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like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very rapidly, for I could scarce turn to fall upon the ground with my head to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw, was indeed passed, but the light air that still blew was of heat to threaten suffocation. For my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part of it, nor was I free of an asthmetic sensation till I had been some months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta near two years afterwards.

An universal despondency had taken possession of our people. They ceased to speak to one another, and when they did, it was in whispers, by which I easily guessed their discourse was not favourable to me, or else they were increasing each other's fears, by vain suggestions calculated to sink each other's spirits still further, but from which no earthly good could possibly result. I called them together, and both reprimanded and exhorted them in the strongest manner I could; I bade them attend to me, who had nearly lost my voice by the Simoom, and desired them to look in my face, so swelled as scarcely to permit me to see; my neck covered with blisters, my feet swelled and inflamed, and bleeding with many wounds. In answer to the lamentation that the water was exhausted, and that they were upon the point of dying with thirst, I ordered each man a gourd full of water more than he had the preceding day, and shewed them at no great distance, the bare, black, and sharp point of the rock Chiggre, wherein was the well, at which we were again to fill our girbas, and thereby banish the fear of dying by thirst in the desert. I believe I never was at any time more eloquent, and never had eloquence a more sudden affect. They all protested and declared their concern chiefly arose from the situation they saw me in; that they feared not death or hardship, provided I would submit a little to their direction in the taking a proper care of myself. They intreated me to use one of the camels, and throw off the load that it carried, that it would ease me of the wounds in my feet, by riding at least part of the day. This I positively refused to do, but recommended to them to be strong of heart, and to spare the camels for the last resource, if any should be taken ill and unable to walk any longer.

This phenomenon of the Simoom, unexpected by us, though foreseen by Idris, caused us to relapse into our former despondency. It still continued to blow, so as to exhaust us entirely, though the blast was so weak as scarcely would have raised a

er felt, on account of its being in a cave covered with a rock, and was inaccessible to the sun in any direction. All my people seemed greatly recovered by this refrigeration, but from some cause or other, it fared otherwise with the Tucorory; one of whom died about an hour after our arrival, and another early the next morning."

Of Abram's ancient stock, and Ishmael's swarthy bands;

Their progeny's rove here amid the fiery sands,

The bond maid Hagar's seed, sanguinary host,

Where Pyramids of whirling dust; and Simoom's walk the coast.

TRAVELS OF BRUCE.

The travels and adventures of Mr. Bruce in various parts of the southern hemisphere.

MR. BRUCE on his return to Egypt from Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, made some stay at the town of Tcherkin, situate in the north of that kingdom, on the confines of Atbara. Here he was hospitably entertained by a young nobleman named Ayto Confu, with whom he had been acquainted at Gondar, but was now at his country seat at Tcherkin. Our traveller gives us the following entertaining description of that part of Abyssinia, and the mode practised by the natives in hunting the elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo.

There is great plenty of game of every sort about Tcherkin; elephants, rhinoceroses, and a great number of buffaloes, which differ nothing in form from the buffaloes of Europe or Egypt, but very much in temper and disposition. They are fierce, rash, and fearless of danger: and contrary to the practice of every other creature not carnivorous, they attack the traveller and the hunter equally, and it requires address to escape from them. They seem to be, of all others, the creature the most given to ease and indulgence. They lie under the most shady trees, near large pools of water, of which they make constant use, and sleep soundly all the day long. The flesh of the female is very good when fat, but that of the male, hard, lean, and disagreeable. Their horns are used in various manners by the turners, in which craft the Abyssinians are very expert. In the woods there are many civit cats, but they know not the use of them, nor how to extract the civet. The Mahometans only are possessed of this art.

On the 6th of January, 1772, an hour before day, we mounted on horseback, to the number of about thirty belonging to Ayto Confu. But there was another body, both of horse and foot, which made hunting the elephant their particular business. These men dwell constantly in the woods, and know very little of the

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puts upon it, breaks the remaining part asunder. In either case, he remains incapable of advancing a step, till the horseman returning, or his companions coming up, pierce him through with javelins or lances; he then falls to the ground, and expires with the loss of blood.

The huntsman nearest me presently lamed his elephant, and left him standing, but failed in the pursuit of the second, and, being close upon him at entering the wood, he received a violent blow from a branch of a tree which the elephant had bent by his weight, and after passing, allowed to replace itself, when it knocked down both the riders, and very much hurt the horse. This, indeed, is the great danger of elephant hunting; for some of the trees, that are dry and short, break, by the violent pressure of so immense a body moving so rapidly, and fall upon the pursuers, or across the roads. But the greatest number of these trees, being of a succulent quality, they bend without breaking, and return quickly to their former position, when they strike both horse and man so violently, that they often beat them to pieces, and scatter them upon the plain. Dextrous, too, as the riders are, the elephant sometimes reaches them with his trunk, with which he dashes the horse against the ground, and then sets his feet upon him, till he tears him limb from limb with his proboscis ; a great many hunters die this way. Besides this, the soil, at this time of the year, is split into deep chasms, or cavities, by the heat of the sun, so that nothing can be more dangerous than the riding.

The elephant once slain, they cut the whole flesh off his bones into thongs, like the reins of a bridle, and hang these, like festoons upon the branches of trees, till they become perfectly dry, without salt, and then they lay them by for their provision in the season of the rains.

I shall take upon me to resolve a difficulty, viz.-for what use the teeth of the elephant, and the horn of the rhinoceros were intended. The sheep, goats, horses, cattle, and all the beasts of the country live upon branches of trees. There are, in every part of these immense forests, trees of a soft, succulent substance, full of pith. These are the principal food of the elephant and rhinoceros. They first eat the tops of their leaves and branches; they then, with their horns or teeth, begin as near to the root as they can, and rip, or cut the more woody part, or trunks of these, up to where they were eaten before, till they fall in so many pliable pieces of the size of laths. After this, they take all these in their monstrous mouths, and twist them round as we could do the leaves of a lettuce. The vestiges of this process, in its different stages, we saw every day throughout the forest, and the horns of the rhinoceros, and teeth of the elephant, are often found broken, when their gluttony leads them to attempt too large or firm a tree.

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