MEMOIR OF BRUCE. 
49 
and had succeeded to the throne in 1769. Since 
the death of M. Roule, who had proceeded to that 
court as French ambassador in 1 704, 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 any 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 fhe 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, po ssess ing a share of the 
D 
