THE

ENGLISH REVIEW,

For JUNE 1790.

ART. I. Travels to discover the Source of the Nile, in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773. In Five Volumes. By James Bruce, of Kinnaird, Efq. F. R. S. 4to. 51. 5s. boards. Edinburgh, printed: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, London. 1790.

[ Continued. ]

THE HE main body of the work is divided into eight books, and these again into chapters. The first book relates the author's travels in Egypt, and his voyage in the Red Sea, till his arrival at Mafuah, whence he takes his departure for Abyffinia: but he fufpends the narrative of his progrefs till he has given in the second book an account of the firft ages of the Indian and African trade, of the firft peopling of Abyffinia and Atbara, and has offered his conjectures concerning the origin of language in those countries. These two books fill the first volume. The second ponderous tome contains 718 pages, and delivers the history of Abyffinia, from the restoration of the (fupposed) line of Solomon, in the 13th century, till the author's arrival. Thefe annals are tranflated by the author from the Ethiopic original, which is depofited in the British Museum to fatisfy the curiofity of the public. This arrangement may appear, at firft fight, extraordinary; but it was proper to prepare the reader for those events which took place in Abyffinia during Mr. Bruce's refidence there, and to introduce him by this previous narrative to the principal performers in them. In the third volume the auСс ENG. REV. VOL. XV. JUNE 1790.

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thor fets out from the coast of the Red Sea, purfues his laborious journey, arrives at the capital of Abyffinia, gives an account of the manners and cuftoms of the natives, makes a first but unfuccessful attempt to discover the fource of the Nile, and then, having renewed his attempt with fuccefs, he relates his obfervations, and delivers his theories concerning the origin and progrefs of that celebrated river. The fourth volume contains his return from the fource of the Nile to Gondar, the capital of Abyffinia: the tranfactions there, the continuation and end of a civil war, his departure from Abyffinia, his return by Sennaar through Nubia and the great defert, and his arrival at Cairo and paffage to Marfeilles. The fifth, much more flender than its brothers, contains his obfervations relating to that history, with figures of quadrupeds, birds, and plants, befides three maps. This is, however, only a felection from a much larger mass of materials; to the expence of publishing the whole the author profeffes his circumftances to be inadequate.

Mr. Bruce in his introduction profeffes to pafs lightly over Egypt and Arabia, and in forbearing to criticile Mr. Niebuhr, or to diffent from him, returns the politenefs of the King of Denmark, who inftructed the fociety he fent out to vifit Palmyra and Baalbec, but by no means to form the plan of a work fimilar to that of the English travellers, Wood and Dawkins, or to interfere with them. Such ceremonious politeness, however, without anfwering any good purpose, feems unfavourable to the advancement of knowledge and the diffusion of truth. Where Niebuhr wants correction, he might be corrected without difrefpect or infult.

Having fet fail from Sidon, our traveller touches at Cyprus, arrives at Alexandria, travels by land to Rozetto, and is conveyed by the Nile to Cairo. The topography of the two great branches of the Nile has been fo laboriously illuftrated by Niebuhr, not to mention Pococke or other travellers, that only a few detached remarks could be expected from Mr. Bruce. One meteorological obfervation deferves to be felected. From the Mediterranean he faw a number of thin, white clouds moving with great rapidity from fouth to north, in direct oppofition to the courfe of the Etefian winds: thefe clouds were immenfely high. He thought it evident that they came from the moun tains of Abyffinia, where, having difcharged their weight of sain, and being preffed by the lower current of heavier air from the north, they returned to restore the equilibrium to the northward, whence they were to come back loaded with vapour from mount Taurus, to occafion the overflowing of the Nile by breaking against the high and rugged mountains of the fouth. The motion of different ftrata of air in contrary directions

Cannot

cannot indeed be doubted. But it does not feem fo eafy to understand why mount Taurus fhould be taxed to supply the Abyffinian mountains with rain, nor how the dafhing of clouds against the high mountains of the south, should shake the rain out of them. Whenever the caufes, as yet fo little understood, which precipitate the humidity of the atmosphere, exert their action, the air of the Abyffinian or other mountains, from whatever quarter it may come, will fupply water for the formation of clouds and rain. Mr. Bruce appears to confider clouds as bags or sponges filled with vapour at mount Taurus, to be emptied or squeezed out in Abyffinia, and then to be returned for a fresh fupply. He did not, perhaps, himself trace out this analogy completely; but it is involved in his theory, which is better calculated to please the imagination at the first glance, by an air of plaufibility, than to bear a careful examination.

1

Mr. Bruce, during his ftay at Cairo, felt the same sentiments of disapprobation and difguft at its government which other travellers have expreffed. But circumftances feem to have been. peculiarly favourable to him. A native Copt had acquired almost unlimited fway over the mind of Ali Bey, whose faction at that time prevailed in Egypt. Rifk, fuch was the favourite's name, profeffed aftrology, in which the Egyptians all believe. The aftronomical inftruments of Mr. Bruce impressed Risk with reverence for his fuperior attainments, and he hoped to fecure his influence over his mafter by obtaining fome communications of future events, particularly with regard to the fuccefs of an enterprise against Mecca, which Ali Bey had just then formed. With fuch prepoffeffions in his favour, it was eafy for Mr. Bruce to procure letters of recommendation to every place within the sphere of the influence of the court of Cairo ; and fuch letters were accordingly addreffed to Shekh Haman, to the governor of Syene, Ibrim and Deir in Upper Egypt, to the Bey of Suez, the Sherriffe of Mecca, the Naybe or fovereign of Mafuah, and the King of Sennaar. From the Greek patriarch he was alfo able to obtain a powerful recommendation to the Greeks in Abyffinia.

The antiquities of Cairo disappointed his expectations, and attracted little of his notice. Of the origin of the pyramids he has started a new opinion. He declares them not to have been piled up by the labour of architecture, but to have been hewn out of rocks, ftanding on the fpot. But the reader will defire to hear him on this subject himself:

I think it more extraordinary fill that, for fuch a time as thefe pyramids have been known, travellers were content rather to follow the report of the ancients than to make use of their own eyes.

Yet it has been a conftant belief that the ftones compofing thefe pyramids have been brought from the Libyan mountains, though any one who will take the pains to remove the fand on the fouth fide will find the folid rock there hewn into steps.

And in the roof of the large chamber, where the farcophagus stands, as alfo in the top of the roof of the gallery, as you go up into the chamber, you fee large fragments of the rock, affording an unanswerable proof that thofe pyramids were once huge rocks, standing where they now are; that fome of them, the most proper from their form, were chofen for the body of the pyramid, and the others hewn into steps, to serve for the fuperftructure and the exterior parts of

them.'

The pyramids, we mean the three great pyramids of Geeza, are of foft calcareous ftone, containing many fragments of fhells. Such alfo is the rock on which they reft. By the fide of the third only there are fome pieces of granite, but not fufficient to face it. Thefe circumftances, which we quote from memory chiefly from Niebuhr, feem rather favourable to Mr. Bruce's ideas. Yet the teftimony of Herodotus must be weighed against them; and the Danish traveller examined the outfide of thefe immenfe ftructures with great care, and climbed to the fummit of one of them, without entertaining any fuch fufpicion; and we need not infift upon the temptation of a new hypothefis.

Armed with the recommendations we have mentioned, and his own refolution, a paflport more effectual than them all, our traveller embarks on the Nile for Upper Egypt, on board a canja, a vefiel of peculiar conftruction, and well adapted to the navigation of that river. Two immenfe fails (the main-fail yard is 200 feet in length), diftended with the Etefian winds, impel it at the rate of eight miles an hour against a stream that runs fix. The keel is not ftraight, but a portion of a parabola, whofe curve is almost infenfible to the eye; hence in the shallows the keel, where the curve is greateft, ftrikes against the fand and is faft, while the reft of the veffel is afloat, fo that by the help of oars and the affiftance of the ftream, furling your fails, you get eafily off; whereas was the keel straight, and the veffel going with the preffure of that immenfe main-fail, you would be fo faft upon the bank as to lie there like a wreck for ' ever.' In defcending, the mafts are taken out, and the canja goes with the current. Such contrivances as thefe, which fhew how invention has been fharpened by neceffity, and that the human mind can exert its powers even under the oppreffion of a defpotic government, are worthy of the notice of every judicious traveller; and accordingly Mr. Bruce has our thanks for his defcription and drawings of the canja.

In his voyage up the Nile he difcuffes the celebrated queftion concerning the fituation of Memphis. In oppofition to Shaw, he places it with Pococke, D'Anville, and Niebuhr, at Metrahenny inftead of Geeza, that is, about ten miles further fouth. Thofe who are interested in the queftion will find fome weight in his arguments; but he might perhaps have done well to recollect the remark of our great hiftorian, that, in their heat, the difputants have forgot that the ample space of a metropolis, covers and annihilates the far greater part of the controverfy*;' and he might eafily have enlarged the lift of his authorities.

Other travellers have defcribed the earthen-ware rafts of the Nile. To fome readers the following account of a peculiar method of fishing may be amufing. After failing about two miles from Metrahenny, he faw three men fishing in a very extraordinary manner. They were on a raft of palm branches, fupported on a float of clay jars, made faft together. The form was like an Ifofceles triangle, or face of a pyramid; two men, each provided with a cafting net, ftood at two of the corners, and threw their net into the ftream together; the third stood at the apex of the triangle, or third corner, which was foremoft, and threw his net the moment the other two drew theirs out of the water; and this they repeated with furprising regularity, and in perfect time.

In his progrefs he paffes by numerous villages, all furrounded with palms, verdant and pleasant, but conveying an idea of famenefs, fuch as every traveller muft have felt who has failed in the muddy, placid, green-banked rivers of Holland. Higher up he faw plantations of the fugar-cane, and a narrow ftripe of wheat, accompanied the course of the river. We pass over fome uninteresting anecdotes of the cowardice and vanity of the Egyptian watermen. At Dendera, lat. 26' 10", a place that would have given more fatisfaction than all Upper Egypt,' though it was miffed by Norden, our traveller meets with magnificent ruins of a temple, which ftrike and impofe upon you at first fight, but the impreffions are like thofe made by the size of mountains, which the mind does not retain any confiderable ⚫ time after seeing them.' Of hieroglyphics there are here fuch abundance, that a very ready hand might spend fix months before he could copy them; and they are in feveral combinations, which have not yet appeared in the collection of hieroglyphics. We lament that it was no part of Mr. Bruce's plan or inclination to enter into the detail of this extraordinary archi• tecture.' At the ruins of ancient Thebes his attention is first