the honours which were conferred upon him, of the strange occurrences which he records, or of the diffi culties which he encountered in prosecting his grand object, the discovery of the sources of the Nile. lie at last accomplished its object, and his feelings on that occasion were of a very singular and mixed character at first he felt a degree of exultation that he had seen what ne imagined no European had ever seen before him, but instantly the most afflicting dejection over powered his spirits when he compared the small utility likely to result from his labours, with the difficulties which he had already experienced, and which he had again to encounter. Abyssinia was at that time distract ed by factions, and involved in a civil war. With great difficulty he obtained leave to return; and to avoid the danger which he apprehended at Massowah, he resolv ed to return by Sennaar. The dangers and difficulties which he encountered in this route were almost unpa ralleled. We have no hesitation in saying, that the whole of his narrative, from the time that he entered Abyssinia, till he reached Sycnc in Egypt, by the way of Sennaar, is the most interesting detail to be found in any language. His constitution had been much impaired by his residence in Abyssinia; and the Guinea Worm which had entered his leg, having been broken in the extracting, had almost cost him his life. He resided for a considerable time after his return, in the south of France, for the benefit of his health, and lived on the most intimate footing with the celebrated Count de ButTon, who acknowledges his obligations to him for several important communications on the subject of na tural history. He at last settled in his native country, and his paternal inheritance. In 1776, he married a •Ilughter of Thomas Dundas. Gl*Fingask, Esq., by whom he had two of whom, a son and a daugh ter, are still living. After he settled at Kinnaird, his time was chiefly spent in managing his estate, in pre paring his Travels for the press, and other literary oc cupations. He retained to the last his fondness for field sports. He was preparing a second edition of his Tra vels, when death prevented the execution of his design. On Saturday, the 26th of April 1794, having entertained some company at Kinnaird, as he was going down stairs about eight o'clock in the evening, to hand a lady into a carriage, his foot slipped, and he fell down headlong from about the sixth or seventh step from the ground. He was taken up in a state of insensibility, without any apparent contusion, and expired early next morning.
Such was the end of this celebrated traveller, who uniformly ascribes all his wonderful escapes to the hand of Providence, by whose inscrutable decrees he was thus summoned from the world. His stature was six feet four inches ; his person was large and well propor tioned ; and his strength correspondent to his size and stature. He found no difficulty in acquiring languages of any kind; he understood French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Besides Greek and Latin, which he read well, he knew the Hebrew, Chaldee. and Syriac ; he read and spoke with ease, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Amharic : he was a good practical astronomer, and his drawings are admirable. No author ever experienced such ungentlemanlike treatment from reviewers and other petty assailents. A parcel of contemptible fools, who had never hcen out of sight of the smoke of Lon don, had the audacity to aver that he never had been in Abyssinia, and that his hook, from beginning to end, was a fabrication. Bruce's temper, which was naturally
haughty, served to provoke these attacks ; and his va nity, which was very considerable, afforded his enemies an opportunity of saying, that he had magnified his ex ploits and his dangers at the expense of truth. These insinuations, however, gradually died away; and the progress of discovery, though not in the same held, served to confirm all his statements.
But a more serious attack has been made on him late ly, by Lord Valentia, who pretends to have detected, by actual observation, not only his inaccuracies, but his falsehoods. This has encouraged some of the journals in which Bruce had been originally assailed, to renew the attack, and to assume credit for their discernment. Lord Valentia did not enter Abyssinia himself, but he dispatched Mr Salt, one of his attendants, whose atten tion seems to have been particularly employed in endea vouring to overturn the authority ol Bruce. Mr Salt has been a second time in Abyssinia, but has not as yet favoured the world with his second thoughts on the subject. We are not afraid, however, to affirm, that no traveller, and no writer of any description, has done so much to confirm the accuracy of Bruce. We beg leave to direct the attention of our readers to the points on which he attacks the veracity of Bruce.
When Mr Salt's party had reached Hamhammou, they were stopt by a violent storm ; upon which he ob serves, that Bruce was exposed to a storm in the same place, " which, however, he describes, says he, with some exaggeration." Nothing can manifest a stronger propensity to carping and unfairness than this observa tion. How could Salt know that Bruce's description of the storm was exaggerated ? Was it the identical storm which Bruce described that Mr Salt witnessed ? Or did the spirit of the storm appear to him to complain of mis representation ? In fact, every step that he takes serves to confirm the minute accuracy of Bruce. When he arrives at Tubbo, he is forced to confess, " Bruce has well described this place." Bruce says, that between Shillokeeb and Hamhammou, he first observed the dung of elephants. It is curious enough, that when Mr Salt comes to the same place, he makes exactly the same observation. Bruce, however, is by far the most accu rate copro/ogist of the two; for he informs us, that the dung which he observed, was filled with the indigested branches of trees, which gives us some insight into the habits of the elephant ; but Mr Salt passes on satisfied, with barely introducing his readers to Cls elegant phe nomenon. He passes the tribe of the Hazorta, whose residence he admits to be admirably described by Bruce, and at last comes to the famous mountain of Taranta. He is very severe on Bruce for exaggerating the diffi culties of the pass, which he and his party cleared in a few hours, whilst Bruce's party took part of two days. I lc takes no notice, however, of Bruce's quadrant, which took eight men to carry it, whilst Mr Salt's principal box was carried, as he himself informs us, by a boy of thirteen years of age. Besides, Bruce tells us, that the asses turned and ran down the hill to a great distance, which caused a general halt till they were recovered. If Mr Salt had not been blinded by prejudice, he would have acknowledged that none of these causes of obstruc tion operated in his case; and that, therefore, the ascent of the mountain was comparatively easy. Besides, the road on the mountain was excessively bad in Bruce's time, which Mr Salt confesses was not the case when he passed it.