TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA. 
81 
sinian friends, or to the fears with which they en- 
deavoured to inspire him. 
He visited first the great cataract of Aiata, 
down which the Nile falls, after passing through 
the lake of Dembea. He describes it as the most 
magnificent sight he ever beheld. The whole 
river fell down in one sheet from the height of 
about forty feet, with a force and noise which 
made our traveller dizzy. A thick haze covered 
the fall, and spread over the course of the stream 
both above and below. The water seemed re- 
ceived into a deep and capacious basin, and, at the 
same time, tortured into twenty different eddies. 
Mr Bruce declares, that, while in view of this stu- 
pendous scene, his mind was in a sort of tempo- 
rary alienation ; — it seemed as if the fountains of 
the great deep were once more broken up, and this 
mighty element was again to overwhelm the world 
in destruction. No length of life, he says, can 
ever efface from his memory the impression of so 
magnificent a spectacle. 
Bruce had not yet seen Fasil, but at Bamba 
had an interview with that personage. He was 
sitting, wrapped in a lion's skin, with another, as a 
carpet, under his feet, and a piece of dirty cotton 
cloth wrapt round his head. After the common 
salutation, he said no more, and seemed disposed 
to take no notice of our traveller ; but the latter 
pressing upon him his object of visiting Gojam and 
VOL. II. F 
