The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller Part 25

Peter Pindar amused all people (except Bruce) by his satirical flings, one of which was,

"Nor have I been where men (what loss, alas!) Kill half a cow, and turn the rest to gra.s.s."

In the year 1790, seventeen years after his return to Europe, Bruce's work was printed and laid before the public. It consisted of five large quarto volumes, and was ent.i.tled, "Travels to discover the Sources of the Nile, in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773, by James Bruce of Kinnaird, Esq., F.R.S."

The work was dedicated to the king; and in his preface Bruce frankly explains the reasons which had delayed for so many years the publication of his travels, and admits that "an undeserved and unexpected neglect and want of patronage had been at least part of the cause. But," he continues, "it is with great pleasure and readiness I now declare that no fantastical nor deformed motive, no peevish disregard, much less contempt, of the judgment of the world, had any part in the delay which has happened to this publication. The candid and instructed public, the impartial and unprejudiced foreigner, are tribunals merit should naturally appeal to; there it always has found sure protection against the influence of cabals, and the virulent strokes of envy, malice, and ignorance."

He concludes his preface with the following n.o.ble words:

"I have only to add, that were it probable, as in my decayed state of health it is not, that I should live to see a second edition of this work, all well-founded, judicious remarks suggested should be gratefully and carefully attended to; but I do solemnly declare to the public in general that I never will refute or answer any cavils, captious or idle objections, such as every new publication seems unavoidably to give birth to, nor ever reply to those witticisms and criticisms that appear in newspapers and periodical writings. What I have written I have written. My readers have before them, in the present volumes, all that I shall ever say, directly or indirectly, upon the subject; and I do, without one moment's anxiety, trust my defence to an impartial, well-informed, and judicious public."

Now, had the public thus addressed been really "impartial, well-informed, and judicious," what a favourable impression would it have formed of a work appearing under circ.u.mstances which so peculiarly ent.i.tled it to belief! The author was not only of good family, but a man evidently proud of the same, and therefore not likely wilfully to disgrace it. He had received a liberal education, inherited an independent fortune, and for a number of years had deliberately prepared himself for the travels he had performed. He had not hastily pa.s.sed through the countries which he described, but remained in them for six years. His descriptions were not of that trifling personal nature which in a short time it might be difficult to confirm or confute, but, with mathematical instruments in his hands, he professed to have determined the lat.i.tudes and longitudes of every place of importance that he visited, thus offering to men of science of all future ages data whereby to condemn him if he was inaccurate; while these data were of a description not to afford the slightest pleasure or amus.e.m.e.nt to the general reader. The work was not a hasty production; on the contrary, it appeared seventeen years after the travels it described had been concluded; and, finally, it was the production of an old man, who in fact, and in his own just opinion, had but a very few years to live; whose const.i.tution had been worn out by the climates which he described, and whose fortune had been seriously impaired by his protracted absence.

But his enemies, with pen in hand, like Shylock whetting his knife, impatiently were waiting for his book; and it no sooner appeared than Bruce was deprived of what was nearest his heart--his honour and his reputation.

It was useless to stand against the storm which a.s.sailed him. His volumes were universally disbelieved; and yet it may be most confidently stated, that they do not contain a single statement which, according to our present knowledge of the world, can even be termed improbable.

Nevertheless, in attentively reading the latest edition of Bruce's Travels, it must be evident to every one that, in point of composition, the work has very great faults. Bruce had an immense quant.i.ty of information to give, but he wanted skill to impart it as it deserved; and certainly nothing can be worse than the arrangement of his materials. He hardly starts with his narrative before we have him talking quite familiarly of people and places known only to himself; and, although perfectly at ease and at home, he forgets that his reader is an utter stranger in the land.

He seems, likewise, never to have reflected that the generality of mankind were not as fond as himself of seeking to trace a dark speculative question to its source. His theories, which, whether right or wrong, are certainly ingenious, constantly break the thread of his narrative; and, like his minute history of all the kings of Abyssinia supposed to have reigned from the time of Solomon to this day, they wear out the patience of the reader. Yet these were evidently very favourite parts of his volumes; and, eager in detailing evidence and arguments which he conceived to be of great importance, he occasionally neglected his narrative, confused his facts and dates, and from his notes being made on separate slips of paper, he fell into several careless mistakes.

His dates also are occasionally wrong; but in his notes which he brought to England, they are often inserted in so trembling a hand, that it is but too evident they were written on a bed of sickness. Besides, it must be evident to every one, that, when a man visits such immense countries as Bruce travelled over, his great difficulty is to attend to details.

No man can attempt to conduct a trigonometrical survey, and to fill it up at the same time: if he has to determine the grand features of the country, it is impossible that he should be very attentive to minute parts; and if he be particular in his details, he can look but little to the general character of the regions he describes.

But Bruce was disbelieved _in toto_; and it was even proclaimed that he had never been in Abyssinia at all! Dr. Clarke says: "Soon after the publication of his Travels to discover the sources of the Nile, several copies of the work were sold in Dublin as waste paper, in consequence of the calumnies circulated against the author's veracity."

Nothing could be more dignified than his behaviour under such cruel treatment. He treated his country with the silent contempt which it deserved, disdaining to make any reply to publications impeaching his veracity; and when his friends earnestly entreated him to alter, modify, and explain the accounts which he had given, he firmly replied, in the words of his preface, "What I have written I have written!"

To his daughter, his favourite child, he alone opened his heart.

Although scarcely twelve years of age when he published his Travels, she was his constant companion; and he used to teach her the proper mode of p.r.o.nouncing the Abyssinian words, "that he might leave," as he observed, "some one behind him who could p.r.o.nounce them correctly." He repeatedly said to her, with feelings highly excited, "I shall not live to see it, but _you_ probably will, and you will then see the truth of all I have written thoroughly confirmed." In this expectation, however, it may here be observed, Bruce was deceived.

This daughter, who afterward married John Jardine, Esq., an advocate in Edinburgh, never lived to see justice done to the memory of her beloved parent. When Dr. Clarke's examination of the Abyssinian dean strongly corroborated some of Bruce's statements, Mrs. Jardine, who was then ill in bed, sketched with her pencil a short account of this confirmation, so happily expressed that it appeared in the Scots' Magazine for December, 1819, with scarcely the alteration of a word. To the last hour of her life she was devotedly attached to the memory of her excellent father; and in a memorandum written by one of the ablest authors of the present day, she has been described to us as one of the most amiable and intelligent women he ever knew.

After the publication of his Travels, Bruce occupied himself in the management of his estate and of his extensive collieries. He visited London occasionally, and kept up a correspondence with Daines Barrington and with Buffon. He also employed his time in biblical literature, and even projected an edition of the Bible, with notes, pointing out numberless instances in which the Jewish history was singularly confirmed by his own observations.

His notions of his own consequence and of the antiquity of his family were high, and he had, consequently, the reputation of being a proud man; yet he was in the habit of entertaining at Kinnaird, with great hospitality, strangers, and those people of distinction who visited him; and in his own family he was a charming companion, entering into the amus.e.m.e.nts of his children with great delight. His young and amiable daughter used to walk, almost every morning, by his side, while Bruce, who had now grown exceedingly stout and l.u.s.ty, rode slowly over his estate to his collieries, mounted on a horse of great power and size. At Kinnaird he was often seen wearing the turban and reclining in an Eastern costume; and in those moments it may easily be conceived that his thoughts flew with eager pleasure to the mountains of Abyssinia--that Ozoro Esther, Ras Michael, Gusho, Powussen, Fasil, Tecla Mariam, were before his eyes; and that, in their society, beloved, respected, and admired, he was once again--Yagoube, the white man! But, although his life at Kinnaird was apparently tranquil, his wounded feelings respecting his travels occasionally betrayed themselves. One day, while he was at the house of a relation in East Lothian, a gentleman present bluntly observed that it was _impossible_ that the natives of Abyssinia could eat raw meat! Bruce said not a word; but, leaving the room, he shortly returned from the kitchen with a piece of raw beefsteak, peppered and salted in the Abyssinian fas.h.i.+on. "You will eat that, sir, or fight me!" he said. When the gentleman had eaten up the raw flesh, Bruce calmly observed, "Now, sir, you will never again say it is _impossible_!"

Single-speech Hamilton was Brace's first-cousin and intimate friend. One evening, at Kinnaird, he said, "Bruce! to convince the world of your power of drawing, you need only draw us now something in as good a style as those drawings of yours which they say have been done for you by Balugani, your Italian artist." "Gerard!" replied Bruce, very gravely, "you made _one_ fine speech, and the world doubted its being your own composition; but if you will stand up now here, and make another speech as good, we shall believe it to have been your own."

These trifling anecdotes sufficiently show how sensitive Bruce was to the unjust insults that had been offered to him. For twenty years that had elapsed since his return to Europe, he had endured treatment which it was totally out of his power to repel. It is true, he had been complimented by Dr. Blair and a few others on the valuable information he had revealed; but the public voice still accused him of falsehood, or, what is equally culpable, of wilful exaggeration; and against the public in ma.s.s an individual can do nothing. Bruce's happiness was now at an end; he had survived his reputation. When he was asked, "What could he do against so many?" he answered, "DIE!" and this catastrophe soon happened.

The last act of Brace's life was one of refined and polite attention. A large party had dined at Kinnaird, and, as they were about to depart, Bruce was gayly talking to a young lady in the drawing-room, when, suddenly observing that her aged mother was proceeding to her carriage unattended, he hurried to the great staircase. In this effort, the foot which had carried him safely through all his dangers chanced to fail him; he fell down several of the steps, broke some of his fingers, pitched on his head, and never spoke again!

Thus died, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, in the healthy winter of his life, in vigour of mind and body, James Bruce of Kinnaird, a Scotchman, who was religious, loyal, honourable, brave, prudent, and enterprising. He was too proud of his ancestors, yet his posterity have reason to be proud of him. His temper was eager, hasty, and impetuous; he but selected for the employment of his life enterprises of danger, in which haste, eagerness, and impetuosity were converted into the means of serving the cause of science and his country. The zeal with which he toiled for the approbation of the world, and the pain he felt from its cruelty and injustice, exclude him from ranking among those great men who, by the help of religion, or even philosophy, may have learned to despise both; yet it must be observed, that, had he possessed this equanimity of mind, he would never have undertaken the great things which he accomplished.

Bruce belonged to that fearless race of men who are ever ready

"To set their life upon a cast, And stand the hazard of the die."

He was merely a knight-errant in search of new regions of the world; yet the steady courage with which he encountered danger--his patience and fort.i.tude in adversity--his good sense in prosperity--the skill and judgment with which he steered his lonely course through some of the most barren and barbarous regions of the earth, bending even the ignorance, pa.s.sions, and prejudices of the people he visited to his own advantage--the graphic truth with which he describes the strange scenes that he witnessed, and his inflexible courage in maintaining the truth of his a.s.sertions against the mean, barbarous incredulity of his age, most deservedly place him at the head of his own cla.s.s, where he stands second to none. His example, therefore, is well worthy the attention and study of every individual whose duty or inclination may lead him to attempt to penetrate the yet unknown, perilous, and uncivilized regions of the globe.

Four days after his death, his remains, attended by his tenantry and by several of the princ.i.p.al men in the country, were deposited in the churchyard of Larbert, in a tomb which Bruce had built for his wife and his infant child.

On the south side of the monument there is the following inscription:

IN THIS TOMB ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF JAMES BRUCE, ESQ., OF KINNAIRD, WHO DIED ON THE 27TH OF APRIL, 1794, IN THE 64TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

HIS LIFE WAS SPENT IN PERFORMING USEFUL AND SPLENDID ACTIONS.

HE EXPLORED MANY DISTANT REGIONS.

HE DISCOVERED THE SOURCES OF THE NILE.

HE TRAVERSED THE DESERTS OF NUBIA.

HE WAS AN AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND, AN INDULGENT PARENT, AN ARDENT LOVER OF HIS COUNTRY.

BY THE UNANIMOUS VOICE OF MANKIND, HIS NAME IS ENROLLED WITH THOSE WHO WERE CONSPICUOUS FOR GENIUS, FOR VALOUR, AND FOR VIRTUE.

The descendants of James Bruce of Kinnaird remain to this day in their country--unrewarded.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] A great deal has been written and said against Bruce for having presented to the king, _as his own performance_, these drawings, which it has been very liberally a.s.sumed were the productions of Balugani, his Italian clerk. But, even admitting that Balugani held the pencil, we submit that Bruce was fully ent.i.tled to present them to the king and his country _as his own productions_. They were not works of genius or imagination, but architectural drawings, the plan and elevation of which were regularly shown by a scale annexed. Their value was their minute accuracy; and their merit consisted in the danger and difficulty with which such details had been procured.

[39] The writer of this was acquainted with Belzoni, and has heard him describe scenes in his travels perhaps quite as marvellous as anything told by Bruce; and, knowing the character of the man, he could not for a moment doubt their entire truth.--_Am. Ed._