130 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
The singular incidents detailed in these Travels-the habits of life there described,
so totally unlike anything previously known in Europe-and the style
of romantic adventure which characterised the work-led many persons to distrust
its authenticity, and even to doubt whether its author ever had been in
Abyssinia at all. Those doubts found their way into the critical journals of the
day,’ but the proud spirit of Bruce disdained to make any reply. To his
daughter alone he opened his heart on this vexatious subject; and to her he
often said, “The world is strangely mistaken in my character, by supposing
that I would condescend to write a romance for its amusement. I shall not live
to witness it ; but you probably will see the truth of all I have written completely
and decisively confirmed.”
So it has happened. Recent travellers have established the authenticity of
Bruce beyond cavil or dispute. Dr. Clark, in particular, states, in the sixth
volume of his Travels, that he and some other men of science, when at Cairo,
examined an ancient Abyssinian priestwho perfectly recollected Bruce at the
court of Gondar-on various disputed passages of the work, which were confirmed
even in the most minute particular ; and he concludes this curious investigation
by observing, that he scarcely believes any other book of travels could
have stood such a test. Sir David Baird, while commanding the British troops
embarked on the Red Sea, publicly declared that the safety of the army was
mainly owing to the accuracy of Mr. Bruce’s chart of that sea, which some of
the critics of the day ventured to insinuate he had never visited. On this subject
Bruce is strikingly corroborated by that well-known traveller, Lieutenant
Burnes. In a letter written from the Red Sea, so lately as 1835, he says-
& I cannot quit Bruce without mentioning a fact which I have gathered here,
and which ought to be known far and wide in justice to the memory of a great
and injured man, whose deeds I admired when a boy, and whose book is a true
romance. Lord Valentia calls Bruce’s voyage to the Red Sea an episodical
fiction, because he is wrong in the latitude of an island called ‘Macowar,’ which
Bruce says he had visited. Now this sea has been surveyed for the first time,
and there are two islands called Macowar ;’ the one in latitude 23” 50‘ visited
by Bruce, and the other in latitude 20” 45’, visited by Valentia ! Only think
of this vindication of Bruce’s memory ! Major Head knew it not when he wrote
his fife, and it is worth a thousand pages of defence.”
The following rather amusing anecdote is told of Bruce :-It is said that
once, when on a visit to a relative in East-Lothian, a person present observed
it was “impossible” that the natives of Abyssinia could eat raw meat. Bruce
very quietly left the room, and shortly afterwards returned from the kitchen with
management, and by carrying on a 8maIl trade in the coal line, made a considerable fortune, and built
the wing of the house at Airth, now standing. Some evil-minded persons chose to insinuate that
she had acquired this fortune in a way not very creditable to her chastity. Treating this slander with
the contempt it merited, she, with conscious innocence, caused the inscription of ‘ let t hsuy ,’ to
be placed over the door.”
I The amusing “ Adventures of Baron Munchausen ” were writteh purposely in ridicule of him,
and were received by the public 84 8 just satire on his work.
