BRUCE, JAMES (1730-1794), Scottish explorer in Africa, was born at Kinnaird House, Stirlingshire, on Dec. 14, 173o. He was educated at Harrow and Edinburgh University, and began to study for the bar ; but he married a wine merchant's daughter and went into his father-in-law's business. His wife died in Oct. within nine months of marriage, and Bruce then travelled in Portugal and Spain. The examination of oriental mss. at the Escurial led him to the study of Arabic and determined his future career. In 1758 his father's death placed him in possession of the estate of Kinnaird. On the outbreak of war with Spain in 1762 he submitted to the British Government a plan for an attack on Ferrol, which was not adopted but which led to his appointment as British consul at Algiers, with a commission to study the ancient ruins in that country. In Aug. 1765, a successor in the consulate having arrived, Bruce began his exploration of the Roman ruins in Barbary. Having examined many ruins in eastern Algeria, he travelled from Tunis to Tripoli, and eventually reached Crete, and Syria, visiting Palmyra and Baalbek.
In June 1768 he arrived at Alexandria, having resolved to en deavour to discover the source of the Nile, which he believed to rise in Abyssinia. After visiting Thebes he crossed the desert to Kosseir, where he embarked in the dress of a Turkish sailor. He reached Jidda in May 1769, and after some stay in Arabia he recrossed the Red Sea and landed at Massawa, then in possession of the Turks, on Sept. 19. He reached Gondar, then the capital of Abyssinia, on Feb. 14, 1770. After two years in Abyssinia, on Nov. 14, 177o, he reached the long-sought source of the Blue Nile. Though admitting that the White Nile was the larger stream, Bruce claimed that the Blue Nile was the Nile of the ancients and that he was thus the discoverer of its source. The claim, however, was not well founded (see NILE: Story of Discovery). Setting out from Gondar in Dec. 1771, Bruce made his way, in spite of enormous difficulties, by Sennar to Nubia, being the first to trace the Blue Nile to its confluence with the White Nile. On Nov. 29, 1772, he reached Aswan. Bruce returned to Cairo in January 1773, and in March arrived in France, where he was welcomed by Buffon and other savants. He went to London in 1774, but, offended by the incredulity with which his story was received, retired to his home at Kinnaird. In 1790 he published Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768-73, in five octavo volumes, lavishly illustrated. Bruce died on April 27, He wrote an autobiography, part of which is printed in editions of his Travels published in 18o5, and 1813, and accom paned by a biographical notice by the editor, Alexander Murray. The best edition of the Travels is the third (1813). Of the abridg ments the best is that of Major (afterwards Sir Francis) Head, the author of a well-informed Life of Bruce (1830). The best account of Bruce's travels in Barbary is contained in Sir R. Lam bert Playfair's Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce (1877).