Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/96

 run up into the Red Sea, where they arrive in time to refit and prepare a fresh cargo for the following year. This is the regular course of the trade. As to the ease with which the return might be effected, I beg leave to refer the reader once more to Captain Bissell's Journal, where he will find that in April, the English fleet ran with a fair wind from Mugdasho to the Red Sea; and the concurrent testimony of the Portuguese and Arabs, together with our own voyage, proves that the same winds continue without intermission till the end of September. Thus "the change of the monsoon six times," and the assertion that there is not another combination of winds over the globe capable to effect the same voyage, falls totally to the ground. As to the map given by Mr. Bruce "to remove the difficulties of his reader," it is absolutely unworthy of notice, were it not for the errors to which it may lead from its extreme inaccuracy and from its being founded entirely on visionary principles. The additional mistakes and even absurdities in this treatise are very numerous, but the edifice being pulled down it is not worth while to meddle with the materials. One circumstance, however, ought not to be passed over in silence. In this same treatise, Mr. Bruce gives a very detailed account of some magnificent ruins at Asab. "The blocks of marble," composing which "were joined with thick cramps or bars of brass:" and he adds soon afterwards, "but upon analysing this on my return to England, I found it copper without mixture, or virgin copper." Now the whole of this proves to be pure fiction, for, the late editor of his works has confessed, that the whole voyage from Loheia to Babelmandeb and Asab, (which was first suspected by Mr. Laing, the well-known author of "The History of Scotland,") must be given up as being totally inconsistent with the observations and dates found among Mr. Bruce's own Journals." The proof given by Mr. Murray is as follows.