James Bruce

Scottish explorer

• Born: December 14, 1730
• Birthplace: Kinnaird, Stirlingshire, Scotland
• Died: April 27, 1794
• Place of death: Kinnaird, Stirlingshire, Scotland

Bruce explored extensively along the Blue Nile River and in Ethiopia, and his endeavors helped direct European attention to the interior of Africa in the late eighteenth century.

Early Life

James Bruce was the son of a Scottish laird whose unpretentious home at Kinnaird, in Stirlingshire, looked out over the Forth. His childhood—indeed his entire life—was marked by an extraordinary number of problems, yet early unhappiness was a primary motivating factor for his travels. His mother died when he was a baby, and his father, David Bruce, quickly remarried. The younger Bruce was never close to his father, but one suspects that he inherited some of his sense of adventure from a man who had been a participant in the Jacobite uprising of 1715 and was lucky to escape with his life.

A sickly youth, Bruce began his formal education in London and enrolled at the noted English public school, Harrow, a few years later. Subsequent study at the University of Edinburgh made him an intellectually well-rounded man. In some ways he was a fine example of the Scottish Enlightenment, but his lonely childhood, spent almost entirely away from home, tended toward the creation of a cold, aloof individual who later evinced a certain lack of humanity. This is understandable given the way trouble continued to plague him. He was ill during much of his time at the university, but a much crueler blow came when his pregnant wife died of tuberculosis after the couple had been married only nine months. Disconsolate, Bruce soon sought release from his grief in solitude. He vowed to immerse himself in what he considered the noblest of all occupations, that of explorer, and his vision fixed on the age-old mystery of the Blue Nile River’s sources.

Life’s Work

Once set on the course of locating the fountains from where the Nile sprang, nothing—not even the 1758 death of his father—could lure James Bruce back to Europe or distract him from his purpose. A period spent in Algiers as British consul served him as a sort of apprenticeship in preparing for African exploration, and by 1768, he was in Cairo ready to begin his grand venture. Dressed as a dervish, Bruce set about planning the tremendous undertaking that would carry him into the heart of Ethiopia, much of which remained terra incognita.

In 1769, Bruce commenced his incredible journey at the port of Mesewa on the Red Sea, and in just over three months he had penetrated the Ethiopian hinterland and reached the capital city of Gonder on Lake Tana. He soon ingratiated himself with local authorities, thereby establishing connections that enabled him to travel with relative impunity. During 1770, he explored Lake Tana and its immediate environs. He discovered the Blue Nile’s outflow from the lake, observed the spectacular Tissisat Falls, and saw most of the other significant features of the river’s headwaters. In addition, he encountered people and customs that were alien to him. He saw people who wore rings in their lips, who used cow blood as a body ornamentation, and he witnessed hordes of tiny flies driving men and animals before them. He also was told of men who hunted other men and of mothers who were not yet ten years old. Even though he was generally accurate in his descriptions of the scenes he witnessed, the time would come when Bruce wished that he had never shared his experiences with the public. Indeed, in England (though not at home in Scotland or on the European continent) he would be mocked and disparaged as an inveterate liar for the remainder of his days.

Bruce had no inkling of what lay before him, however, as he completed his travels by following the Blue Nile downriver to its juncture at Khartoum (now in Sudan) with its sister White Nile River. His initial reception in Europe was one of warm acclamation accompanied by keen scientific and public interest. He had been away from home for a full decade, and he envisioned himself returning as a conquering hero. In truth there was much of the egomaniac in Bruce, but certainly he deserved praise for his massive labors.

For a time he did receive praise. He met the renowned naturalist, comte de Buffon, on his return, and the two of them journeyed together to Paris for a reception with King Louis XVI. For weeks Bruce was the rage of the Parisian smart set, and his presence in fashionable salons assured hostesses of social success. Things changed, though, not long after he reached London in June of 1774. Astonishment at the tales of his feats soon turned to amusement, and within a few weeks he became the butt of malicious jokes. Perhaps the supreme insult came from the renowned wit, Dr. Samuel Johnson. He accused Bruce of never even visiting Ethiopia, suggesting that the land of Prester John was little more than a figment of Prestidigitator Bruce’s imagination. Not surprisingly, Bruce decided that he had had enough of London society and fled to his native Scotland.

Bruce fared better in Scotland, where learned men in Edinburgh and elsewhere listened to him carefully and compared his accounts with the concept of the “noble savage” advanced by Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other philosophers. He was similarly most welcome at his own inherited estates at Kinnaird. Although they had declined alarmingly, these included valuable coal mines, and Bruce found, to his pleasant surprise, that he was a wealthy man. In short order he settled down to being a benevolent laird; within two years he had married Mary Dundas, a beautiful young woman twenty-four years his junior, and in due time the union was blessed with several children.

Fate, which heretofore had been so unkind to him, seemed to have taken an abrupt turnabout, and Bruce spent his ample leisure time entertaining, playing with his offspring, and indulging himself in the finest traditions of Scottish eccentricity, working through his African collections and pursuing a passion for astronomy while wearing a turban and robed in Ethiopian dress.

Still, the old slights rankled, and the bitter sense of outrage that burned deep within him would not die. Time and again Bruce returned to his carefully maintained journals, but a combination of stubborn pride and fear of negative reaction in England stayed him from publication. When his still young wife died in 1788, however, even amid his sorrow a new spirit moved within Bruce. Fourteen years had passed since he had borne the brunt of the critics’ wrath, and with his wife gone he had less concern regarding how family sensitivities might be affected by renewed controversy and hostility. He would publish—English skepticism notwithstanding—and the book would be his final justification.

The resultant magnum opus, published in five sumptuous volumes, was entitled Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 (1790). Bruce dedicated the book to King George III and anticipated his critics in the preface by saying that he would not lower himself to respond to “any cavills, captious or idle objections . . . what I have written I have written.” Critics there were, and in abundance, and a new edition of Baron Munchausen’s fictitious travels was brought out dedicated to James Bruce. Yet in retrospect, the book must be viewed as a splendid achievement, as were the travels it describes.

Publication of the book was the final important act of Bruce’s life, and in many ways the most important. Tragedy would stalk him to the very end. While entertaining a number of house guests at Kinnaird, he fell on the great staircase of his home as he bid one of his visitors adieu. He struck his head and lapsed into an unconsciousness from which he never awoke. Death came on April 27, 1794, when he was sixty-three years of age. Bruce was thus denied the opportunity to see the vindication that eventually would be accorded all his seemingly preposterous claims.

Significance

In his book, James Bruce left a careful, meticulously detailed record of his African endeavors, and there is no denying the significance of his travels. He may have been laughed at and in some cases even disbelieved, but Bruce was by no means ignored. Ironically, the controversy that surrounded his work may actually have served to give it a greater impact than if his claims had been accepted at full value. He created excitement and focused attention on Africa. The French always took him seriously, and as a new age of scientific exploration dawned, the scoffing English learned that this Scotsman whom they had so crudely maligned had been miraculously accurate.

Bruce’s greatest impact, though, may well have been on his fellow Scots, who chose to follow his footsteps into Africa. He had initiated the solution of and focused attention anew on the ancient enigma of the Nile. Henceforth, as European imaginations encompassed ever wider horizons, the question of the Nile’s ultimate source, as well as Africa’s other geographical mysteries, would remain well to the forefront in both public curiosity and geographical circles. That such was the case, and that ultimately the Scottish would play a predominant role in solving these puzzles, owed much to Bruce’s pioneering example. He can justly be considered the progenitor of the great age of African exploration of the nineteenth century.

Bibliography

Bredin, Miles. The Pale Abyssinian: A Life of James Bruce, African Explorer and Adventurer. London: HarperCollins, 2000. Bredin seeks to rehabilitate Bruce’s reputation by painting a portrait of the explorer as a brave, tough pioneer.

Bruce, James. Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Edited by Charles F. Beckingham. New York: Horizon Press, 1964. An abridged version of Bruce’s work, with an introduction by the editor. Includes maps, illustrations, and an index.

Head, Francis Bond. The Life of Bruce, the African Traveller. London: John Murray, 1838. This old, standard biography remains useful and has not been entirely supplanted.

Hibbert, Christopher. Africa Explored: Europeans in the Dark Continent, 1769-1889. London: Allen Lane, 1982. This work provides an introduction to African exploration in the late eighteenth to late nineteenth centuries for general readers.

Moorehead, Alan. The Blue Nile. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962. A beautifully written book that gives a credible, entertaining account of Bruce’s part in the exploration of the Blue Nile.