate as well as to fatigue, he was a man of undoubted courage, in stature six feet four, and with this imposing appearance, possessing great personal strength; and, lastly, in every proper sense of the word, he was a gentleman; and no man about to travel can give to his country a better pledge for veracity, than when, like Bruce, his mind is ever retrospectively viewing the noble conduct of his ancestors-thus showing that he considers he has a stake in society which, by the meanness of falsehood or exaggeration, he would be unable to transmit unsullied to his posterity.

CHAPTER IV.

BRUCE ARRIVES AT CAIRO-HAS VERY SINGULAR INTERVIEWS WITH THE BEY-SAILS UP THE NILE-GAINS A PROMISE OF PROTECTION FROM THE ARABS ABABDE VISITS THE SEPULCHRES OF THEBES-REACHES THE CATARACT OF SYENE-DESCENDS THE NILE TO KEFFE.

It was in the beginning of July, in the year 1768, that Bruce arrived at Cairo, recommended to the very hospitable house of Julian and Bertram, to whom he imparted his resolution of pursuing his journey into Abyssinia. The wildness of the intention seemed to strike them greatly, and they did all in their power to dissuade him against it; but, seeing that he was resolved, they then kindly offered him every possible assistance.

As the government of Cairo had always been jealous of the enterprise which Bruce had undertaken, and as a regular prohibition had often been made by the Porte, Bruce pretended that his destination was to India. He appeared in public as seldom as possible, unless disguised, and was soon considered as a fakir, or dervish, moderately skilled in magic, and who cared for nothing but books and study; a reputation which enabled him privately to purchase many Arabic manuscripts, which his knowledge of the language assisted him to select. Of the French residents, Bruce speaks in very high terms, but, rather sparing in his praises of the government, he adds, but