James Bruce

“ James Bruce, the traveller into Abyssinia, died by falling down the stairs of his own house. He was born at Kinnaird, in Stirlingshire, North Britain, 1730. His veracity, defamed in his lifetime, has been supported by every subsequent information concerning the regions he visited.
FLORAL DIRECTORY. Great Daffodil. Narcissus major.
Dedicated to St. Anastasius.
April 28.
St. Vitalis, Martyr, about 62. Sts. Didymus and Theodora, A. D. 304. St. Patricius, Bp. of Prussia, in Bithynia, Martyr. ”

“ Throughout his journeyings in Barbary and the Levant, Bruce made careful drawings of the many ruins he examined. He also acquired a sufficient knowledge of medicine to enable him to pass in the East as a physician.
In June 1768 he arrived at Alexandria, having resolved to endeavour to discover the source of the Nile, which he believed to rise in Abyssinia. At Cairo he gained the support of the Mameluke ruler, Ali Bey; after visiting Thebes he crossed the desert to Kosseir, where he embarked in the dress of a Turkish sailor. ”

“ Bruce, with a few brave adherents, among whom was the young Lord of Douglas, who was afterward called the Good Lord James, retired into the Highland mountains, where they were chased from one place of refuge to another, often in great danger, and suffering many hardships. The Bruce's wife, now Queen of Scotland, with several other ladies, accompanied her husband and his few followers during their wanderings. There was no other way of providing for them save by hunting and fishing. ”

“ Bruce was just a little bit annoyed to find himself so easily beaten by a lad whose appearance indicated anything but strength and agility, but when he saw how the little bit of excitement and the triumph of winning the race had restored his friends temper to its usual good-natured pitch and completely dispelled a feeling which might have culminated in a quarrel, he was rather glad on the whole that he himself had lost. ”

“ Bruce himself had fought hand to hand with the officers of the garrison, and slain every one who dared to withstand his terrible onset. His face and hands were covered with blood; his bright armour was stained; and the sword which he still held in his hand bore evidence to the work of deadly execution it had done against Scotland's foes. Sir James Douglas, Randolph, and others of the fiercest of his captains, bore the same grim aspect; and the French squires exhibited by their gore-stained shields that they merited the reward for which they looked, from the honour-dispensing sword of the king. ”

“ Before leaving the grounds, Bruce walked to the corner of the house and refreshed his memory with another long look at the old vine-clad porch which had attracted his attention on the occasion of his first visit and had suggested to his mind the long search upon which he was still engaged. There it was just as when he had last seen it, just as it was when he saw it in those long gone by childish days.
He returned in a rather disconsolate mood to the quarters and told Weyman the result of his visit.
“Never mind,” said the latter, “you mustn’t expect to learn every thing all in a hurry. ”

“ His father was the eldest son of Helen Bruce of Kinnaird, [1] and David Hay of Woodcockdale, descended from an old and respectable branch of the Hays of Enroll, distinguished in ancient Scottish history by their bravery, and who received from Robert I. the hereditary office of high-constable of Scotland. Bruce's mother 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: a man distinguished by his abilities, and respected for his public and private virtues. ”

“ I stood upon deck, took my trumpet, and answered, “Mr Bruce wishes Captain —— a speedy and perfect return of his understanding;” a wish, poor man, that has not yet been accomplished, and very much to my regret, it does not appear probable that ever it will. That night having passed 295 a cluster of shoals, called the Shoals of Safia, we anchored in a small bay, Mersa Gedan, about twelve leagues from the harbour of Jidda. ”

“ Bruce was by nature a deliberate, slow-thinking boy, who seldom acted on the impulse of the moment, and had a habit of devoting a great deal of thought to whatever 217he went about. He was naturally secretive, too, and up to this time, he had made a confidant of nobody except Laura Van Kuren; not even to Chief Trask or Tom Brophy had he spoken a single word in regard to the important matter which had taken up such a large share of his thoughts. ”

“ Charley Weyman, who was a close observer and took a deep interest in the son of his old friend, was right in his surmise that Bruce was in love, although the boy himself would have been very much surprised if he had been told of it. Never in all his life had he met any girl as pretty, as well-bred and as charming as Laura Van Kuren. ”

“ This by no means, however, coincided with Bruce’s views. That restlessness which the man who has once conceived the idea of travelling ever after feels, unfitted him in reality for all quiet employment. He felt himself goaded on by the desire of fame; to be in motion seemed to be on the way to acquire it. He therefore proceeded across the Pyrenees into France, and thence, through Germany and Holland, to England, where he arrived in July, 1758.
He had learned at Rotterdam the death of his father, by which he succeeded to the family estate at Kinnaird. ”

“ To the one he owed a certain amount of loyalty—a few dollars worth, perhaps—but to the other he owed his life. He raised his eyes, and encountered the clear, honest, truthful ones of Bruce, which looked him square in the face, and he hesitated no longer. Rough contact with the world had taught him to be suspicious of others, and it was rare enough in his career that he had encountered any one whom he fully trusted. But 268there was that in Bruce’s face which caused him to say to himself: “Dat man is all right, an’ white,” which is a high compliment for a newsboy to pay any one. ”

“ Afrite!”— (He is a devil! he is a devil!) Bruce now prescribed warm water, or a weak infusion of green tea, as an emetic, and added, that having taken a little strong coffee, or a glass of spirits, he should go to bed. At this the bey exclaimed, “Spirits! do you know I am a Mussulman?” [10] —“But I,” replied the traveller, “am none. I tell you what is good for your body, and have nothing to do with your religion or your soul.” The bey was amused at his bluntness, and said, “He speaks like a man!” The traveller then retired. ”

“ Bruce expressed his acknowledgments for the civility which had been shown him in sending his baggage unopened; but Achmet, more solicitous to do good than listen to compliments, at once turned the discourse into another channel; and, after several questions respecting his rank and motives for travelling, advised him by no means to enter Abyssinia, and let fall some few hints respecting the character of the people of Masuah. To express his gratitude, and secure a continuance of his good offices, Bruce begged his acceptance of a pair of pistols. ”

“ Languor and inactivity seized upon them all; all the weighty baggage and curiosities, such as shells, fossils, minerals, the counter-canes of the quadrant, telescopes, &c., were abandoned, and inevitable death appeared to stare them in the face.
Their Bishareen prisoner, however, seemed not to be affected in the least, either by fatigue or the hot winds, and by his ingenuity in contriving a bandage for Bruce’s feet probably saved the traveller’s life. Here and there upon the sands, the bodies of men who had been murdered, and of camels which had perished for want, met their eyes ”

“ Our traveller’s attendants now became desperate: the Greeks shrieked out that the day of judgment was come; Ismael, a Turk, said it was hell; and the Africans exclaimed that the world was on fire. Bruce now demanded of their guide whether he had ever before witnessed such a sight. “Frequently,” replied the man, “but I have never seen a worse.” He added, however, that from the redness of the air, he dreaded the approach of 294something much more terrible than these fiery columns,—the simoom, which almost invariably ensued upon such a disposition of the atmosphere. ”

“ The chief watched him narrowly these days, and often asked himself if it were possible that he could be to blame for Bruce’s retrogression.
“It may be,” he said to himself one day, “that the boy has not enough to do, and is getting discontented because he finds the work so monotonous. It’s a queer sort of position for a lad to find himself in anyway, for at present he’s neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. ”

“ After the defeat, Bruce's party broke up into several43 groups. Sir Simon Fraser was captured at Kirkincliffe, near Stirling. Sir Christopher de Seton was taken at Lochore Castle in Fife. The Earl of Lennox made for his own fastnesses. Bruce himself proceeded northwards to Aberdeen. Barbour says he had about 500 followers, the most prominent of whom were his brother Sir Edward, the Earls of Athol and Errol, Sir William Barondoun, James of Douglas, and Sir Nigel Campbell. He kept to the high ground, not venturing to the plains, for the population had outwardly passed to the English peace again. ”

“ Anyhow while there’s life there’s hope, and if you can’t find him there you may run across him down town some time. Keep your eyes open whenever you go about the streets, and you’ll find him some day when you’ll least expect him. I never go out without looking for him myself.”
Bruce paid two more visits to the Dexter mansion without learning anything further, and it was then that he sat down and wrote the letter to Skinny asking him how soon he expected to be back in town again, the effect of which has been shown in a preceding chapter. ”

“ Bruce did not like the idea of discussing such a superior being as Laura Van Kuren with a grimy little boy of the streets, and besides he did not believe that Skinny had ever seen her, so he answered rather curtly, “No, I guess you’re mistaken; that young lady doesn’t live in the same street with you.” ”

“ The biographer seems to misunderstand the state of the question. Bruce has often been charged with never having sailed down the Red Sea so far as the strait, notwithstanding his assertions in the affirmative. But who are his accusers? Lord Valentia, Salt, and others of that stamp; men who never dared to venture their beards amid the dangers which Bruce encountered intrepidly. With respect to the coast from Cosseir southward, what, I will venture to inquire, could Niebuhr have known about the matter? ”

“ This man, a zealous protector of strangers, and who was desirous, as he said, to end his days in pious seclusion either at Jerusalem or Rome, after a long contest of civilities and a protracted conversation, informed Bruce that the queen-mother, who had heard of his abilities as a physician, was desirous he should undertake the treatment of a young prince then lying ill of the small-pox at the palace of Koscam. ”

“ The persecution of Marco Polo, however, arose wholly from the ignorance of his contemporaries; but Bruce had a foible, abundantly visible in his writings, from which the great Italian traveller was altogether exempt—I mean an arrogant and intolerable vanity. Even the most charitable of readers must frequently, in perusing Bruce’s writings, be angered, if not disgusted, at its perpetual recurrence in the coarsest and most undisguised forms ”

“ Young as he was, the newsboy had long since learned the great lesson of eternal vigilance, and he knew well enough that the man whom he called “Scar-faced Charlie” was not one in whom implicit confidence should be reposed.
He listened attentively as Bruce described his visits to the Dexter mansion, and then said to him “Wot’s de matter wid bracin’ him in his Eldridge Street joint?” ”

“ He had long been desirous of possessing a rich sash which Bruce wore about his waist, and was bribed by this article of finery to approach somewhat nearer to the scene of his past villany. After leading the traveller round to the south of the church, beyond the grove of trees which surrounded it, “This,” says he, “is the hill which, when you were on the 288other side of it, was between you and the fountains of the Nile. There is no other. Look at that hillock of green sod in the middle of that watery spot; it is in that the two fountains of the Nile are to be found. ”

“ In the mean time sleep sound, and fear no evil; but never be persuaded to trust yourself to the Kafro of Habesh at Masuah.”
Next morning the governor returned from Arkeeko, attended by three or four servants miserably mounted, and about forty naked savages on foot, armed with short lances and crooked knives. Before him was beaten a drum, formed of an earthen jar, such as they send butter in to Arabia, covered 263over at the mouth with a skin, like a jar of pickles. Bruce’s reception by this ferocious despot was inauspicious. ”

“ For some days after this triumphal entry, Bruce, though he daily visited his patients at the palace, was utterly neglected, not only by the Ras, but by Ozoro Esther herself, and every person in Gondar, except the Moors, who were never weary of expressing their gratitude for his successful attention to their children. On the 14th, however, he was once more brought into the presence of Ras Michael, at Koscam. Upon entering he saw the old man sitting upon a sofa, with his white hair dressed in many short curls. ”

“ Revolts, conspiracies, rebellions, succeeded each other in the natural course of things, and Bruce’s position compelled him to take a more or less active part in them all. In the spring of 1770, Fasil, the rival of Ras Michael, being once more in motion, the royal army left Gondar, to proceed in search of the rebels, and on entering the enemy’s territory exercised all kinds of barbarities and excesses. ”