gation to get out of my bed to moleft him; only fee that he carries nothing off with him.” The Rais now feemed to be exceedingly offended, and said, for his part, he did not care for his life more than any other man on board; if it was not from fear of a gale of wind, he might ride on the bowfprit and be d--n'd; but that he had always heard learned people could fpeak to ghofts. "Will you be fo good, Rais (replied our traveller) to step forward, and tell him that I am going to drink coffee, and should be glad if he would walk into the cabin, and fay any thing he has to communicate to me, if he is a Christian, and if not to Mahomet Gibberti." The Rais went out, but, as Mr. Bruce's fervant told him, he would neither go himself, nor could get any person to go to the ghost for him. However, here the matter ended for the prefent. He v was indeed feen again fometime afterwards, and was faid to have robbed several of the paffengers of part of their property. Mr. Bruce, however found out that it was not the ghost, but fome of the failors who were the thieves, and, after this detection, the ghost was never more heard of. *. On the 11th, about feven in the evening, they ftruck upon a reef of coral rocks. Arabs are cowards in all fudden dangers; for they confider every accident as the will of Providence, and therefore not to be avoided. The Arab failors were for immediately taking to the boat; while the Abyffinians were for cutting up the planks and wood of the infide of the veffel, and making her a raft. A violent difpute enfued, and after that a battle, when night overtook them still fast upon the rock. The Rais and Yafine, however, calmed the riot, when Mr. Bruce begged the paffengers would hear him. "You all know (faid he) or fhould know that the boat is mine; as I bought it with my money, for the fafety and accommodation of myself and servants; you know likewise that I and my men are all well armed, while you are naked ; therefore do not imagine that we will fuffer any of you to enter that boat, and fave your lives, at the expense of ours. On this veffel of the Rais is your dependence, in it you are to be faved or to perish; therefore all hands to work, and get the veffel off, while it is calm; if he had been materially damag. ed, she had been funk before now." They all feemed on this to take courage, and faid they hoped he would not leave them. He told them if they would be men, he would not leave them while there was a bit of the veffel together. The boat was immediately launched, and one of Mr. Bruce's fervants, the Rais and two failors, were put on board, They were foon upon the bank, where the two failors got out, who cut their feet at firft upon the white coral, but afterwards got firmer footing. They attempted to push the flip backwards, but she would not move. Poles and handspikes were tried in order to ftir her, but these were not long enough. In a word, there was no appearance of getting her off before morning, when they knew the wind would rife, and it was to be feared fhe would then be dashed to pieces. Other efforts were then used, and a great cry was then fet up that she began to move. A little after, a gentle wind juft made itself felt from the east, and the cry from the Rais was, "hoift the fore-fail, and put it a back." This being immediately done, and a gentle breeze filling the fore-fail at the time they all pushed, and the veffel flid gently off, free from the fhoal. Mr. Bruce did not partake of the joy so suddenly as the others did. He had always fome fears a plank might have been started; but they faw the advantage of a veffel being fewed, rather than nailed together, as fhe not only was unhurt, but made very little water. On the 19th of September, at five in the afternoon, they came to an anchor in the harbour of Mafuah, having been feventeen days on their paffage, including the day they first went on board, though this voyage, with a favourable wind, is generally made in three days, it often has, indeed, been failed in lefs. Yet this must not be wholly attributed to the weather, as they spent much time in furveying the islands, TRAVELS TO DISCOVER THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. BOOK II. ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST AGES OF THE INDIAN AND AFRI WHOEVER peruses the hiftory of the moft ancient na tions, will find the orign of wealth and power to have arifen in the east, and to have gradually advanced weftward, spreading itself at the same time north and fouth. They will find the riches and population of thofe nations decay in proportion as this trade forfakes them; which cannot but fuggeft to every fenfible being, this certain truth, that God makes ufe of the smallest means and caufes to operate the greatest and most powerful effects. Sefoft is paffed with a fleet of large fhips from the Arabian Gulf into the Indian Ocean; he subdued part of India, and opened to Egypt the commerce of that country by fea. It would appear he revived, rather than first discovered, this way of carrying on the trade to the East Indies, which, though it was at times intermitted, was, nevertheless, perpetually kept up by the trading nations themselves, from the ports of India and Africa, and on the Red Sea from Edom. The The pilots of Sesoftris were acquainted with the phænomena of the trade winds and monfoons. Hiftory, fays further of Sefoftris, that the Egyptians confidered him as their greatest benefactor, for having laid open to them the trade both of India and Arabia, for having overturned the dominion of the Shepherd kings; and, laftly, for having restored to the Egyptian individuals each their own lands, which had been wrested from them by the violent hands of the Ethiopian Shepherds, during the firft ufurpation of these princes. In memory of his having happily accomplished these events, Sefoftris is faid to have built a fhip of cedar of a hundred and twenty yards in length, the outside of which he covered with plates of gold, and the infide with plates of filver, and this he dedicated in the temple to Ifis. The inhabitants of the peninfula of India laboured under many disadvantages in point of climate. The high and wholefome part of the country was covered with barren and rugged mountains; and, at different times of the year, violent rains fell in large currents down the fides of thefe, which overflowed all the fertile land below; and these rains were no fooner over, than they were fucceeded by a scorching fun, the effect of which upon the human body was to render it feeble, enervated, and incapable of the efforts neceffary for agriculture. In this flat country, large 'rivers, that scarce had declivity enough to run, crept flowly along, through meadows of fat black earth, ftagnating in many places as they went, rolling an abundance of decayed vegetables, and filling the whole air with exhalations of the most corrupt and putrid kind. Yet they had plenty of clothing adapted by Providence to their climate; fpices to preferve their health; and every tree without culture produced them fruit of the moft excellent kind; every tree afforded thein fhade, under which they could pass their lives delightfully in a calm and rational enjoyment, by the gentle exercise of weaving, at once providing for the health of their bodies, the neceffities of their families, and the riches of their country. But however plentifully their spices grew, in whatever quantity the Indians confumed them, and however generally they wore their own manufactures, the fuperabundance of both was fuch, as nat urally rally led them to look out for articles against which they night barter their fuperfluities., The filk and cotton of India were white and colourlefs, liable to foil, and without any variety; but Arabia produced gums and dyes of various colours, which were highly agreeable to the taste of the Afiatics. The basis of trade, between India and Arabia, was thus laid from the beginning by the hand of Providence. The wants and neceffities of the one found a fupply, or balance from the other. In India they fixed on gold and filver as proper returns for their manufactures and produce. It is not easy to fay, whe ther it was from their hardness or beauty, or what other reafon governed the mind of man in making this flaudard of bar. ter. The history of the particular tranfactions of those times is loft, if indeed there ever was such history, and, therefore, all further inquiries are in vain. Mr. Bruce next proceeds to speak of the orign of characters or letters. He fays, but two original characters obtained in Egypt. The first was the Geez, the second the Saitic, and both these were the oldeft characters in the world, and both derived from hieroglyphics. Thebes was built by a colony of Ethiopians from Sire, the city of Seir, or the Dog Star. Diodorus Siculus fays, that the Greeks, by putting O before Siris, had made the word unintelligible to the Egyptians: Siris, then, was Ofiris; but he was not the Sun, no more than he was Abraham, nor was he a real perfonage. He was Syrius, or the dog star, designed under the figure of a dog, because of the warning he gave to Atbara, where the first obfervations were made at his difengaging himself from, the rays of the fun, fo as to be visible to the naked eye. His first appearance was figuratively compar ed to the barking of a dog, by the warning it gave to prepare for the approaching inundation. Mr. Bruce believes, therefore, this was the firft hieroglyphic; and that Ifis, Ofiris, and Tot, were all after inventions relating to it. It is not to be doubted, that hieroglyphics, but not astronomy, were invented at Thebes, where the theory of the dog-star was particularly inveftigated, because connected with their rural year H Mr. |