e says, "was all the way in an open plain bounded by
hillocks of sand and fine gravel--perfectly hard, but without trees,
shrubs, or herbs. There are not even the traces of any living creature,
neither serpent, lizard, antelope, nor ostrich--the usual inhabitants
of the most dreary deserts. There is no sort of water--even the birds
seem to avoid the place as pestilential--the sun was burning hot."
In a few days the scene changed, and Bruce is noting that in four days
he passes more granite, porphyry, marble, and jasper than would build
Rome, Athens, Corinth, Memphis, Alexandria, and half a dozen more.
At last after a week's travel they reached Cossier, the little
mud-walled village on the shores of the Red Sea. Here Bruce embarked
in a small boat, the planks of which were sewn together instead of
nailed, with a "sort of straw mattress as a sail," for the emerald
mines described by Pliny, but he was driven back by a tremendous storm.
Determined to survey the Red Sea, he sailed to the north, and after
landing at Tor at the foot of Mount Sinai, he sailed down the bleak
coast of Arabia to Jidda, the port of Mecca.

[Illustration: AN ARAB SHEIKH. From Bruce's _Travels_.]

By this time he was shaking with ague and fever, scorched by the burning
sun, and weather-beaten by wind and storm--moreover, he was still
dressed as a Turkish soldier. He was glad enough to find kindly English
at Jidda, and after two months' rest he sailed on to the Straits of
Babelmandeb. Being now on English ground, he drank the King's health
and sailed across to Masuah, the main port of Abyssinia. Although he
had letters of introduction from Jidda he had some difficulty with
the chief of Masuah, but at last, dressed in long white Moorish robes,
he broke away, and in November 1769 started forth for Gondar, the
capital of Abyssinia.

It was nearly one hundred and fifty years since any European of note
had visited the country, and it was hard to get any information.

His way led across mountainous country--rugged and steep. "Far above
the top of all towers that stupendous mass, the mountain of Taranta,
probably one of the highest in the world, the point of which is buried
in the clouds and very rarely seen but in the clearest weather; at
other times abandoned to perpetual mist and darkness, the seat of
lightning, thunder, and of storm." Violent storms added to the terrors
of the way, trees were torn up by the roots, and swollen streams rushed
along in