much agitation to produce such vegetables, seldom found, but in stagnant waters, and seldomer, if ever, found in salt ones. My opinion then is, that it is from the large trees, or plants of white coral, spread every where over the bottom of the Red Sea, perfectly in imitation of plants on land that the sea has obtained If not, I fairly confess I have not any other conjec

this name. ture to make.

A continuation of Mr. Bruce's Travels through the Desert of Nubia to Egypt.

:

Mr. Bruce entered the kingdom of Abyssinia by the way of Masuah, an island in the Red Sea, in the latter end of the year 1769, in order to discover the Source of the Nile. Having accomplished the object of his perilous undertaking, he left Abyssinia in January, 1772, and returned to Egypt through Atbara, and the great Desert of Nubia. The difficulties he had to encounter in the Desert, not only bring us acquainted with that horrible country, but also illustrate the providential care of the Almighty over his creatures, in their greatest extremity and danger. Mr. Bruce arrived at Sennaar, the capital of Nubia, April 29 having narrowly escaped from being robbed and murdered by the Shekh or governor of Teawa. At Sennaar he was detained till the beginning of Sept. soliciting, in vain, for assistance from the king to enable him to cross the Desert to Egypt. Here be became acquainted with Mahomet Towash, a person of consequence, being one of the black Eunuchs whose services are dedicated to the Temple at Mecca. Mr. Bruce cured Towash of a dangerous intermitting fever, and the Eunuch expressed much gratitude on this occasion, and engaged to take our traveller with him to Egypt. This was looked upon as a most favourable circumstance, but the scheme was defeated by the cruelty of the King of Sennaar, who prevailed with the Eunuch to set out upon his journey unknown to Mr. Bruce, and leave him to perish at Sennaar, or in the Desert. This was a heavy disappointment, but in the end proved, under the direction of Providence, the means of Mr. Bruce's preservation, and the destruction of the treacherous Mahometan. On the 4th of October, Mr. Bruce arrived at Chendi, on the borders of the great DeHere he found that Mahomet Towash had taken all the Hybeers, or guides of note, with him, on purpose to disappoint Mr. Bruce, who with great difficulty procured one to accompany him on the journey.†

I saw one of these, which, from a root nearly central, threw out ramifications in a nearly circular form, measuring twenty-six feet diameter every way.

HYBZER, is a Guide, whose office is to conduct the Caravans through the Desert

October 20. Mr. Bruce left Chendi, his company consisted of Idris their guide; Ismael, an old Turkish Janissary; three Greek servants, two Barbarins, and a young man a relation of Idris's. They likewise reluctantly admitted into their company six of the Tucorory; being afraid they should be reduced to the disagreeable necessity of seeing them die with thirst before their eyes. They filled four girbas* with water, which altogether contained a hogshead and a half. Their food consisted of twenty-two goat's skins stuffed with a powder of bread made of dora. They pursued their journey in the Desert till the 14th of November, when they met with the moving Pillars of Sand, and the Simoom.

"On the 17th of November, (says Mr. Bruce) we left the valley and pool of Chiggre. At 11 o'clock we were again terrified by an army of Sand Pillars, whose march was constantly south, and the favourite field which they occupied was that great circular space which the Nile makes when opposite to Assa Nagga, where it turns west to Korti and Dongola. At one time a number of these pillars faced to the eastward, and seemed to be coming directly upon us; but, though they were little nearer us than two miles, a considerable quantity of sand fell round us. I began now to be somewhat reconciled to this phænomenon, seeing it had hitherto done us no harm. The great magnificence it exhibited in its appearance, seemed, in some measure, to indemnify us for the panic it had occasioned: But it was otherwise with the simoom; we all of us were firmly persuaded that another passage of the purple meteor over us would be attended with our deaths.

At half past four we alighted in a vast plain, bounded on all sides by low sandy hills, which seemed to have been transported hither lately. These hillocks were from seven to thirteen feet high, drawn into perfect cones, with very sharp points and well-proportioned bases. The sand was of an inconceivable fineness, having been the sport of hot winds for thousands of years. There could be no doubt that the day before, when it was calm, and we suffered so much by the simoom between El Mout and Chiggre, the wind had been raising pillars of sand in this place, called Umdoom; marks of the whirling motion of

They are men of great consideration, knowing perfectly the situation and properties of all kinds of water to be met with on the route, the distance of wells, the places occupied by the simoom, or burning winds, and the seasons of their blowing in those parts; likewise those occupied by moving sands.

A GIRBA is an ox's skin squared, and the edges sewed together by a double seam, which does not let out water. An opening is left in the top of this Girba; around this the skin is gathered to the size of a large handful, which when the Girba is full of water, is tied round with whipcord. Two of these Girbas are the load of a camel. They are besmeared on the outside with grease, to prevent the evaporation or oozing of the water.

the pillars were distinctly seen in every heap, so that here again, while we were repining at the simoom, Providence was busied keeping us out of the way of another scene, where, if, we had advanced a day, we had all of us been involved in inevitable destruction.

On the 18th we passed through a sandy plain, without trees or verdure. About three hundred yards (out of our way,) to the left, among some sandy hillocks, where the ground seems to be more elevated than the rest, Idris the guide told me, that one of the largest caravans which ever came out of Egypt, under the conduct of the Ababde and the Bishareen Arabs, was there covered with sand, to the number of some thousands. At ten o'clock we alighted at a place where are some trees, to feed our camels. The trees which the camels eat, are a kind of dwarf acacia, growing only to the heighth of bushes; at five o'clock we alighted in the wood, which is a station of the Bishareen in the summer months; but these people were now east of us, three days journey, towards the Red Sea, where the rains had fallen, and there was plenty of pasture. In the evening we alighted in a wood, called Terfowey, full of trees and grass. The trees are the tallest and largest we had seen since leaving the Nile. We had this day enjoyed, as it were, a holiday, free from the terrors of the sand, or dreadful influence of the simoom. This poisonous wind had made several attempts to prevail this day, but was always overpowered by a cool breeze at north.

On the 19th we left the wood, and in the evening arrived at the well. It is about four fathoms deep, but the spring not very abundant. We drained it several times, and were obliged to wait its filling again. These last two days, we had seen more verdure than we had altogether since we left Barbar. The acacia trees are tall and verdant, but the mountains on each side appear black and barren beyond imagination.

As soon as we alighted at Terfowey, and had chosen a proper place where our camels could feed, we unloaded our baggage near them, and sent the men to clean the well, and wait the filling of the skins. We had lighted a large fire. The. nights were excessively cold, though the thermometer was at 530 and that cold occasioned me inexpressible pain in my feet, now swelled to a monstrous size, and every where inflamed and excoriated. I had taken upon me the charge of the baggage, and Mahomet, Idris's young man, the care of the camels; but he too was gone to the well, though he expected to return immediately.

Our camels were always chained by the feet, and the chain secured by a padlock, lest they should wander in the night, or be liable to be stolen and carried off. Musing upon some geo.

graphical difficulties which then occurred, and gazing before me, without any particular intention or suspicion, I heard the chain of the camels clink, as if somebody was unloosing them, and then, at the end of the gleam made by the fire, I saw distinctly a man pass swiftly by, stooping as he went along, his face almost to the ground. A little time after this I heard another clink of the chin, as if from a pretty sharp blow, and immediately after a movement among the camels. I then rose, and cried in a threatening tone in Arabic, "I charge you on your life, whoever you are, either come up to me directly, or keep at a distance till day, but come that way no more; why should you throw your life away?" In a minute after, he repassed in the shade among the trees, pretty much in the manner he had done before. I advanced some steps, as far as the light of the fire shone, on purpose to discover how many there were, and was ready to fire upon the next I saw. "If you are an honest man, cried I aloud, and want any thing, come up to the fire and fear not, I am alone; but if you approach the camels or the baggage again, the world will not be able to save your life, and your blood be upon your own head." Mahomet, Idris's nephew, who heard me, came running up from the well to see what was the matter. We went down together to where the camels were, and, upon examination, found that the links of one of the chains had been broke, but the opening not large enough to let the corresponding whole link through to separate it. A hard blue stone was driven through a link of one of the chains of another camel, and left sticking there, the chain not being entirely broken through; we saw, besides, the print of a man's feet on the sand. There was no need to tell us after this that we were not to sleep that night; we made therefore another fire on the other side of the camels, with branches of the acacia tree, which we gathered. I then sent the man back to Idris at the well, desiring him to fill his skins with water before it was light, and transport them the baggage where I was, and to be all ready armed there by the dawn of day; soon after which, if the Arabs were sufficiently strong, we were very certain they would attack us. This agreed perfectly with Idris's ideas also, so that, contenting themselves with a lesser quantity of water than they first intended to have taken, they lifted the skins upon the cainels I sent them, and were at the rendezvous, near the baggage, a little after four in the morning.

The Barbarins, and, in general, all the lower sort of Moors and Turks, adorn their arms and wrists with amulets; these are charms, and are some favourite verse of the Koran wrapt in paper, neatly covered with Turkey leather. The two Barbarins that were with me had procured for themselves new ones

at Sennaar, which were to defend them from the simoom and the sand, and all the dangers of the Desert. That they might not soil these in filling the water, they had taken them from their arms, and laid them on the brink of the well before they went down. Upon looking for these after the girbas were filled, they were not to be found. This double attempt was an indication of a number of people being in the neighbourhood, in which case our present situation was one of the most desperate that could be figured. We were in the middle of the most barren, inhospitable desert in the world, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, from day to day, we could carry wherewithal to assuage our thirst. We had with us the only bread it was possible to procure for some hundred miles; lances and swords were not necessary to destroy us, the bursting or tearing of a girba, the lameness or death of a camel, a thorn or sprain in the foot which might disable us from walking, were as certain death to us as a shot from a cannon. There was no staying for one another; to lose time was to die, because, with the utmost exertion our camels could make, we scarce could carry along with us a scanty provision of bread and water sufficient to keep us alive.

That Desert, which did not afford inhabitants for the assistance or relief of travellers, had greatly more than sufficient for destroying them. Large tribes of Arabs, two or three thousand, encamped together, were cantoned, as it were, in different places of this Desert, where there was water enough to serve their numerous herds of cattle, and these, as their occasion required, traversed in parties all that wide expanse of solitude, from the mountains near the Red Sea east, to the banks of the Nile on the west, according as their several designs or necessities required. These were Jaheleen Arabs, those cruel, barbarous fanatics, that deliberately shed so much blood during the time they were establishing the Mahometan religion. Their prejudices had never been removed by any mixture of strangers, or softened by society, even with their own nation after they were polished; but buried, as it were, in these wild deserts, if they were not grown more savage, they had at least preserved, in their full vigour, those murdering principles which they had brought with them into that country, under the brutal and inhuman butcher Kaled Ibn el Waalid, impiously called The Sword of God. If it should be our lot to fall among these people, and it was next to a certainty that we were at that very instant surrounded by them, death was certain, and our only comfort was, that we could die but once, and that to die like men was in our own option. Indeed, without considering the bloody character which these wretches naturally bear, there could be