ROBERT, son of the earl of Carrick, being competitor with Baliol for the crown of Scotland, lost it by the arbitration of Edward I. of England, for generously refusing to hold the crown of Scotland as depending on him, which his ancestors had left him independent. But Baliol having afterward broke his agreement with Edward, Bruce was easily persuaded by that king to side with him against Baliol, upon promise that he would settle him on the throne. Having contributed much to the breaking of Baliol's party, he demanded the accomplishment of King Edward's promise, who is said to have given him this answer: "What! have I nothing else to do but to conquer kingdoms for you?" However, he recovered his crown, defeated the English in several battles, raised the glory of the Scots, and extended their dominions. See History of Scotland.

James, F. R. S. the celebrated traveller, was born at Kinnaird-house in the county of Stirling, Scotland, in the year 1729. The Bruces of Kinnaird are a very ancient family. They were descended from a younger son of Robert de Bruce, and have been in possession of that estate for three centuries, connected during this period with some of the most distinguished houses of the kingdom.

Mr Bruce was instructed in grammatical learning at the school of Harrow on the Hill in Middlesex, where he acquired a considerable share of classical knowledge. Returning to Scotland, he applied to the study of the laws of his country; but soon contracting a dislike to his situation, he determined to push his fortune in the East Indies, and for that purpose went to London. Being disappointed in his views of procuring an appointment in the company's service, he engaged in trade, and entered into partnership with a wine merchant in London 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 through 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 defunct conversation 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 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 Sanson; that neither Dr Shaw nor Sanson 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 two thousand 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 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 wait 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.

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 project 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 states. 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 Hassia, Latakia, 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 is very uncertain.

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 25th 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 sailed up the river as far as Syene, visiting in the course of the voyage the ruins of Thebes. Leaving Kenne on the Nile, 16th February 1769, he crossed the desert of the Thebaid to Coffeir on the Red Sea, and arrived at Jidda on the 3rd of May. In Arabia Felix he remained, not without making several excursions, till the 3rd of September, when he sailed from Loheia, and arrived on the 19th at Mafah, where he was detained near two months by the treachery and avarice of the naybe of that place. It was not till the 14th of November that he was allowed to quit Arkeeko, near Mafah; 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. Several months were were employed in attendance on the king; and in an unsuccessful expedition round the lake of Dembea. Towards the end of October, Mr Bruce set out for the sources of the Nile, at which long-defired spot he arrived on the 14th 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 of 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. I was but a few minutes 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, and blunting the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself."

When he returned to rest the night of that discovery, repose was sought 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 marbles and the fountains, upon comparison with the rife 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 Saone; 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. Everything 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 decur dignissimo, which in my cool hours I had thought was worth the attempting at the risk of my life, which I had long either refused to love, 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."

The object of Mr Bruce's wishes being now gratified, he bent his thoughts on his return to his native country. He arrived at Gondar 19th November 1770; 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, 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 19th 20th, and 23rd of May 1771. 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, entreaties which were long refused; 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 to 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 rout, from his knowledge and former experience of the cruel and savage temper of the natives of Mafuah. Arriving at Teawa the 21st March 1772, Mr Bruce had the misfortune to find the shekh Fidele of Atbara, the counterpart of the naybe of Mahufah, 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 Sennaar 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 accursed 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 Sennaar on the 5th of September, and arrived on the 3rd 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 matters. 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 Marfeilles; by means of which noble instrument, now deposited in the museum at Kinnaid, Mr Bruce was enabled with precision and accuracy to fix the relative situations of the several remote places he visited.

On the 10th 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 Perretta 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 Buffon, 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 these 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 jacentis, 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 consequence of this upon my return. To these disagreeable avocations, which took up much time, were added others still more unfortunate. The relentless foe, caught at Bengazi, 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, inclosing 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.

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 1792, in five large quarto volumes embellished with plates and charts. It is unnecessary to enter into any critic or analysis of this celebrated work. It is universally allowed to be replete with 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.

A more serious objection to the truth of Mr Bruce's narrative was started by an anonymous critic, in an Edinburgh newspaper, soon after the publication, from the account of two astronomical phenomena, which it is asserted could not possibly have happened, as Mr Bruce affirms. The first of these is the appearance of the new moon at Furbshott, during Mr Bruce's stay in that place, which he mentions to have been from 25th Dec. 1768, to the 7th of Jan. 1769; and on a particular day in that interval interval asserts, that the new moon was seen by a fakir, and was found by the ephemerides to be three days old; whereas it is certain that the moon changed on the 8th of January 1767. The other phenomenon appears equally impossible. At Teawa Mr Bruce says he terrified the sheikh by foretelling that an eclipse of the moon was to take place at four o'clock 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 sheikh 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 sheikh. To these objections, which appear unfurmountable, Mr Bruce made no reply, though in conversation he said he would do it in the second edition of his book.

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. This first impression being almost wholly dispelled within a short time, Mr Bruce had stipulated for a second edition, which was preparing for the press, when death removed the author from this transitory stage.

That event happened on the 26th of April 1794. In the evening of that day, when some company were departing, Mr Bruce attended them down stairs; on the steps his foot slipped, and he fell down headlong. He was taken up speechless, and remained in a state of insensibility for eight or nine hours, when he expired, on the 27th of April 1794, in the 65th year of his age.

He married, for his second wife, at Carronhall, 20th May 1776, Mary, eldest daughter of Thomas Dundas of Fingal. Mrs Bruce died, after a long and lingering indisposition, during which she was attended with the most affectionate assiduity by her husband, in 1784, having had issue two sons and one daughter.

There never, perhaps, existed a man better qualified for the hazardous enterprise he undertook, than Mr Bruce. His person was of the largest size, his height exceeding six feet, and the bulk as well as the strength of his body was proportionally great. He excelled in all corporeal accomplishments, being a hardy, practised, and indefatigable swimmer, trained to exercise and fatigue of every kind, 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, understanding the Greek perfectly; 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, his judgment sound and vigorous. He was dexterous in negotiation, a master of public business, animated with the warmest zeal for the glory of his king and country, a physician in the camp or city, a soldier and horseman in the field, while, at the same time, his breast was a stranger to fear, though he took every precaution to avoid danger. 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; was uncommonly distinguished for vigour of understanding, as well as great literary attainments; and in active persevering intrepidity may be clasped with the most eminent characters in any age or country.

Thus accomplished, Mr Bruce could not but be eminently fitted for an attempt so full of difficulty and danger as 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 Mafuah, Teawa, and Sennaar, 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. He expresses throughout all his works a deep and lively sense of the care of a superintending Providence, without whose influence, he was convinced of the futility of all human ability and foresight to preserve from danger. He appears to have been a serious believer of the truth of Christianity; and his illustrations of some parts of the sacred writings are original and valuable. (Edin. Mag.)