torrents.

Bruce had started with his quadrant carried by four men, but the task
of getting his cumbersome instruments up the steep sides of Taranta
was intense. However, they reached the top at last to find a huge plain,
"perhaps one of the highest in the world," and herds of beautiful cattle
feeding. "The cows were completely white, with large dewlaps hanging
down to their knees, white horns, and long silky hair." After
ninety-five days' journey, on 14th February Bruce reached Gondar, the
capital, on the flat summit of a high hill.

Here lived the King of Abyssinia, a supposed descendant of King
Solomon; but at the present time the country was in a lawless and
unsettled condition. Moreover, smallpox was raging at the palace, and
the royal children were smitten with it. Bruce's knowledge of medicine
now stood him again in good stead. He opened all the doors and windows
of the palace, washed his little patients with vinegar and warm water,
sent away those not already infected, and all recovered. Bruce had
sprung into court favour. The ferocious chieftain, Ras Michael, who
had killed one king, poisoned another, and was now ruling in the name
of a third, sent for him. The old chief was dressed in a coarse, dirty
garment wrapped round him like a blanket, his long white hair hung
down over his shoulders, while behind him stood soldiers, their lances
ornamented with shreds of scarlet cloth, one for every man slain in
battle.

Bruce was appointed "Master of the King's horse," a high office and
richly paid.

But "I told him this was no kindness," said the explorer. "My only
wish was to see the country and find the sources of the Nile."

But time passed on and they would not let him go, until, at last, he
persuaded the authorities to make him ruler over the province where
the Blue Nile was supposed to rise. Amid great opposition he at last
left the palace of Gondar on 28th October 1770, and was soon on his
way to the south "to see a river and a bog, no part of which he could
take away"--an expedition wholly incomprehensible to the royal folk
at Gondar. Two days' march brought him to the shores of the great Lake
Tsana, into which, despite the fact that he was tremendously hot and
that crocodiles abounded there, the hardy young explorer plunged for
a swim. And thus refreshed he proceeded on his way. He had now to
encounter a new chieftain named Fasil, who at first refused to give
him leave to pass on his way. It was not unt