James Bruce
James Bruce - A Famous Scottish Explorer
James Bruce (1730 - 1794) An enthusiastic traveller and antiquarian, James Bruce was one of the first men to penetrate the interior of North Africa. He was born at Kinnaird in Stirlingshire and after his schooling at Harrow considered several possible careers but through marriage became concerned with the Portuguese wine trade. In the course of this he learnt Arabic and was British Consul at Algiers, under harassing circumstances, from 1763 to 1765. There he developed an interest in the Roman remains of the interior, in addition to his general inclination for travel and exploration. After visiting Palmyra abd Baalbek in Syria he went to Egypt in 1768, travelled up the Nile and across the Red Sea coast. Basing himself on the Ethiopian capital of Gondar, then rent by civil war, he won over the royal family by his forceful personality and medical knowledge, and left to discover the source of the Blue Nile in 1770. He left in 1771, returning to England through Egypt, but was disappointed by the lack of recognition and indeed by the scepticism he received in London. He retired to Kinnaird in pique, and in 1790 produced Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, a discursive narrative of his explorations widely discredited at the time, but later authenticated by other travellers.
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