The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller Part 24

"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself has said, This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart has ne'er within him burn'd, As HOME his footsteps he has turn'd, From wandering on a foreign strand?"

But, although "home is home, though ever so homely," there is, perhaps, no idea in the human mind more indefinite than that which circ.u.mscribes the precise limits of our "home;" for, like the pupil of the eye, it dilates and contracts according to circ.u.mstances.

The European who has long sojourned under the constellations of the southern hemisphere, feels that he is "at home" when, from the neighbourhood of the Line, he first sees his old friend, the north star, rising above the horizon. To this man, home is for a moment the hemisphere in which he was born. Our own country, our own county, our own town, parish, house, room, are homes of different dimensions; and, regardless of all these, the sailor-boy has often felt that he was not really "at home" till he once more found himself in his mother's arms.

Bruce considered himself "at home" as soon as he landed at Ma.r.s.eilles; and we have deemed the foregoing observations necessary to account for the time which will yet elapse before he actually revisits his native land.

The Comte de Buffon, M. Guys, and many others who had taken particular interest in his travels, came to congratulate him on his return, and to listen to his adventures and discoveries. From their honourable friendship and in their liberal society Bruce for a short time enjoyed that refined intellectual happiness which is only known in civilized life. His health, however, was much impaired, and for five-and-thirty days he suffered very great agony from a worm, called faranteit, which had bedded itself in his leg below the knee. This worm is supposed by the Arabs to afflict those who have been in the habit of drinking stagnant water; and their mode of extracting it is by seizing it gently by the head, and then gradually winding it round a feather. Bruce had tried this plan; but, from the unskilfulness of his attendant, the worm was broken, and such severe inflammation ensued that the surgeon advised him to submit to amputation; "but," says Bruce, "to limp through the remains of life, after having escaped so many dangers, was hard; so much so, that the loss of life itself seemed more desirable." The inflammation, however, was at last reduced, though it did not entirely terminate for nearly a year after his arrival in Europe; and, as soon as his health was sufficiently restored, he set out for Paris, accompanied by the Comte de Buffon.

The reception he met with in that metropolis was exceedingly flattering. His travels became the subject of general conversation, and his company was courted by people of learning and rank.

As an acknowledgment of the favours which he had received from the French nation during the early part of his travels, Bruce presented to the Royal Library a copy of the Prophecies of Enoch, a literary curiosity of great value. He also sent to the king's garden at Paris some of the seeds of rare plants which he had collected in Abyssinia.

In July he left Paris for Italy. He was desirous to try the baths of Poretta; and, although he was naturally anxious to revisit Scotland, his native country, he had a still stronger inclination to complete his drawings of Africa, for which he required leisure, with the advice and a.s.sistance of professional men. He had also another reason, which, however absurd and unjustifiable, made him obstinately determine, against the advice of all his friends, to proceed to Italy. Before Bruce was consul at Algiers, he had fallen in love with a Scottish lady, to whom he had engaged himself by a promise of marriage. On the banks of the Nile, on the waters of the Red Sea, among the mountains of Abyssinia, and in the burning desert of Nubia, Bruce's heart had remained faithful to his engagement--the charming vision was constantly before him. At the "hillock of green sod" the reader will remember how he insisted that Strates should drink to the health of MARIA! and he had at last hasted homeward, hoping to have all his delightful antic.i.p.ations realized. But, on his arrival at Ma.r.s.eilles, he found that the lady had so far forgotten him, that she was at Rome, very comfortably married to the Marchese d'Accoramboni.

Sorely disappointed, his feelings highly irritated, his leg still inflamed from the farenteit, gaunt, weather-beaten, sunburnt, and in stature six feet four inches, good English measure, Bruce suddenly appeared at Rome before Filippo Accoramboni, to demand that he should apologize in writing for having married a lady who had been engaged to him. The Italian marquis, seeing no good reason for fighting with such a man, politely a.s.sured him he would not have married the lady had he known she was engaged to him; but Bruce most unreasonably insisted that this declaration should be expressed in writing, which the marquis very properly declined, upon which Bruce instantly sent him the following letter:

_Mr. Bruce to Signor Accoramboni._

"SIR,--Not my heart, but the entreaties of my friends, made me offer you the alternative by the Abbe Grant. It was not for such satisfaction that, sick and covered with wounds, I have traversed so much land and sea to find you.

"An innocent man, employed in the service of my country, without any provocation or injury from me, you have deprived me of my honour, by violating all the most sacred rights before G.o.d and man; and you now refuse to commit to writing what you willingly confess in words. A man of honour and innocence, marquis, knows no such shifts as these; and it will be well for one of us to-day, if you had been as scrupulous in doing an injury as you are in repairing it.

"I am at least your equal, marquis; and G.o.d alone can do me justice for the injury which you have done me. Full of innocence, and with a clear conscience, I commit my revenge to Him; and I now draw my sword against you with that confidence with which the reflection of having done my duty, and the sense of the injustice and violence which I have suffered from you, without any reason, inspire me.

"At half past nine (French reckoning) I come in my carriage to your gate; if my carriage does not please you, let your own be ready.

Let us go together to determine which of the two is the most easy, to offer an affront to an absent man, or to maintain it in his presence.

"I have the honour to be your humble servant,

"JAMES BRUCE."

This sort of epistle came upon the marchese like the simoom. It was impossible to stand against it; and there was nothing left for him but to prostrate himself to the earth, as Bruce had done in the desert. He therefore made the following reply:

_Sign. Accoramboni to Mr. Bruce._

"SIR--When the marriage with Miss M., at present my wife, was contracted, it was never mentioned to me that there was a previous promise made to you, otherwise that connexion should not have taken place.

"With respect to yourself, on my honour, I have never spoken of you in any manner, your person not having been known to me. If, therefore, I can serve you, command me. With the profoundest respect, I sign myself,

"Your most humble and _obliged_ servant,

"FILIPPO ACCORAMBONI.

"_Al. Sig. Cavaliere Janne Bruce._"

This silly affair being concluded, Bruce remained for some months at Rome. From the n.o.bility, as well as his countrymen who were there, he received marks of very particular attention; and Pope Clement XIV., the celebrated Ganganelli, presented him with a series of gold medals, relating to the different transactions of his pontificate. In the spring of 1774 Bruce returned to France, where he resided till the middle of June, when he left Paris, and very shortly afterward arrived in England, after an absence of twelve years. The public was naturally impatient to hear his adventures, and all people of distinction and learning appeared desirous to seek his acquaintance. He was introduced at court, and graciously received by his majesty George III., who was pleased not only to accept his drawings[38] of Baalbec, Palmyra, and the African cities, but to express his high approbation of the very great exertions which he had made to extend the boundaries of geographical knowledge.

"When I first came home," says Bruce, "it was with great pleasure I gratified the curiosity of the whole world by showing them each what they fancied most curious. I thought this was an office of humanity to young people and to those of slender fortunes, or those who, from other causes, had no opportunity of travelling. I made it a particular duty to attend and explain to men of knowledge and learning, that were foreigners, everything that was worth the time they bestowed upon considering the different articles that were new to them, and this I did at length to the Count de Buffon, and Mons. Gueneau de Montbeliard, and the very amiable and accomplished Madame d'Aubenton. I cannot say by whose industry, but it was in consequence of this friendly communication, a list or inventory (for they could give no more) of all my birds and beasts was published before I was well got to England."

Frank and open in society, Bruce, in describing his adventures, generally related those circ.u.mstances which he thought were most likely to amuse people by the contrast they afforded to the European fashions, customs, and follies of the day.

Conscious of his own integrity, and not suspecting that, in a civilized country, the statements of a man of honour would be disbelieved, he did not think it necessary gradually and cautiously to prepare his hearers for a climate and scenery altogether different from their own, but he at once landed them in Abyssinia, and suddenly showed them a vivid picture to which he himself had been long accustomed. They had asked for novelty, and, in complying with their request, he gave them good measure, and told them of people who wore rings in their lips instead of their ears; who anointed themselves, not with bear's grease or pomatum, but with the blood of cows; who, instead of playing tunes upon them, wore the entrails of animals as ornaments; and who, instead of eating hot, putrid meat, licked their lips over bleeding, living flesh. He described debauchery dreadfully disgusting, because it was so different from their own. He told them of men who hunted each other; of mothers who had not seen ten winters; and he described crowds of human beings and huge animals retreating in terror before an army of little flies! In short, he told them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

At that time (to say nothing about the present day) the English public indolently allowed itself, with regard to particular regions of the earth, to be led and misled by a party of individuals, who dogmatically dictated what idle theory was to be believed, and what solid information was to be rejected. These brazen images Bruce refused to worship. In their presence he maintained his statements, and they frowned upon him with pompous incredulity. With just indignation, he sneered at their impertinence and folly; but they knew their power, and they deliberately banded together to run him down.

"There has not," says Dr. Clarke (who travelled in three quarters of the globe, and who at Cairo had an opportunity of corroborating Bruce's statements), "there has not been an example in the annals of literature of more unfair and disgraceful hostility than that which an intolerant and invidious party too successfully levelled during a considerable time against the writings of Bruce."

"I will venture to a.s.sert," says Belzoni, "that the only reason why such doubts could have been started respecting his (Bruce's) work, was the spirit of contradiction excited by the illiberality of travellers, and those who were no travellers: the former, because they had not power to resist jealousy, which, in spite of all their efforts to conceal it, shows itself through the veil of their pretended liberality and impartiality; and the latter, because they are unable to control their bad propensity to dispute and condemn everything they have no knowledge of."[39]

"It was the misfortune of that traveller (Bruce), who is now no more,"

says Dr. Russel, in his history of Aleppo, "to have known that his veracity had too often captiously, and sometimes capriciously, been called in question, owing, besides the nature of his adventures, partly, I believe, to a certain manner in conversing as well as in writing, which alienated many who were less than himself disposed to take offence. He is now beyond the reach of flattery or humiliation; and I trust it will not be imputed merely to the partiality of friendship, if, as a small but just tribute to his memory, I repeat here what I have often before a.s.serted in occasional conversation, that, however I might regret a const.i.tutional irritability of temper so injurious to its owner, or however I might wish to have seen him, at times, condescend to explanations which I have reason to think would have removed prejudices, I never, either in course of our acquaintance or in the perusal of his book, found myself disposed to suspect him of any intentional deviation from the truth" (p. 423).

As soon as Bruce found that in England public opinion was against him, in sullen indignation he determined to retire into his own country; for, although all ranks of people were amused with his adventures, yet, as soon as he perceived that they doubted his facts, his mind was too just and his spirit too proud to accept a smile as an atonement for a barbarous prejudice and an unjustifiable insult. Determined in no way to compromise his honour, he felt that he had better quit England, and that, under the storm which a.s.sailed him, there was "no place like home!"

In the autumn he accordingly went to the capital of Scotland, where he was received with that affectionate attention and regard which we must admit the Scotch to have been always ready to pay to any one among them who has reflected credit and honour upon their country.

From Edinburgh he proceeded to Kinnaird, where he rebuilt his house, and for some time occupied himself in arranging his estate, which, during his long absence, had not only fallen into disorder, but had become involved in legal difficulties.

For more than a year and a half he was thus employed, enjoying the bustle and arrangements which served to divert his mind from the subject which most naturally and severely oppressed it.

On the 20th of March, 1776, he married Mary Dundas, daughter of Thomas Dundas, Esq., of Fingask, and of Lady Janet Maitland, daughter of the Earl of Lauderdale. This amiable and accomplished person was much younger than Bruce; and it is rather a singular coincidence, that she was born the same year in which his first wife had died.

For some time after his return to Scotland Bruce kept up a correspondence with his friends in France, but after his marriage he had little intercourse with literary people.

In the shooting season he generally spent some time at a place called Ardwhillery, in the Highlands, and there, as well as at Kinnaird, he amused himself by translating the Prophecies of Enoch from the Abyssinian. He also made a slow progress in transcribing and arranging his journals; but, happy in his own domestic circle, and conscious that he had been a faithful servant to his country, he seemed to prefer repose to the vexation of laying his travels before the public.

Always fond of astronomy, from which he had derived so much practical advantage, he erected, on the top of his house at Kinnaird, a temporary observatory; and, dressed in Abyssinian costume, wearing even the turban, he occasionally enjoyed very natural and delightful reflections in gazing, from a tranquil and civilized country, upon constellations in the heavens, which he had so often watched in moments of danger and privation; but a man's notions seldom fit his neighbours; and, "Eh! the laird's gaen daft!" was the opinion which the country people of Kinnaird secretly expressed among themselves at Bruce's astronomical operations.

After having enjoyed nearly twelve years of quiet domestic happiness, Bruce lost his wife. She died in 1785, leaving him two children, a son and daughter. Thus deprived of his best friend and companion, he again became restless and melancholy. "The love of solitude," he very justly says, "is the constant follower of affliction. This again naturally turns an instructed mind to study." These feelings Bruce's friends strongly encouraged, and they used every endeavour to rouse him from his melancholy, and to persuade him to occupy his mind in the arrangement and publication of his travels.

"My friends unanimously a.s.sailed me," he says, "in the part most accessible when the spirits are weak, which is vanity. They represented to me how ign.o.ble it was, after all my dangers and difficulties, to be conquered by a misfortune incident to all men, the indulgence of which was unreasonable in itself, fruitless in its consequence, and so unlike the expectation I had given my country by the firmness and intrepidity of my former character and behaviour.

"Others, whom I mention only for the sake of comparison, below all notice on any other account, attempted to succeed in the same design by anonymous letters and paragraphs in the newspapers; and thereby absurdly endeavoured to oblige me to publish an account of those travels, which they affected, at the same time, to believe I had never performed."

"It is universally known," states the Gentleman's Magazine for 1789, "that doubts have been entertained _whether Mr. Bruce was ever in Abyssinia_. The Baron de Tott, speaking of the sources of the Nile, says, 'A traveller named Bruce, it is said, has pretended to have discovered them. I saw at Cairo the servant who was his guide and companion during the journey, who a.s.sured me that he had _no knowledge of any such discovery_.'"

To the persuasions of his friends Bruce at last yielded, and, as soon as he resolved to undertake the task, he performed it with his usual energy and application. In about three years he submitted the work, nearly finished, to his very constant and sincere friend, the Hon. Daines Barrington. In the mean while, his enemies triumphantly maintained a clamour against him, and in his study he was a.s.sailed by the most virulent accusations of exaggeration and falsehood; and all descriptions of people were against him, from the moralist of the day down to the witty Peter Pindar.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1789, it is stated that Johnson had declared to Sir John Hawkins, "that when he first conversed with Mr.

Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, he was _very much inclined to believe that he had been there, but that he had afterward altered his opinion_!"