While Bruce was thus gazing at these ruins, the people or "devils" on shore attacked some of the canja's boatmen: three shots were even fired at the vessel, which Bruce returned by firing his blunderbuss. The crew were very desirous to go on shore to attack the people; but Bruce, an old traveller, with a very proper _esprit de corps_, says, "Besides that I had no inclination of that kind, I was very loth to frustrate the attempts of some future traveller, who may add this to the great remains of architecture we have preserved already." He therefore continued his course; and while his mind was secretly exulting in the reflection that every hour was bringing him towards the ultimate object of his ambition, his attention was most agreeably diverted by the various objects which passed in succession before him. Village after village came in sight; at times the shore was covered with date-trees, and occasionally with the acacia, that solitary inhabitant of all deserts, from the most northern part of Arabia to the extremity of Ethiopia. A considerable part of the west shore was cultivated and sown from the very foot of the mountains to the water's edge, the grain having been merely thrown upon the mud as soon as the water had left it: the wheat was at this time about four inches high, and the acacia-trees on the opposite side in full flower. Every object, whether trifling or serious, seemed to claim Bruce's attention, and to afford him some moral. "I was very well pleased," he says, "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."
At Achnim there is a hospice or convent of Franciscans. "They received us," says Bruce, "civilly, and that was just all. I think I never knew a number of priests met together who differed so little in capacity and knowledge, having barely a routine of scholastic disputation; on every other subject inconceivably ignorant." These priests lived in ease and safety, being protected by the Arab chieftain Haman; and their acting as physicians reconciled them to the people.