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Bruce (JAMES an African traveler born)

JAMES, an African traveler, born in Kinnaird, Dec. 14, 1730. He received his education at Harrow and at the University of Edinburgh, and entered the wine trade, but having inherited his trad trade, but having inherited his father's estate in 1758, he soon gave up business. From 1763 to 1765 he held the consulship of Algiers, and in 1765 he visited successively Tunis, Tripoli, Rhodes, Cyprus, Syria, and several parts of Asia Minor, where he made drawings of the ruins of Palmyra, Baalbec, etc.

In 1768, he set out for Cairo, navigated the Nile to Syene, crossed the desert to the Red Sea, passed some months in Arabia Felix, reached Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, in 1770, and in the same year succeeded in reaching the sources of the Abai, then considered the main stream of the Nile. After visiting France and Italy, he returned to Scotland in 1774. His long-expected "Travels" BRUCE did not appear until 1790. Bruce lost his life by an accident, April 27, 1794.