CHARACTERS. 



283 



forgotten many things more worthv 

 ot curiosity. Ores of every descrip- 

 tion you will naturally anticipate. 

 The variety and splendor of the sea 

 shells, not to mention the novelty 

 of many of them, is scarcely to be 

 equalled elsewhere. Among the 

 reptile kind, none, perhaps, more 

 deservedly claimed our notice than 

 the serpent csnsulted in divination j 

 but of that, you know, Mr. Bruce 

 has particulai-ly treated in his book. 



*' Among the artificial curiosities 

 which were shewn us, was a drink- 

 ing cup, or goblet, with four heads, 

 embossed round the outside ; an an- 

 tique from Rhodes ; and a model of 

 it executed at Glasgow, in a man- 

 ner highly creditable to the skill 

 of the British artist. Anything re- 

 lative to the Nile, the first object of 

 the Abyssinian Traveller, was sure 

 attach every spectator j and Mr. 

 Bruce himself seemed not unplea- 

 santly interested in displaying his 

 invention to measure the rise and 

 fall of that river ; a brazen bar 

 with a graduated scale ingeniously 

 converted * to that purpose from 

 som.e cramps used in the arclies of 

 Egyptian cisterns : nor did he, per- 

 haps, with less feeling, call our at- 

 tention to the hilt of a spear marked 

 by bullets discharged at himself, but 

 fortunately missing aim, in an en- 

 counter with a desperate banditti 

 of assassins and robbers. 



" Had Horace himself been at 

 our elbow, aiid viva voce sounded in 

 •our ears — 



Nil admirari propi res at una, Nu- 

 - ' mici, ilfc. 



it had been impossible not to h;-,ve 

 felt a paroxysm of admiration when, 

 next, we beheld two cups made 



from the horns of the very bullock 

 who roared through them no sounds 

 of welcome to tlie bloody banquet 

 furnished from his own living flesh 

 to the royal epicures of Gondar ; 

 two cups turned by the dehcate 

 hand of one of his Abyssinian ma- 

 jesty's daughters, and presented by 

 herself to Mr. Bruce, as a memo- 

 rial of his entertainment and recep- 

 tion at that polite court. 



" Last of all we were favoured 

 with inspection of the cabinet of 

 manuscripts, written upon parch- 

 ment of goat skins, and manufac- 

 tured by the priests of those coun- 

 tries. From the account which Mr. 

 Bruce has given of the low state of 

 religion and science in Arabia, it is 

 but too probablethatthepriesthood, 

 a channel through which all the li- 

 terature of Europe, since the revival 

 of letters, has first been derived to 

 ourenhghtencdquarter of the globe, 

 has, in Abyssinia, contributed little 

 else to the extension of knowledge 

 than the material substance of 

 books. 



" Mr. Bruce mentioned to us, 

 that thirty different languages were 

 spoken in the camp of one of the 

 caravans in which he had occa- 

 sionally travelled on the continent 

 of Africa, and that it was his desire 

 to have procured a translation of the 

 *' Song of Solomon" (from the 

 Arabic, I believe) into them all. 

 This was executed for him in ten 

 of them, beautifully written in 

 jEthiopic characters, and each in a 

 different-coloured ink, to prevent 

 a confusion of tongues, which, in 

 this instance, had certainly not been 

 mii-acuious. To spnre the ears of 

 the unlearned, and, perhaps, at 



: * Under the distressing circumstance, I think he said, oJ' having been -deprivee^ 

 bjr nitBz accident, of his mathematical apparatus, 



some 



