[18] _Things not existing and those not appearing to exist we may account the same._
[19] The part of Egypt which is cultivated.
Bruce crosses the Desert to the Red Sea.--Meets with the Arabs Ababdé at Cosseir.--His Adventures in the Red Sea.--Arrives at Massuah, the ancient Harbour of Abyssinia.
It was on Thursday, the 16th of February,[21] 1769, that Bruce joined the caravan which was setting out from Kenné, the _Coene Emporium_ of antiquity. They passed through a few dirty villages of the Azaizy, a poor, inconsiderable tribe of Arabs, who live by furnishing cattle for the caravans, and by attending on them. The huts of these poor people, which are made of clay in one piece, in the shape of a beehive, are seldom above ten feet high and six feet in diameter. After travelling nearly the whole day, Bruce pitched his tent at Gabba, about a mile from the borders of the desert, and here he passed the night.
On the 17th, at eight o'clock in the morning, he ordered his servants to mount their horses, in order to take charge of their camels, for there was an indescribable confusion in the caravan, which was to be guarded by two hundred lawless, cowardly fellows, armed with firelocks, and on horseback. When all was ready, the whole party, at a funereal pace, slowly advanced into the gloomy region of the desert. There was nothing in the prospect to excite the mind or arouse the feelings. Men, camels, and horses, drooping as they went, seemed to be alike aware that the courage they had now to exert was wholly of a passive character; that all that was required of them was--to suffer! Anger, hatred, and the other vengeful passions, which, like intoxicating draughts, often make men thoughtless and insensible to danger, afforded no excitement here. They had not the savage pleasure even of contending with human enemies; and the burning sand and burning sun it was out of their power to injure.
"Our road," says Bruce, "was all the way in an open plain, bounded by hillocks of sand and fine gravel, perfectly hard, and not perceptibly above the level of the plain country of Egypt. About twelve miles distant there is a ridge of mountains, of no considerable height, perhaps the most barren in the world. Between these our road lay through plains never three miles broad, but without trees, shrubs, or herbs. There are not even the traces of any living creature; neither serpent nor lizard, antelope nor ostrich, the usual inhabitants of the most dreary deserts. There is no sort of water on the surface, brackish or sweet. Even the birds seem to avoid the place as pestilential, not having seen one of any kind so much as flying over. The sun was burning hot, and, upon rubbing two sticks together, in half a minute they both took fire and flamed; a mark how near the country was reduced to a general conflagration."
