Every night they had to post guards, for the villages they passed through were teeming with robbers, notorious for swimming out to anchored boats and stealing anything they could lay their hands on. They encountered trouble only when Bruce broke his own rules and tried to visit some ruins in a place where he had no introduction to the locals.
Abou Cuffi’s son Mahomet went on shore, under pretence of buying some provision, and to see how the land lay, but after the character we had of the inhabitants, all our fire-arms were brought to the door of the cabin. In the meantime, partly with my naked eye and partly with my glass, I observed the ruins so attentively as to be perfectly in love with them.
Bruce was destined to venture no closer. Mahomet came racing back to the boat – his turban stolen – with the entire village chasing after him. A few shots were fired at the boat and they cast off hurriedly whilst Bruce ranted at the villagers.
I cried out in Arabic, ‘Infidels, thieves, and robbers! come on, or we shall presently attack you:’ upon which I immediately fired a ship blunderbuss with pistol small bullets, but with little elevation, among the bushes, so as not to touch them. The three or four men that were nearest fell flat upon their faces, and slid away among the bushes on their bellies, like eels, and we saw no more of them.
Their progress was unhurried but they were covering a lot of ground and learning a great deal: ‘I was then beginning my apprenticeship, which I fully completed,’ remarked the explorer. One minute he would be drawing pictures of irrigation methods in his commonplace book and measuring the height of the wheat growing in the thin strip of land between the mountains that run parallel with the Nile, the next he would be exposing myths for future publication: ‘I was very pleased to see here, for the first time, two shepherd dogs lapping up the water from the stream, then lying down in it with great seeming leisure and satisfaction. It refuted the old fable, that the dogs living on the banks of the Nile run as they drink, for fear of the crocodile’. He never entirely cured himself of these bizarre asides which, though irksome to the scholar, are a delight to the general reader (for whom, in the end, he wrote). The running dogs of the Nile, now unheard of, were evidently well-known to eighteenth-century audiences.
Each day they would stop at whichever ruin happened to be next and from studying them Bruce came to many conclusions, some of which were correct, others less so. He guessed the location of Memphis correctly, but when he visited Cleopatra’s and Caesarian’s temple at Dendera, he decided that the ancient Egyptians must all have lived in caves because he could only find the remains of temples and graves. He also came to some rather startling conclusions about the Egyptian language which he drew from his study of the hieroglyphics: that it grew out of Ethiopic. All these, though, must be taken in context for his was a rapid progress of the Nile and he had no time to do any detailed research. He does not claim to be an oracle on these points.
At Thebes, however, Bruce made an important discovery; important not only because he was the first person to describe an intriguing facet of Egyptian life, but also because it led to his being disbelieved when he returned to London. In the tomb of Rameses III he discovered a painting of a ‘man playing upon a harp’ thus dating anew the origins of music. The occupant of the tomb was not known at the time. Until this was verified, it became known, after his death – through the respectable medium of Murray’s guide book of Egypt – as Bruce’s Tomb.
The whole principles on which this harp is constructed, are rational and ingenious, and the ornamented parts are executed in the very best manner.
The bottom and sides of the frame seem to be fineered, and inlaid, probably with ivory, tortoise-shell, and mother of pearl, the ordinary produce of the neighbouring seas and deserts. It would be even now impossible, either to construct or to finish a harp with more taste or elegance.
Everything which Bruce wrote and said about this harp and its player is true. The fresco is still there, complete with Bruce’s graffito upon it. It was, however, greeted with incredulity by many of his compatriots on his return to London. He described the harp to Doctor Burney, the musicologist, who then asked Bruce to write an article about it for his forthcoming History of Music. It was Bruce’s first published writing and the reaction to it gave Bruce a chastening introduction to public criticism. Fanny Burney, Dr Burney’s daughter, was quite wrong in her expectation of how Bruce’s letter and paintings would be received when published. She wrote in her diary:
Mr Bruce, that Great Lyon, has lately become very intimate with my father, and has favoured him with two delightful original drawings, done by himself, of instruments which he found at the Egyptian Thebes, in his long and difficult and enterprising travels, and also with a long letter concerning them, which is to be printed in the History. These will be great ornaments to the book; and I am happy to think that Mr Bruce, in having so highly obliged my father, will find by the estimation he is in as a writer, that his own name and assistance will not be disgraced, though it is the first time he has signed it for any publication, with which he has hitherto favoured the world.
Within days of the History’s publication, the cataloguer of the Theban lyre and the musical instruments of Ethiopia became known as the Theban liar. The ever acerbic Horace Walpole wrote to his friend, the Rev. William Mason,
It is unlucky that Mr Bruce does not posses [sic] another secret reckoned very useful to intrepid travellers, a good memory. Last spring he dined at Mr Crauford’s, George Selwyn was one of the company; after relating the story of the bramble [which we will hear later] and several other curious particulars, somebody asked Mr Bruce, if the Abyssinians had any musical instruments? ‘Musical instruments,’ said he, and paused – ‘Yes I think I remember one lyre’; George Selwyn whispered his neighbour, ‘I am sure there is one less since he came out of the country.’ There are now six instruments there.
It is extraordinary that when Bruce was being scrupulously truthful he was disbelieved, for when he is genuinely glamorizing his account or being economic with the truth, he invariably gets away with it. It must have made him wildly angry in the early years after his return and could well have allowed him to justify to himself his embellishments, on the basis that no one was going to believe him anyway. Walpole’s otherwise erroneous judgement on Bruce’s character was, however, correct in one respect: he was not a man to be trifled with. He added a proviso in his letter to Mason: ‘Remember this letter is for your own private eye, I do not desire to be engaged in a controversy or a duel.’
Bruce and Balugani had set up their easels to paint as many of the frescoes as they could but their guides were frightened of attack by the grave-robbers who lived in the surrounding hills and thus refused to stay. They extinguished all the torches and left Bruce and Balugani in the dark, forcing them to leave.
Very much vexed, I mounted my horse to return to the boat. The road lay through a very narrow valley, the sides of which were covered with bare loose stones. I had no sooner got down to the bottom, than I heard a great deal of loud speaking on both sides of the valley; and, in an instant, a number of large stones were rolled down upon me, which, though I heard in motion, I could not see, on account of the darkness; this increased my terror … I accordingly levelled my gun as near as possible, by the ear, and fired one barrel among them. A moment’s silence ensued, and then a loud howl, which seemed to have come from thirty or forty persons. I took my servant’s blunderbuss and discharged it where I heard the howl, and a violent confusion of tongues followed, but no stones.
Bruce was learning quickly about how to deal with dangers on the road. ‘When in doubt – shoot’, was his policy, though he was careful about whom he shot at. When it seemed impolitic to harm an adversary he merely terrified them with bloodcurdling exhibitions of firepower. On this occasion Bruce and Balugani made it back to the boat with no casualties and believing ‘it would be our fault if they found us in the morning’, cast off and floated down to Luxor ‘where there was a governor for whom I had letters’. He was impressed by the ‘magnificent scenes of ruins’ at Luxor and nearby Karnak although he did not purchase anything. Already, it seems, rapacious Westerners were buying up the best bits of ancient Egypt and taking them home. A row of sphinxes ‘had been covered with earth till very recently, a Venetian physician