MEMOIR OF BRUCE. 41) 



and had succeeded to the throne in 1769. Since 

 the death of M. Roule, who had proceeded to that 

 court as French ambassador in 1704, no European 

 had visited these secluded regions, and the land of 

 Ethiopia seemed almost blotted out from the map 

 of the world. The immense distance, the climate, 

 the dreary deserts, and the barbarous habits of the 

 surrounding tribes, were of themselves enough to 

 deter ay ordinary traveller from undertaking so 

 dangerous a journey. The two great links, com- 

 merce and religion, which had so long connected 

 Abyssinia with Europe, were broken when the Ro- 

 mish missionaries were interrupted in their labours 

 of conversion, and when the trade with India for- 

 sook its ancient route by the Red Sea, and directed 

 its course round the Cape of Good Hope. The 

 arrival of Bruce, therefore, marked a new era in 

 our historical knowledge of that country. His 

 narrative contains a detailed account (occupying 

 nearly a thousand pages of his volumes) of the 

 reigns of several kings, with minute descriptions of 

 their persons, their petty feuds and dissensions, 

 their wars with the Moors, the Jews, the Galla, 

 and their savage treatment of the Shangalla tribes ; 

 but these we leave to be studied in the travels, as 

 not being essentially connected with the biography 

 of the traveller. 



Massuah, which Bruce reached after a passage of 

 seventeen days across the Arabian Gulf, is a small 

 island near the town of Arkeeko, and was once a 

 place of great commerce, possessing a share of the 



