Although the least considerable of your Majesty‘s subjects, yet not the least desirous of proving my duty by promoting your Majesty‘s declared plan of discovery as much as the weak endeavours of a single person could, unprotected, forlorn, and alone, or at times associated to beggars and banditti, as they offered, I undertook this desperate journey, and did not turn an ell out of my proposed way till I had completed it: It was the first discovery attempted in Your Majesty‘s reign. From Egypt I penetrated into this country, through Arabia on one side, passing through melancholy and dreary deserts, ventilated with poisonous winds, and glowing with eternal sun-beams, whose names are as unknown in geography as are those of the antediluvian world. In the six years employed in this survey I described a circumference whose greater axis comprehended twenty-two degrees of the meridian, in which dreadful circle was contained all that is terrible to the feelings, prejudicial to the health, or fatal to the life of man.

In laying the account of these Travels at Your Majesty‘s feet, I humbly hope I have shewn to the world of what value the efforts of every individual of Your Majesty‘s subjects may be; that numbers are not always necessary to the performance of great and brilliant actions, and that no difficulties or dangers are unsurmountable to a heart warm with affection and duty to his Sovereign, jealous of the honour of his master, and devoted to the glory of his country, now, under Your Majesty‘s wise, merciful, and just reign, deservedly looked up to as Queen, of Nations. I am,

SIR,
YOUR MAJESTY’s
Most faithful Subject,
And most dutiful Servant,
JAMES BRUCE.

INTRODUCTION.

However little the reader may be conversant with ancient histories, in all probability he will know, or have heard this much in general, that the attempt to reach the Source of the Nile, the principal subject of this publication, from very early ages interested all scientific nations: Nor was this great object feebly prosecuted, as men, the first for wisdom, for learning, and spirit (a most necessary qualification in this undertaking) very earnestly interested themselves about the discovery of the sources of this famous river, till disappointment followed disappointment so fast, and consequences produced other consequences so fatal, that the design was entirely given over, as having, upon the fairest trials, appeared impracticable. Even conquerors at the head of immense armies, who had first discovered and then subdued great part of the world, were forced to lower their tone here, and dared scarcely to extend their advances toward this discovery, beyond the limits of bare wishes. At length, if it was not forgot, it was however totally abandoned from the causes above mentioned, and with it all further topographical inquiries in that quarter.

Upon the revival of learning and of the arts, the curiosity of mankind had returned with unabated vigour towards this object, but all attempts had met with the same difficulties as before, till, in the beginning of his Majesty’s reign, the unconquerable spirit raised in this nation by a long and glorious war, did very naturally resolve itself into a spirit of adventure and inquiry at the return of peace, one of the first-fruits of which was the discovery of these coy fountains[1], till now concealed from the world in general.

The great danger and difficulties of this journey were well known, but it was likewise known that it had been completely performed without disappointment or misfortune, that it had been attended with an apparatus of books and instruments, which seldom accompanies the travels of an individual; yet sixteen years had elapsed without any account appearing, which seemed to mark an unusual self-denial, or an absolute indifference towards the wishes of the public.

Men, according to their different genius and dispositions, attempted by different ways to penetrate the cause of this silence. The candid, the learned, that species of men, in fine, for whom only it is worth while to travel or to write, supposing (perhaps with some degree of truth) that an undeserved and unexpected neglect and want of patronage had been at least part of the cause, adopted a manner, which, being the most liberal, they thought likely to succeed: They endeavoured to entice me by holding out a prospect of a more generous disposition in the minds of future ministers, when I should shew the claim I had upon them by having promoted the glory of the nation. Others, whom I mention only for the sake of comparison, below all notice on any other ground, attempted to succeed in this 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.

But it is with very great pleasure and readiness I do now declare, that no fantastical or deformed motive, no peevish disregard, much less contempt of the judgment of the world, had any part in the delay which has happened to this publication. I look upon their impatience to see this work as an earnest of their approbation of it, and a very great honour done to me; and if I had still any motive to defer submitting these observations to their judgment, it could only be that I might employ that interval in polishing and making them more worthy of their perusal. The candid and instructed public, the impartial and unprejudiced foreigner, are tribunals merit should naturally appeal to; it is there it always has found sure protection against the influence of cabals, and the virulent strokes of malice, envy, and ignorance.

It is with a view to give every possible information to my reader, that in this introduction I lay before him the motives upon which these travels were undertaken, the order and manner in which they were executed, and some account of the work itself, as well of the matter as the distribution of it.