Bruce, James (1730-1794), was a Scottish explorer best known for his travels in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). In 1770, he reached the source of the Blue Nile, at Lake Tana in northwestern Abyssinia.
Bruce was born on Dec. 14, 1730, near Falkirk, Scotland. He studied law at Edinburgh University. In the 1750’s, while traveling in Europe, he became interested in North African culture. He studied the Arabic language and Abyssinian languages. From 1762 to 1765, he served as a British official to Algiers, Algeria. Afterward, he began exploring other parts of North Africa.
In 1768, Bruce sailed up the Nile to Aswan, Egypt. He then journeyed overland east to the Red Sea. He sailed south and arrived in what is now Eritrea in 1769. From there, he traveled inland to Gonder, the Abyssinian capital. From 1770 to 1772, he took notes about the area’s history, art, geography, and political affairs. When he returned to England in 1774, he was ridiculed, because his stories contradicted widely held views about Abyssinian culture. But many parts of his book, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (1790), are now recognized as accurate. Bruce died on April 27, 1794.
