THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For OCTOBER, 1790.

ART. I. BRUCE's Travels into Abyffinia.

[Article concluded from our laft Number, p. 47.]

INS NSTEAD of imitating Tournefort, who has intermixed his botany with his travels, Mr. Bruce has judiciously thrown, into a separate volume, whatever concerns natural hiftory. Volume V. therefore, includes his defcriptions and delineations of animals and vegetables. In the vegetable kingdom, the principal articles are the Papyrus, the Balm of Gilead, the Opo-balfamum, the Enfete, Koll-qual, Teff, Kuara, and Wooginoos, or Brucea Antidyfenterica. His account of this valuable medicine deferves to be inferted:

This fhrub is a production of the greateft part of Abyffinia, efpecially the fides of the valleys in the low country, or Kolla. It is indeed on the north fide of Debra Tzai, where you first defcend into the Kolla. This drawing was made at Hor-Cacamoot, in Ras el Feel, where the Wooginoos grows abundantly, and where dyfenteries reign continually, Heaven having put the antidote in the fame place where grows the poison.

Some weeks before I left Gondar I had been very much tormented with this difeafe, and I had tried both ways of treating it, the one by hot medicines and aftringents, the other by the contrary method of diluting. Small dofes of ipecacuanha under the bark had for feveral times procured me temporary relief, but relapfes always followed. My ftrength began to fail, and, after a fevere return of this difeafe, I had, at my ominous manfion, Hor-cacamoot, the valley of the fhadow of death, a very unpromising profpect, for I was now going to pafs through the kingdom of Sennaar in the time of year when that difeafe moft rages.

Sheba, chief of the Shangalla, called Ganjar, on the frontiers of Kuara, had at this time a kind of embaffy or meffage to Ras el Feel. He wanted to burn fome villages in Atbara belonging to the Arabs Jeheina, and wifhed Yafine might not protect them: they often came and fat with me, and one of them hearing of my com

plaint,

plaint, and the apprehenfions I annexed to it, feemed to make very light of both, and the reafon was, he found at the very door this fhrub, the ftrong and ligneous root of which, nearly as thick as a parinip, was covered with a clean, clear, wrinkled bark, of a lightbrown colour, and which peeled eafily off the root. The bark was without fibres to the very end, where it fplit like a fork into two thin divifions. After having cleared the infide of it of a whitifh membrane, he laid it to dry in the fun, and then would have bruifed it between two ftones, had we not fhewn him the easier and more expeditious way of powdering it in a mortar.

The first dofe I took was about a heaped tea-fpoonful in a cup of camel's milk; I took two of these in a day, and then in the morning a tea-cup of the infufion in camel's milk warm. It was attended the first day with a violent drought, but I was prohibited from drinking either water or bouza. I made privately a drink of my own; I took a little boiled water which had flood to cool, and in it a fmall quantity of fpirits. I after ufed fome ripe tamarinds in water, which I thought did me harm. I cannot fay I found any alteration for the first day, unless a kind of hope that I was growing better, but the fecond day I found myself fenfibly recovered. I left off laudanum and ipecacuanha, and refolved to truft only to my medicine. In looking at my journal, I think it was the 6th or 7th day that I pronounced myfelf well, and, though I had returns afterwards, I never was reduced to the neceffity of taking one drop of laudanum, although before I had been very free with it. I did not perceive it occafioned any extraordinary evacuation, nor any remarkable fymptom but that continued thirft, which abated after it had been taken fome time.

In the course of my journey through Sennaar, I faw that all the inhabitants were well acquainted with the virtues of this plant. I had prepared a quantity pounded into powder, and ufed it fuccefsfully everywhere. I thought that the mixing of a third of bark with it produced the effect more fpeedily, and, as we had now little opportunity of getting milk, we made an infufion in water. I tried a fpirituous tincture, which I do believe would fucceed well. I made fome for myself and fervants, a fpoonful of which we used to take when we found fymptoms of our disease returning, or when it was raging in the place in which we chanced to refide. It is a plain, fimple bitter, without any aromatic or refinous tafte. It leaves in your throat and pallet fomething of roughness refembling ipecacuanha.

This fhrub was not before known to botanists. I brought the feeds to Europe, and it has grown in every garden, but has produced only flowers, and never came to fruit. Sir Jofeph Banks, Prefident of the Royal Society, employed Mr. Millar to make a large drawing from this fhrub as it had grown at Kew. The drawing was as elegant as could be wifhed, and did the original great justice. To this piece of politenefs Sir Jofeph added another, of calling it after its difcoverer's name, Brucea Antidyfenterica: the prefent figure is from a drawing of my own on the spot at Ras el Feel.

The

The leaf is oblong and pointed, fmooth, and without collateral ribs that are visible. The right fide of the leaf is a deep green, the reverse very little lighter. The leaves are placed two and two upon the branch, with a fingle one at the end. The flowers come chiefly from the point of the ftalk from each fide of a long branch. The cup is a perianthium divided into four fegments. The flower has four petals, with a strong rib down the center of each. In place of a piftil there is a fmall cup, round which, between the fegments of the perianthium and the petala of the flower, four feeble ftamina arife, with a large ftigma of a crimfon colour, of the shape of a coffee-bean, and divided in the middle.'

The quadrupeds defcribed by Mr. B. are the rhinoceros, hyæna, jerboa, fennec, afhkoko, and the booted lynx. In fpeaking of the rhinoceros, Mr. B. makes a very proper diftinction between the two fpecies of this animal, the firft having two horns, and the fecond but one. The different fpecies, indeed, as exhibited on ancient coins, may be verified in modern museums. The figure of the fingled-horned rhinoceros is common enough, and may be seen in M. de Buffon's natural hiftory. It exactly agrees with Mr. Bruce's drawing of the rhinoceros with two horns; though an animal of the latter fpecies, and differing in form and appearance from that delineated by Mr. B. may be seen in the museum of the late Dr. William Hunter, in Windmill-street. Hence there is

room for fufpecting, that, though he has not joined a horfe's neck to a human head, "humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam," our traveller has fixed the head of a rhinoceros with two horns, to the body of a one-horned rhinoceros.

In fpeaking of the Čeraftes, or horned viper, Mr. B. makes the following obfervations on the curious fubject of the incantation of ferpents:

I forbear to fatigue the reader by longer infifting upon this fubject. A long differtation would remain upon the incantation of ferpents. There is no doubt of its reality. The fcriptures are full of it. All that have been in Egypt have feen as many different inftances as they chofe. Some have doubted that it was a trick, and that the animals fo handled had been first trained, and then difarmed of their power of hurting; and fond of the discovery, they have refted themfelves upon it, without experiment, in the face of all antiquity. But I will not hesitate to aver, that I have feen at Cairo (and this may be feen daily without trouble or expence) a man who came from above the catacombs, where the pits of the mummy birds are kept, who has taken a Ceraftes with his naked hand from a number of others lying at the bottom of the tub, has put it upon his bare head, covered it with the common red cap he wears, then taken it out, put it in his breaft, and tied it about his neck like a necklace; after which it has been applied to a hen, and bit it, which has died in a few minutes; and, to complete the experiment,

K 2

experiment, the man has taken it by the neck, and beginning at his tail, has ate it as one would do a carrot or a flock of celery, without any feeming repugnance.

We know from hiftory, that where any country has been remarkably infested with ferpents, there the people have been screened by this fecret. The Pfylli and Marmarides of old undoubtedly were defended in this manner,

"Ad Quorum cantus mites Jacuêre Cerafta." SIL. ITAL. lib.iii.

To leave ancient hiftory, I can myfelf vouch, that all the black people in the kingdom of Sennaar, whether Funge or Nuba, are perfectly armed against the bite of either fcorpion or viper. They take the Ceraftes in their hands at all times, put them in their booms, and throw them to one another as children do apples or balls, without having irritated them, by this ufage, fo much as to bite. The Arabs have not this fecret naturally, but from their infancy they acquire an exemption from the mortal confequences attending the bite of these animals, by chawing a certain root, and washing themselves (it is not anointing) with an infufion of certain plants in water.

One day when I was with the brother of Shekh Adelan, prime minister of Sennaar, a flave of his brought a Ceraftes which he had jutt taken out of a hole, and was ufing it with every fort of familiarity. I told him my fufpicion that the teeth had been drawn, but he affured me they were not, as did his mafter Kittou, who took it from him, wound it round his arm, and at my defire ordered the fervant to carry it home with me. I took a chicken by the neck, and made it Autter before him; his feeming indifference left him, and he bit it with great figns of anger, the chicken died almolt immediately; I fay his feeming indifference, for I conftantly obferved, that however lively the viper was before, upon being feized by any of thefe barbarians, he seemed as if taken with ficknefs and feeblenefs, frequently fhut his eyes, and never turned his mouth towards the arm of the perfon that held him. I asked Kittou how they came to be exempted from this mifchief? he faid, they were born fo, and fo faid the grave and refpectable men among them. Many of the lighter and lower fort talked of enchantments by words and by writing, but they all knew how to prepare any perfon by medicine, which were decoctions of herbs

and roots.

I have feen many thus armed for a feafon do pretty much the fame feats as thofe that poffeffed the exemption naturally; the drugs were given me, and I feveral times armed myself, as I thought, refolved to try the experiment, but my heart always failed me when I came to the trial; because among these wretched people it was a pretence they might very probably have fheltered themselves under, that I was a Chriftian, that therefore it had no effect upon me. I have ftill remaining by me a fmall quantity of this root, but never had an opportunity of trying the experiment.'

Mr. Bruce's figure of the horned viper is a very good one, hut it exactly agrees with one given in the 56th volume of the Philofophical

Philofophical Transactions, and is not therefore original, as he would intimate.

His account of birds and fifhes is not copious, and contains nothing very remarkable: but there is one creature, an infect, fmall in fize, but of the utmost confequence in the history of Abyffinia and the neighbouring countries, of which, as far as we know, Mr. B. is the firft perfon who has given the defcription. This infect is called the Zimb, or Tzalfalya; it is little larger than a bee, with wings of pure gauze; the head is large, the upper jaw fharp, and furnished with a sharppointed hair about a quarter of an inch long; the lower jaw has two of these pointed hairs, and the three, joined into one pencil, make a refiftance to the finger nearly equal to that of a hog's bristle. As foon as this winged affatlin appears, and his buzzing is heard, the cattle forfake their food, and run wildly about the plain, till they die, worn out with fatigue, affright, and pain. The inhabitants of Melinda, down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba, and the fouth coaft of the Red Sea, are obliged to put themselves in motion, and remove to the next fand in the beginning of the rainy feafon. This is not a partial emigration; the inhabitants of all the countries, from the mountains of Abyffinia northward, to the confluence of the Nile and Aftaboras, are, once in a year, obliged to change their abode, and feek protection in the.fands of Beja. The elephant and rhinoceros, which, by reafon of their enormous bulk, and the vast quantity of food and water they daily need, cannot fhift to defert and dry places, are obliged, in order to refift the zimb, to roll themfelves in mud and mire, which, when dry, coats them over like armour. Of all those who have written of thefe countries, the prophet Ifaiah alone has given an account of the zimb or fly, and defcribed the mode of its operation, Isaiah, vii. 18, 19. Providence, from the beginning, it would appear, had fixed its habitation to one fpecies of foil, which is a black fat earth, extremely fruitful; and contemptible as it feems, this infect has invariably given law to the fettlement of the country. It prohibited abfolutely thofe inhabitants of the black earth called Mazaga, housed in caves and mountains, from enjoying the help or labour of any beafts of burden. It deprived them of their flesh and m lk for food, and gave rise to another nation, leading a wandering 1.fe, and preferving immenfe herds, by conducting them into the fands. beyond the limits of the black earth, and bringing them back when the danger from this infect was over. In the plagues brought on Pharoah, it was by means of this infect, that God faid, he would feparate his people from the Egyptians. The land of Gofhen, the poffeffion of the Ifraelites, was a land of