conftructed fentences: but we would not undertake always to reconcile the sense which he seems to mean to exprefs, with his expreffions; for inftance: It [your majefty's reign] was a golden age, which united humanity and fcience, exempted ⚫ men of liberal minds and education, employed in the noblest of all occupations, that of exploring the diftant parts of the globe, from being any longer degraded, and rated as little better than ⚫ the buccaneer or the pirate, because'-mark the reafon- becaufe they had, till then, in manners been nearly fimilar.' We do not understand how those, whose manners are nearly fimilar to the buccaneer and pirate, are degraded by being ranked as buccaneers and pirates. How are buccaneers and pirates known but by their manners? How can he who has fuch manners be faid to have a liberal mind? But we have no inclination to carp; let the dedication pafs: where, if not in a ́dedication, may nonfenfe hope to find an afylum?

The introduction displays the difficulty of the author's attempt; even conquerors at the head of iminense armies, who had firft difcovered and then fubdued great part of the world, .. were forced to lower their tone here, and dared scarcely to extend their advances towards this difcovery beyond the limits of bare wishes.' We well know how necessary enthusiasm is to the achievement of any great undertaking; but in the expreffions of Mr. Bruce's enthufiafm there is fomething rather too ludicrous; as in thofe paffages where he talks of parties • formed against his work,' of the influence of cabals, and the virulent ftrokes of malice, envy, and ignorance, of perfons • more wicked than weak,' who affected to difbelieve that he he had ever performed these travels, there is more foreness than a man confident of a good caufe need feel or fhew. Page 3 he fays, if I had ftill any motive to defer fubmitting thefe obfervations to their judgment, it could only be that I might employ that interval in polifhing and making them more worthy of their perufal;' yet, p. 64-65, he tells us of other motives, fick nefs, law-fuits, and a still heavier private affliction that occupied his attention, and probably at times left him little power or inclination to polish and arrange his materials: indeed, he has fomething p. 65 which feems fcarce confiftent with the long labour before mentioned: No great time has paffed fince the work was in hand. The materials collected upon the spot were very full, and feldom deferred to be fet down beyond the • day wherein the events described happened; but oftener, when fpeeches and arguments were to be mentioned, they were noted • the inftant afterwards; for, contrary to what I believe is often the cafe, I can affure the reader these speeches and converfations ⚫ are abfolutely real, and not the fabrication of after-hours.' We

do

do not fee the great neceffity for all this labour in polishing the journal, even including the hiftory of Abyffinia. Niebuhr, whofe travels and defeription of Arabia, as to the labour of publication, &c. exceed thefe volumes of Mr. Bruce beyond all eftimation, on account of the number of plates and multitude of oriental words, interfperfed through his text, took a time much short of fixteen years, though in the meanwhile he publifhed the Obfervations of Forfkal.

Mr. Bruce was first animated to this arduous undertaking by the infpiring voice of the late Lord Chatham. After tedious negociations with minifters, he was perfuaded by Lord Halifax to accept the confulfhip at Algiers, where he embraced the opportunities offered to him of learning Arabic and Greek, fo as to speak it, together with medicine and furgery. He gives us a fuccinct narrative of feveral excurfions into the country of this part of Africa, frequently animadverting upon Dr. Shaw, in whofe footsteps he often treads; being oftener, however, carried by that spirit of adventure, for which he feems diftinguifhed above travellers, beyond the track of Shaw. And fuch was our traveller's diligence in thefe expeditions that he believes there is not a fragment of good taste in architecture in this part of Africa of which he has not brought drawings to Britain. Unfortunately every one of thefe is withheld from the public; for moft, we are referred to the king's collection; a few remain with himfelf. He might furely have given us one fample at least of his talents for drawing, and judgment in ancient architecture, and not have left us with this impreffion after reading his introduction; to wish moft heartily to exchange nearly every thing that he has communicated for a particle of what he has kept to himself. The idea of a camera obfcura, in which, as in a summerhouse, the draughtsman might fit unfeen and perform his drawing, has great merit, and the remarks, p. 9, 10, on its advantages, feem judicious. The anecdote concerning the tribe of Hon-eaters, and the strictures on the university of Oxford, stand forward and claim notice. There is fomething whimsical in the exactnefs with which the age and fex of the lions, on which our traveller feafted, are reported. Should the reader fmile at the paffage, his fmile, if he fympathifes with us, will not be a tribute to the author's powers of raillery. Let him, however, make the experiment:

Before Dr. Shaw's travels firft acquired the celebrity they have maintained ever fince, there was a circumitance that very nearly ruined their credit. He had ventured to say in converfation that thefe Wellid Sidi Boogannim were eaters of lions; and this was confidered at Oxford, the univerfity where he had ftudied, as a traveller's licence on the part of the doctor. They took it as a fubverfion of

the

the natural order of things that a man should eat a lion, when it had long paffed as almoft the peculiar province of the lion to eat man. The doctor flinched under the fagacity and feverity of this criticifm; he could not deny that the Welled Sidi Boogannim did eat lions, as he had repeatedly faid; but he had not yet published his travels, and therefore left it out of his narrative, and only hinted at it after in his appendix.

With all fubmiffion to that learned univerfity, I will not dispute the lion's title to eating men; but, fince it is not founded upon patent, no confideration will make me stifle the merit of Welled Sidī Boogannim, who have turned the chace upon the enemy. It is an hiftorical fact; and I will not fuffer the public to be misled by a misrepresentation of it; on the contrary, I do aver, in the face of these fantastic prejudices, that I have ate the flesh of lions; that is, part of three lions, in the tents of Welled Sidi Boogannim. The first was a he lion, lean, tough, fmelling violently of mufk, and had the tafte which, I imagine, old horse flesh would have. The fecond was a lionefs, which they faid had that year been barren. She had a confiderable quantity of fat within her; and, had it not been for the mufky fmell that the flesh had, though in a leffer degree than the former, and for our foolish prejudices against it, the meat, when broiled, would not have been very bad. The third was a lion's whelp, fix or seven months old; it tasted, upon the whole, the worst of the three. I confefs I have no defire of being again ferved with fuch a morfel; but the Arabs, a brutish and ignorant folk, will, I fear, notwithstanding the disbelief of the univerfity of Oxford, continue to eat lions as long as they exist.'

At Jibbel Aurez he meets with a tribe, who, if not fair like the English, ( were of a shade lighter than that of the inhabitants of any country to the fouthward of Britain; their hair was red, and their eyes blue.' Whether the very ingenious conjecture that they may be the remnant of an army of Vandals, whom Procopius mentions as having been defeated here, be right or not, the fact is important, and corroborates other proofs of this negative propofition in the natural history of the human race, that colour is not owing to climate.

All intelligence relating to the interior parts of Africa being valuable, we must not omit the circumftance of his meeting with a caravan of pilgrims from Fez and Sus in Morocco, traverfing Africa in their way to Mecca, almost from corner to corner, viz. from the Western Ocean to the western banks of the Red Sea or the kingdom of Sennaar. It confifted of about 3000 men, and from 12,000 to 14,000 camels, part loaded with merchandise, part with skins of water, flour, and other kinds of food, for the maintenance of the Hadjees or pilgrims. They were a fcurvy, disorderly, unarmed pack; and when my horsemen, though but fifteen in number, came up with them, in the grey of the morning, they fhewed great

figns of trepidation, and were already flying in confufion. • When informed who they were, their fears ceased, and, after the usual manner of cowards, they became extremely infolent.' The poor pilgrims, however, in traverfing those dreary deferts, had caufe enough of alarm, for they were afterwards plundered by the Welled Ali, a powerful tribe of Arabs that Occupy the whole country between Ptolometa and Alexandria; and most of them perished for want of water.

At Ptolometa our traveller embarks on board a fmall Greek junk, belonging to a little ifland near Crete. Contrary winds drove him back to the weftward, and he was fhipwrecked near Bongazi, where he loft a fextant, a parallactic inftrument, a time-piece, a reflecting telescope, an achromatic one, a copy of M. de la Baillie's Ephemerides for 1775, much to be regretted, as being full of marginal notes; a fmall camera obfcura, fome guns, piftols, a blunderbufs, and several other ' articles.'

From this difaftrous fituation the author gets, after touching at fome intermediate places, to Sidon, and makes excurfions in Syria as far as Palmyra. But from a general rule, not to interfere with the labours of others, and from a particular refpect to Mr. Wood, he forbears to publish any thing of this interefting place, though he took fix views, which, with views of Baalbec, are now in the king's collection.' At Sidon he receives news that his loffes are foon to be repaired by two te lescopes, one reflector by Short, and one achromatic by Dollond. By the reprefentations of Buffon and Guys, Louis XV. was moved to fend him a quadrant to Alexandria, where he found it and the other inftruments.

After this prelude to a more serious expedition, Mr. Bruce mentions what we have already quoted of circumstances that have retarded this publication, lays down the diftribution of his work, and then concludes by a paffage confpicuous for its good fenfe, and very material to fatisfy the reader concerning fome doubts that might arife in his mind, as well as to acquaint him with that system of conduct which the author proposed to follow in Abyffinia. For this reafon, and to counterbalance whatever difapprobation a moft impartial and attentive confideration has hitherto obliged us to exprefs, we shall quote it, though it be of confiderable length:

In overlooking the work I have found one circumftance, and I think no more, which is not fufficiently clear, and may create a momentary doubt in the reader's mind, although to those who have been fufficiently attentive to the narrative, I can scarce think it will do this. The difficulty is, how did you procure funds to support yourself and ten men fo long, and so easily, as to enable you to undervalue ENG. REV. VOL. XV. MAY 1790.

undervalue the ufeful character of a phyfician, and feek neither to draw money nor protection from it? And how came it that, contrary to the ufage of other travellers, at Gondar you maintained a character of independence and equality, efpecially at court; instead of crouching, living out of fight as much as poffible, in continual fear of priests, under the patronage, or rather as fervant to fome men of power.

To this fenfible and well-founded doubt I answer with great pleafure and readinefs, as I would do to all others of the fame kind, if I could poffibly divine them. It is not at all extraordinary that a ftranger like me, and a parcel of vagabonds like thofe that were with me, fhould get themfelves maintained, and find at Gondar a precarious livelihood for a limited time. A mind ever fo little polifhed and inftructed has infinite fuperiority over barbarians; and it is in circumftances like thefe that a man fees the great advantages of education. All the Greeks in Gondar were originally criminals and vagabonds; they neither had, nor pretended to any profeffion, exccpt Petros the king's chamberlain, who had been a fhoemaker at Rhodes, which profeffion at his arrival he carefully concealed. Yet thefe were not only maintained, but by degrees, and without pre-. tending to be phyficians, obtained property, commands, and places.

6

Hofpitality is the virtue of barbarians, who are hofpitable in the ratio that they are barbarous; and, for obvious reafons, this virtue fubfides among polished nations in the fame proportion. If, on my arrival in Abyffinia, I affumed a spirit of independence, it was from policy and reflection. I had often thought that the misfortunes which had befallen other travellers in Abyffinia arose from the base eftimation the people in general entertained of their rank, and the value of their perfons. From this idea I refolved to adopt a contrary behaviour. I was going to a court where there was a king of kings, whofe throne was furrounded by a number of high-minded, proud, hereditary, punctilious nobility. It was impoffible, therefore, too much lowlinefs and humility could please there.

Mr. Murray, the ambaffador at Conftantinople, in the firman obtained from the Grand Signior, had qualified me with the diftinction of Bey-Adzé, which means, not an English nobleman (a peer), but a noble Englishman; and he had added likewife, that I was a fervant of the King of Great-Britain. All the letters of recommendation, very many and powerful, from Cairo and Jidda, had conftantly echoed this to every part to which they were addreffed. They announced that I was not a man, fuch as ordinarily came to them, to live upon their charity, but had ample means of my own; and each profeffed himself guarantee of that fact, and that they themfelves, on all occafions, were ready to provide for me, by answering my demands.

The only requeft of thefe letters was fafety and protection to my perfon. It was mentioned that I was a phyfician, to introduce a con ciliatory circumftance, that I was above practifing for gain. That all I did was from the fear of God, from charity, and the love of mankind. I was a phyfician in the city, a foldier in the field, a courtier every where, demeaning myfelf, as confcious that I was not unworthy

of