(James, Esq.; F. R. S.), the celebrated Abyssinian traveller, was born, 1730, at Kinnaird house, in the parish of Larbert and county of Stirling. His descent by both parents was ancient and honourable; and of that descent he was, perhaps, too proud. His grandfather was —— Hay Esq.; of Woodcockdale, in the county of Linlithgow, who, marrying Miss Bruce, the heiress of Kinnaird, gave the name of Bruce to all his descendants.

Perhaps this change of name may have taken place in obedience to the deed by which the estate of Kinnaird was settled on Mrs Hay's children; but it is a change which, in a country like Scotland, where antiquity of descent is highly valued, any man would voluntarily have adopted, who had married the heiress of such a family. The Bruces of Kinnaird had been in possession of that estate for three centuries; they were descended from a younger son of Robert de Bruce, the competitor with Baliol for the crown of Scotland. It would readily occur, that the knowledge of such a descent would be best preserved by continuing the name of their great ancestor; and we have reason to believe, that the subject of this memoir was not much delighted when put in mind, as he frequently was, that, though the heir of the line, he was not the male heir of that branch of the illustrious family.

As he was allied to royalty by his father and grandmother, through his mother he was related to some of the most respectable families in the kingdom. She was the daughter of James Graham, Esq.; of Airth, dean of the faculty of advocates, and judge of the high court of admiralty in Scotland, by Marion daughter of James Hamilton, Esq.; of Pencaitland; and to a man of our traveller's turn of mind, there can be no doubt but that it must have afforded much satisfaction to think, that no family ranks higher in Scotland than those of Bruce, Graham, and Hamilton. In him, however, it was weakness to be proud, if indeed he was proud, of family; for the talents bestowed upon him by nature, or, to speak more properly, by nature's God, would have made him great though he had been born on a dunghill. He would indeed have been, in all probability, much greater than he was, had he not been in possession of the phantom of birth to gratify much of his ambition; for the facility with which he mastered every study in which he engaged, would have carried him quickly to the top of the most honourable profession.

Mr Bruce was instructed in grammatical learning at the school of Harrow on the Hill, in the county of Middlesex, where he gave the most unequivocal proofs of genius, and acquired a very considerable knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages. It was customary with him to perform, not only his own exercises, but also the exercises of such of his companions as were not equal to the task themselves. Among these was his maternal uncle, who was frequently indebted to his assistance, and, on one occasion, produced a copy of verses of his composition, which excited, not only the applause, but the admiration of their master. Mr Graham, who was but a few months older than Mr Bruce, had, for some transgression (we know not what), been punished, as boys in the great schools in England are often punished, by having a task set him, which he soon found himself unable to perform. His nephew desired him to be under no uneasiness, promising to furnish him with the verses before the time at which they were to be given in. He was as good as his word; but the master of the school soon discovering that they were not the performance of Mr Graham, exclaimed, that the author of these verses, whoever he was, might apply to himself the words of Horace,

Sublimes feriam sidera vertere.

While Mr Bruce was at Harrow, and for a year or two after he had left it, he was of a very delicate frame, and appeared to his friends to be threatened with a consumption. The truth is, that he was uncommonly tall for his age, and felt all the feeblest of joints and other bodily weaknesses to which overgrown boys are generally subject. His father intended him for the profession of the law; and, upon his return from Harrow, he was entered into the university of Edinburgh, where he went through a regular course of study to fit him for being enrolled in the body of advocates; but for some reason, which we do not perfectly know, he relinquished the study of law for the pursuits of trade; and, going to London, entered into partnership with a wine-merchant of the name of Allen, whose daughter he married.

That lady falling into a bad state of health, Mr Bruce took her abroad, in hopes that travelling would be attended with beneficial effects; but in these he was disappointed, as she died within a year after her marriage. He was induced, in order to dispel his grief, to continue his travels; during which his father dying (at Edinburgh, 4th May 1758), the inheritance of his ancestors devolved upon him, and he returned to Britain. Some of his subsequent transactions shall now be related in his own words.

Every one will remember that period, so glorious to Britain, the latter end of the ministry of the late earl of Chatham. I was then returned from a tour thro' the greatest part of Europe, particularly through the whole of Spain and Portugal, between whom there was then the appearance of an approaching war.

I was about to retire to a small patrimony I had received from my ancestors, in order to embrace a life of study and reflection, nothing more active appearing within my power, when chance threw me unexpectedly into a very short and very deftly conversed with Lord Chatham.

It was a few days after this, that Mr Wood, then under secretary of state, my zealous and sincere friend, informed me that Lord Chatham intended to employ me upon a particular service; that, however, I might go down for a few weeks to my own country to settle my affairs, but, by all means, to be ready upon a call. Nothing could be more flattering to me than such an offer; when so young; to be thought worthy by Lord Chatham of any employment, was doubly a preference. No time was lost on my side; but just after receiving orders to return to London, his lordship had gone to Bath, and resigned his office.

This disappointment, which was the more sensible to me that it was the first I had met with in public life, was promised to be made up to me by Lord Egremont and Mr George Grenville. The former had been long my friend; but unhappily he was then far gone in a lethargic indisposition, which threatened, and did very soon put a period to his existence. With Lord Egremont's death my expectations vanished. Further particulars are unnecessary; but I hope that, at least in part, they remain in that breast where they naturally ought to be, and where I shall ever think, not to be long forgotten, is to be rewarded.

Seven or eight months were passed in an expensive and fruitless attendance in London, when Lord Halifax was pleased, not only to propose, but to plan for me a journey of considerable importance, and which was to take up several years. His lordship said, that nothing could be more ignoble than, at such a time of life, at the height of my reading, health, and activity, I should, as it were, turn peasant, and voluntarily bury myself in obscurity and idleness; that though war was now drawing fast to an end, full as honourable a competition remained among men of spirit, which should acquit themselves best in the dangerous line of useful adventure and discovery.

He observed, that the coast of Barbary, which might be said to be just at our door, was yet but partially explored by Dr Shaw, who had only illustrated (very judiciously indeed) the geographical labours of Sanfon; that neither Dr Shaw nor Sanfon had been, or pretended to be, capable of giving the public any detail of the large and magnificent remains of ruined architecture, which they both vouch to have seen in great quantities, and of exquisite elegance and perfection, all over the country. Such had not been their study, yet such was really the taste that was required in the present times. He wished, therefore, that I should be the first, in the reign just now beginning, to set an example of making large additions to the royal collection; and he pledged himself to be my support and patron, and to make good to me, upon this additional merit, the promises which had been held forth to me by former ministers for other services.

The discovery of the source of the Nile was also a subject of these conversations, but it was always mentioned to me with a kind of diffidence, as if to be expected from a more-experienced traveller. Whether this was but another way of exciting me to the attempt tempt I shall not say; but my heart, in that instant, did me justice to suggest, that this too was either to be achieved by me, or to remain as it had done for these last 2000 years, a defiance to all travellers, and an opprobrium to geography.

"Fortune seemed to enter into this scheme. At the very instant, Mr Aspinwall, very cruelly and ignominiously treated by the dey of Algiers, had resigned his consulship, and Mr Ford a merchant, formerly the dey's acquaintance, was named in his place. Mr Ford was appointed, and dying a few days after, the consulship became vacant. Lord Halifax pressed me to accept of this as containing all sorts of conveniences for making the proposed expedition.

"This favourable event finally determined me. I had all my life applied unweariedly, perhaps with more love than talent, to drawing, the practice of mathematics, and especially that part necessary to astronomy. The transit of Venus was at hand. It was certainly known that it would be visible once at Algiers, and there was great reason to expect it might be twice. I had furnished myself with a large apparatus of instruments, the completest of their kind, for the observation. In the choice of these, I had been assisted by my friend Admiral Campbell, and Mr Russell, secretary to the Turkey Company; every other necessary had been provided in proportion. It was a pleasure now to know that it was not from a rock or a wood, but from my own house at Algiers, I could deliberately take measures to place myself in the list of men of science of all nations, who were then preparing for the same scientific purpose.

"Thus prepared, I set out for Italy, through France; and though it was in time of war, and some strong objections had been made to particular passports, solicited by our government from the French secretary of state, Monsieur de Choiseul most obligingly waived all such exceptions with regard to me, and most politely assured me, in a letter accompanying my passport, that those difficulties did not in any shape regard me, but that I was perfectly at liberty to pass through, or remain in, France with those that accompanied me, without limiting their number, as short or as long a time as should be agreeable to me.

"On my arrival at Rome, I received orders to proceed to Naples, there to await his majesty's further commands. Sir Charles Saunders, then with a fleet before Cadiz, had orders to visit Malta before he returned to England. It was said that the grand master of that order had behaved so improperly to Mr Harvey (afterwards Lord Bristol) in the beginning of the war, and so partially and unjustly between the two nations in the course of it, that an explanation on our part was become necessary. The grand master no sooner heard of my arrival at Naples, than, guessing the errand, he sent off Chevalier Mazzini to London, where he at once made his peace and his compliments to his majesty upon his accession to the throne.

"Nothing remained now but to take possession of my consulship. I returned, without loss of time, to Rome, and from thence to Leghorn, where having embarked on board the Montreal man of war, I proceeded to Algiers.

"While at Naples, I received from slaves, redeemed from the province of Constantine, accounts of magnificent ruins they had seen while traversing that country with their master the Bey. I saw the absolute necessity there was for affluence, without which it was impossible for any one man, however diligent and qualified, to do anything but bewilder himself. All my endeavours, however, had hitherto been unsuccessful to persuade any Italian to put himself willingly into the hands of a people constantly looked upon by them in no better light than pirates. At last Mr Lumiden, by accident, heard of a young man who was then studying architecture at Rome, a native of Bologna, whose name was Luigi Balugani. I can appeal to Mr Lumiden as to the extent of this person's practice and knowledge, and that he knew very little when first sent to me. In the twenty months which he had with me at Algiers, by assiduous application to proper subjects under my instruction, he became a very considerable help to me, and was the only one that ever I made use of, or that attended me for a moment, or ever touched one representation of architecture in any part of my journey."

Our traveller, when in Spain, had endeavoured to find access to that immense collection of Arabic manuscripts which were perishing in the dust of the ecurial; but in vain. "All my success (says he) in Europe terminated in the acquisition of those few printed Arabic books that I had found in Holland; and these were rather biographers than general historians, and contained little in point of general information. The study of these, however, and of Maracci's Koran, had made me a very tolerable Arab; a great field was opening before me in Africa to complete a collection of manuscripts, an opportunity which I did not neglect.

"After a year spent at Algiers, constant conversation with the natives while abroad, and with my manuscripts within doors, had qualified me to appear in any part of the continent without the help of an interpreter. Ludolf had assured his readers, that the knowledge of any oriental language would soon enable them to acquire the Ethiopic; and I needed only the same number of books to have made my knowledge of that language go hand in hand with my attainments in the Arabic. My immediate prospect of setting out on my journey to the inland parts of Africa, had made me double my diligence; night and day there was no relaxation from these studies, although the acquiring any single language had never been with me either an object of time or difficulty."

At Algiers Mr Bruce was detained longer than he expected, in consequence of a dispute with the Dey concerning Mediterranean passes. This being adjusted, he proceeded to Mahon, and from Mahon to Carthage. He next visited Tunis and Tripoli, and travelled over the interior parts of these places. At Benghazi, a small town on the Mediterranean, he suffered shipwreck, and with extreme difficulty saved his life, though with the loss of all his baggage. He afterwards sailed to the isles of Rhodes and Cyprus, and proceeding to Asia Minor, travelled through a considerable part of Syria and Palestine, visiting Haffa, Latika, Aleppo, and Tripoli; near which last city he was again in imminent danger of perishing in a river. The ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec were next carefully surveyed and sketched by him; and his drawings of these places are deposited... in the king's library at Kew; "the most magnificent present in that line," to use his own words, "ever made by a subject to his sovereign."

It is much to be regretted that Mr Bruce published no particular account of these various journeys; from the nature of the places visited, and the abilities of the man, much curious and useful information might have been expected. Some manuscript accounts of different parts of them are said to have been left by him, but whether in such a state as to be fit for publication, we have not learned.

In these various travels some years were passed; and Mr Bruce now prepared for the grand expedition, the accomplishment of which had ever been nearest his heart, the discovery of the sources of the Nile. In the prosecution of that dangerous object, he left Sidon on the 15th of June 1768, and arrived at Alexandria on the 20th of that month. He proceeded from thence to Cairo, where he continued to the 12th of December following; when he embarked on the Nile; and in a very extraordinary boat, called a canja, of which he says the main-fail yard was about 200 feet in length, he sailed up that river as far as Syene, visiting in the course of his voyage the ruins of Thebes, and the place where Memphis once stood, now known by the name of Memphis. Leaving Kenne on the Nile, 16th February 1769, he crossed the desert of the Thebaid to Caffir on the Red Sea, and arrived at Jidda on the 3d of May. In Arabia Felix he remained, not without making several excursions, till the 3d of September, when he sailed from Lobeia, and arrived on the 19th at Mafuah, where he was detained near two months by the treachery and avarice of the Naybe of that place. It was not till the 15th of November that he was allowed to quit Arkeeko, near Matua; and he arrived on the 15th of February 1770 at Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, where he ingratiated himself with the most considerable persons of both sexes belonging to the court. This he accomplished by being a physician in the city, a folder in the field, a courtier everywhere, demeaning himself as conscious that he was not unworthy of being a companion to the first of their nobility, and the king's guest, which is there a character, as it was with eastern nations of old, to which a certain sort of consideration is due.

"To this I may add (says he), that, being in the prime of life, of no ungracious figure, having an accidental knack, which is not a trifle, of putting on the dress, and speaking the language easily and gracefully, I cultivated, with the utmost affluency, the friendship of the fair sex, by the most modest and respectful distant attendance and obsequiousness in public, abating just as much of that in private as suited their humours and inclination;" and jealousy being a passion unknown in Abyssinia, he thus acquired from the ladies great support at court.

Several months were employed in attendance on the king, and in an unsuccessful expedition round the lake of Dambaa. Towards the end of October Mr Bruce set out for the sources of the Nile; at which long desired spot he arrived on the 15th of November; and his feelings on the accomplishment of his wishes cannot better be expressed than in his own words:

"It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment; standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry, of ancients and moderns for the course of near 3000 years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies, and each expedition was distinguished from the last only by the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly, and without exception, followed them all. Fame, riches, and honour, had been held out for a series of ages to every individual of those myriads—those princes commanded, without having produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, or adding this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here in my own mind over kings and their armies; and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer to the presumption, when the place itself where I stood, the object of my vain glory, suggested what deprived my short-lived triumphs."

If these triumphs were short-lived, they were equally ill-founded; for if the source of the Nile was seen by Mr Bruce, there can be no doubt of its having been likewise seen by the Portuguese Jesuits. Of this we have elsewhere brought forward sufficient proof; and the candid reader, who shall take the trouble to compare the extract printed at the bottom of this page (A),

---

(A) "In the eastern part of this kingdom, on the declivity of a mountain, whose descent is so easy that it seems a beautiful plain, is that source of the Nile which has been sought after at so much expense of labour, and about which such variety of conjectures hath been formed without success. This spring, or rather these two springs, are two holes, each about two feet diameter, a stone's cast distant from each other. The one is about five feet and an half in depth, at least we could not get our plummet farther, perhaps because it was stopped by roots, for the whole place is full of trees; of the other, which is somewhat less, with a line of ten feet we could find no bottom, and were assured by the inhabitants that none ever had been found. It is believed here that these springs are the vents of a great subterraneous lake; and they have this circumstance to favour their opinion, that the ground is always moist, and so soft that the water boils up under foot as one walks upon it. Such is the ground round about these fountains. At a little distance to the south is a village named Guix (the Gezib of Mr Bruce), through which the way lies to the top of the mountain, whence the traveller discovers a vast extent of land, which appears like a deep valley, though the mountain rises so imperceptibly, that those who go up or down it are scarce sensible of any declivity."—Johnson's Translation of Father Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia, Chap. X.

The only difference between Lobo's and Bruce's account of these fountains worthy of notice is, that the former found but two, while the latter found three holes; but Bruce says expressly, that the holes are partly artificial; and Lobo's description of them indicates the same thing. It is therefore not improbable that there may now be four or five holes. with our traveller's account of these coy fountains, as it stands in his own book or in our article Nile (Encycl.), will be convinced that it was ridiculous in Mr Bruce, and is equally ridiculous in his friends, to pretend that he discovered what had baffled the genius of inquiry for the course of near 3000 years.

It was not, however, the consciousness of having been anticipated by the Jesuits (for these he without ceremony calls a set of liars), but the prospect of danger to be encountered on his return to Europe, that cast such a damp on his present enjoyment. "I was but a few minutes (says he) arrived at the source of the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me, but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence; I was, however, but then half through my journey, and all those dangers which I had already passed awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me, which blasted the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself."

When he returned to rest the night of that discovery, repose was sought for in vain. "Melancholy reflections upon my present state, the doubtfulness of my return in safety, were I permitted to make the attempt, and the fears that even this would be refused, according to the rule observed in Abyssinia with all travellers who have once entered the kingdom; the consciousness of the pain that I was then occasioning to many worthy individuals, expecting daily that information concerning my situation which it was not in my power to give them; some other thoughts perhaps, still nearer the heart than those, crowded upon my mind, and forbade all approach of sleep.

"I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The earth, and the fountains, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan, rise in one hill; three rivers I now thought not inferior to the Nile in beauty, preferable to it in the cultivation of those countries through which they flow; superior, vastly superior to it in the virtues and qualities of the inhabitants, and in the beauty of its flocks, crowding its pastures in peace, without fear of violence from man or beast. I had seen the rise of the Rhine and Rhone, and the more magnificent sources of the Seine; I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a disordered fancy,

"What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?"

Grief and despondency now rolling upon me like a torrent, relaxed, not refreshed, by unquiet and imperfect sleep, I started from my bed in the utmost agony; I went to the door of my tent, every thing was still; the Nile, at whose head I stood, was not capable either to promote or to interrupt my slumber, but the coolness and serenity of the night braced my nerves, and chased away those phantoms that while in bed had oppressed and tormented me.

"It was true that numerous dangers, hardships, and sorrows, had befallen me through this half of my excursion; but it was still as true, that another Guide, more powerful than my own courage, health, or understanding, if any of them can be called man's own, had uniformly protected me in all that tedious half. I found my confidence not abated, that still the same Guide was able to conduct me to my wished-for home. I immediately resumed my former fortitude, considered the Nile as indeed no more than rising from springs as all other rivers do, but widely differing in this, that it was the palm for 3000 years held out to all the nations of the world as a detur dignissimo, which in my cool hours I had thought was worth the attempting at the risk of my life, which I had long since resolved to lose, or lay this discovery a trophy in which I could have no competitor, for the honour of my country, at the feet of my sovereign, whose servant I was."

How unworthy is this ranting reflection of the greatness of mind which Mr Bruce on other occasions unquestionably displayed! Had he indeed been the first European who discovered those pitiful holes from which the Nile is said to flow, his merit would not have consisted in travelling from Gondar to the village Gezirah, and viewing the fountains which are at that village the objects of idolatrous adoration, but in the address with which he contrived to make himself the favourite of all the factions which agitated a barbarous and almost human nation. In managing those factions, he was indeed great; but he seems to have valued himself more upon looking at three springs, of which it is far from being certain that they are the sources of the Nile (see Nile, Encycl.), and of which two had certainly been examined more than a century before he was born, by different missionaries from the kingdom of Portugal! This, however, he calls the object of his wishes; and having now accomplished it, he bent his thoughts on his return to his native country.

He arrived at Gondar on the 15th November 1772; but found, after repeated solicitations, that it was by no means an easy task to obtain permission to quit Abyssinia. A civil war in the mean time breaking out (no uncommon occurrence in that barbarous country), several engagements took place between the king's forces and the troops of the rebels, particularly three actions at a place called Serbraxos on the 16th, 20th, and 23rd of May 1774. In each of them Mr Bruce acted a considerable part, and for his valiant conduct in the second received, as a reward from the king, a chain of gold, of 184 links, each link weighing 3½ dwts. or somewhat more than 2½ lbs. troy in all. At Gondar, after these engagements, he again preferred the most earnest entreaties to be allowed to return home, intrigues which were long resisted; but his health at last giving way, from the anxiety of his mind, the king consented to his departure, on condition of his engaging by oath (n) to return

(n) With regard to this oath, Mr Bruce says, that he hopes the difficulty of performing it extinguished the fear of breaking it; and that, at any rate, it being merely personal, his engagement to return ceased with the death of the king, of which he received intelligence during his stay at Sennar. return to him in the event of his recovery, with as many of his kindred as he could engage to accompany him.

After a residence of nearly two years in that wretched country, Mr Bruce left Gondar on the 16th of December 1771, taking the dangerous way of the desert of Nubia, in place of the more easy road of Mafuah, by which he entered Abyssinia. He was induced to take this route from his knowledge and former experience of the cruel and savage temper of the Naybe of Mafuah. Arriving at Tewa the 21st March 1772, he had the misfortune to find the Shekh Fidele of Athara, the counterpart of the Naybe of Mafuah, in every bad quality; by his intrepidity and prudence, however, and by making good use of his foreknowledge of an eclipse of the moon, which happened on the 17th of April, he was permitted to depart next day, and he arrived at Sennar on the 29th of the same month.

Mr Bruce was detained upwards of four months at that miserable and inhospitable place; the inhabitants of which he describes in these expressive words: "War and treason seem to be the only employment of these horrid people, whom heaven has separated by almost impassable deserts from the rest of mankind, confining them to an accurst spot, seemingly to give them an earnest in time of the only other worse which he has referred to them for an eternal hereafter." This delay was occasioned by the villany of those who had undertaken to supply him with money; but at last, by disposing of 178 links of his gold chain, the well-earned trophy of Serbraxos, he was enabled to make preparation for his dangerous journey through the deserts of Nubia.

He left Sennar on the 5th of September, and arrived on the 3d of October at Chendi, which he quitted on the 20th, and travelled through the desert of Gooz, to which village he came on the 26th of October. On the 9th of November he left Gooz, and entered upon the most dreadful and dangerous part of his journey; the perils attending which he has related with a power of pencil not unworthy of the greatest masters. All his camels having perished, Mr Bruce was under the necessity of abandoning his baggage in the desert, and with the greatest difficulty reached Assuan upon the Nile on the 29th of November.

After some days rest, having procured fresh camels, he returned into the desert, and recovered his baggage, among which is particularly to be remarked a quadrant (of three feet radius) supplied by Louis XV. from the Military Academy at Marseilles; by means of which noble instrument, now deposited in the museum at Kinnsird, Mr Bruce was enabled with precision and accuracy to fix the relative situations of the several remote places he visited.

On the 15th of January 1773, after more than four years absence, he arrived at Cairo, where, by his manly and generous behaviour, he so won the heart of Mahomet Bey, that he obtained a firman, permitting the commanders of English vessels belonging to Bombay and Bengal to bring their ships and merchandise to Suez, a place far preferable in all respects to Jidda, to which they were formerly confined. Of this permission, which no European nation could ever before acquire, many English vessels have since availed themselves; and it has proved peculiarly useful both in public and private dispatches. Such was the worthy conclusion of his memorable journey through the desert; a journey which, after many hardships and dangers, terminated in obtaining this great national benefit.

At Cairo Mr Bruce's earthly career had nearly been concluded by a disorder in his leg, occasioned by a worm in the flesh. This accident kept him five weeks in extreme agony, and his health was not re-established till a twelvemonth afterwards, at the baths of Porretta in Italy. On his return to Europe, Mr Bruce was received with all the admiration due to so exalted a character. After passing some considerable time in France, particularly at Montbard, with his friend the Comte de Buillon, by whom he was received with much hospitality, and is mentioned with great applause, he at last revisited his native country, from which he had been upwards of twelve years absent.

It was now expected that he would take the earliest opportunity of giving to the world a narrative of his travels, in which the public curiosity could not but be deeply interested. But several circumstances contributed to delay the publication; and what there were will be best related in his own words:

"My friends at home gave me up for dead; and as my death must have happened in circumstances difficult to have been proved, my property became as it were a hereditas jacens, without an owner, abandoned in common to those whose original title extended no further than temporary possession.

"A number of law-suits were the inevitable consequences of this upon my return. To these disagreeable avocations, which took up much time, were added others still more unfortunate. The relentlessague, caught at Bengasi, maintained its ground, at times, for a space of more than 16 years, though every remedy had been used, but in vain; and what was worst of all, a lingering distemper had seriously threatened the life of a most near relation (his second wife), which, after nine years constant alarm, where every duty bound me to attention and attendance, conducted her at last, in very early life, to her grave."

Amidst the anxiety and the distress thus occasioned, Mr Bruce was by no means neglectful of his private affairs. He considerably improved his landed property, including and cultivating the waste grounds, and he highly embellished his paternal seat, making many additions to the house, one in particular of a noble museum, filled with the most precious stores of oriental literature, large collections of drawings made, and curious articles obtained, during his far extended peregrinations. An excellent stratum of coal at Kinnsird drew much of his attention; he erected steam engines of the most approved construction, and placed his colliery on such a footing that, at the period of his decease, it produced about 2000l. a-year.

The termination of some law-suits, and of other business, which had occupied much of his time, having at length afforded leisure to Mr Bruce to put his materials in order, his greatly desired and long expected work made its appearance in 1790, in five large quarto volumes, embellished with plates and charts. It is unnecessary, and might be tedious, to enter at present into any critic or analysis of this celebrated work. It is universally allowed to be replete with much curious and useful information; and to abound in narratives which at once excite our admiration and interest our feelings. The very singular and extraordinary picture which it gives of Abyssinian manners, startled the belief of some; but these manners, though strange in the sight of an European, are little more than might be expected in such a barbarous country; and had an enlightened philosopher visited Scotland in the times of our earliest monarchs, he might perhaps have witnessed and related scenes, different indeed from what Mr Bruce saw in Abyssinia, but which to us would have seemed equally strange.

A more serious objection to the truth of Mr Bruce's narrative was started by an anonymous, but able, critic, in an Edinburgh newspaper, soon after the publication, from the account of two astronomical phenomena, which could not possibly have happened, as Mr Bruce asserts. The first of these is the appearance of the new moon at Turshout, during Mr Bruce's stay in that place, which he mentions to have been from 25th December 1768 to the 7th of January 1769; and on a particular day in that interval affirms, that the new moon was seen by a fakir, and was found by the coherences to be three days old; whereas it is certain that the moon changed on the 8th of January 1769. The other phenomenon appears equally impossible. At Teawa Mr Bruce says he terrified the Sheik by foretelling that an eclipse of the moon was to take place at four afternoon of the 17th of April 1772; that accordingly, soon after that hour, he saw the eclipse was begun; and when the shadow was half over, told the Sheik that in a little time the moon would be totally darkened. Now, by calculation, it is certain, that at Teawa this eclipse must have begun at 36 minutes past four, and the moon have been totally covered at 33 minutes past five; while the sun set there a few minutes past six, before which time the moon, then in opposition, could not have risen: so that as the moon rose totally eclipsed, Mr Bruce could not see the shadow half over the disk, nor point it out to the Sheik. To these objections, which appear unanswerable, Mr Bruce made no reply, though in conversation he said he would do it in the second edition of his book.

There are mistakes which can hardly be accounted for by attributing them to the inaccuracy of his notes, or indeed to any cause which we are inclined to name; and perhaps he has fallen into a mistake of the same kind in his account of the enormous main-tail yard of the canja, in which he sailed up the river Nile. To every man who has but dipped into the science of mechanics, it is known that a beam of wood 200 feet in length, must be of proportional thickness, or it would fall in pieces by its own weight. This thickness must be greatly increased, to enable it to bear the strain occasioned by a prodigious tail filled with wind; and those only who have been at the Nile, and have seen the canjas, can say, whether these vessels, or indeed any vessels which can be employed on that river, would not be overfed by yards,

To equal which, the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great admiral, were but a wand.

The language of the work is in general harsh and unpolished, though sometimes animated. Too great a display of vanity runs through the whole, and the apparent facility with which the traveller gained the most familiar access to the courts, and even to the harams of the sovereigns of the countries through which he passed, is apt to create in readers some doubts of the accuracy of the narration. Yet there appears upon the whole such an air of manly veracity, and circumstances are mentioned with a minuteness so unlike deceit, that these doubts are overcome by the general impression of truth, which the whole detail irresistibly fastens upon the mind. The character of Ras Michael has often struck us, as containing very strong internal evidence of its having been taken from nature; for it is such a character, at once extraordinary and consistent, as neither Mr Bruce, nor perhaps any writer since Shakespeare, had genius to feign.

The first impression of the book being almost disposed of, Mr Bruce had stipulated with an eminent bookseller in London for a second edition to be published, we think in 8vo; and he was busy in preparing that edition for the press when death removed him from this transitory stage. On the 26th of April 1794, he entertained some company at Kinnaid-house with his usual hospitality and elegance. About eight o'clock in the evening, when his guests were ready to depart, he was hanging one of the ladies down stairs, when, having reached the seventh or eighth step from the bottom, his foot slipped, and he fell down headlong. He was taken up speechless; his face, particularly the forehead and temples, being severely cut and bruised, and the bones of his hands broken. He continued in a state of apparent insensibility for eight or nine hours, and expired on Sunday the 27th, in the 64th year of his age.

Mr Bruce's second wife, whom he married on the 26th May, 1776, was Mary, eldest daughter of Thomas Dundas, Esq., of Carron-hall, by Lady Janet Maitland, daughter of Charles fifth Earl of Lauderdale. By that lady, who, after a fever and lingering indisposition, died in 1784, he had three children, of whom one son and one daughter survive him.

Mr Bruce's person was large, his height exceeding six feet, his bulk being in proportion to his height; and at the period when he entered on his dangerous expedition, he was equally remarkable for strength and for agility. To those who never beheld him, the engraved medallion in the title pages of the first and third volumes of his Travels will convey some idea of his features. He excelled in all manly accomplishments, being trained to exercise and fatigue of every kind. He was a hardy, practised, and indefatigable swimmer; and his long residence among the Arabs had given him a more than ordinary facility in managing the horse. In the use of firearms he was so unerring, that in innumerable instances he never failed to hit the mark; and his dexterity in handling the spear and lance on horseback was also uncommonly great. He was master of most languages; and was so well skilled in oriental literature, that he revised the New Testament in the Ethiopic, Samaritan, Hebrew, and Syriac, making many useful notes and remarks on difficult passages. He had applied from early youth to mathematics, drawing, and astronomy, and had acquired some knowledge of physic and surgery. His memory was astonishingly retentive, and his mind vigorous. He was dexterous in negotiation, a matter of public business, and animated with the warmest zeal for the glory of his king and country. Such, Such, at least, is his own representation of his character; and though an impartial judge would probably make considerable abatement for the natural bias of a man drawing his own portrait, yet it cannot be denied, that in personal accomplishments Mr Bruce equalled, if not exceeded, most of his contemporaries.

Thus accomplished, he could not but be eminently fitted for an attempt so full of difficulty and danger as what he called the discovery of the sources of the Nile: no one who peruses his account of the expedition, can fail to pay an unfeigned tribute of admiration to his intrepidity, manliness, and uncommon dexterity, in extricating himself out of situations the most dangerous and alarming, in the course of his long and hazardous journey; not to mention his conduct during his residence in Abyssinia, his behaviour at Massaua, Teeswa, and Senussar, evinces the uncommon vigour of his mind: but it was chiefly during his passage through the Nubian desert that his fortitude, courage, and prudence, appeared to the greatest advantage. Of his learning and sagacity, his delineation of the course of Solomon's fleet from Tarshish to Ophir, his account of the cause of the inundations of the Nile, and his comprehensive view of the Abyssinian history, afford ample proofs. It must indeed be confessed, that in his account of the inundations of the Nile, as well as in his delineation of the course of Solomon's fleet, he has not the merit of originality; but on both these occasions he has stated the hypotheses which he maintains with greater clearness, and supported it with more plausible arguments, than any other author whose writings have fallen into our hands; and it was surely to his honour, that as soon as he learned that his hypothesis respecting Ophir and Tarshish had been controverted by Dr Doig of Stirling, he earnestly courted the acquaintance of that eminent scholar.

After his return to his own country, he resided mostly at Kinmaird; and till he became corpulent, spent much of his time in the various sports of the field, in which he engaged with great ardour. Though studious in youth, and at all times a stranger to intemperance and dissipation, he read but little in his later years; and seemed to find his chief pleasure in conversation, especially the conversation of well-informed ladies. In his friendships he sometimes appeared to be capricious, attaching himself to men in whose heads and hearts no other person could perceive a charm for a mind like his. Though in his own dealings he was always just and honourable, he was too ready to apprehend unfairness in others, and to express such apprehensions with undue warmth. To strangers he was often arrogant, and sometimes insolent; but in his own family he was an affectionate husband, a kind father, an agreeable entertainer, and to his servants a master perhaps too indulgent. In conversation, as well as in his writings, he embraced every opportunity of expressing a deep and lively sense of the care of a superintending Providence, without which he was convinced that there could be no safety in human strength or human foresight. His belief of the Christian religion reflected on the surest grounds; and such was his veneration for the sacred writings, that for some years before his death they seemed to occupy all the time which he gave to study. He read no sermons, however elegant; and disdained other from such reading. "Read the Bible (said he), and you will soon perceive the emptiness of the most applauded sermons."