MEMOIR OF BRUCE. 79 



more than all the perils and sufferings he had 

 undergone. While consul at Algiers, he had fallen 

 in lore with a Scotch lady, to whom he had engaged 

 himself by a promise of marriage. In all his 

 wanderings he remained faithful to his engagement : 

 he drank the health of Maria at the fountains of 

 the Nile, and in the dreary desert her charming 

 image was constantly before him. It is easy to 

 conceive his mortification and sorrow when he 

 found that the lady had forgotten him in his long 

 absence, and was then at Rome, comfortably married 

 to the Marchese d'Accoramboni. Bruce appeared 

 without delay before the gates of the Marchese, 

 and insisted that he would either apologize or fight 

 him. The latter, who was entirely unconscious that 

 any such engagement had ever existed, declined 

 both proposals, evidently not a little uneasy at the 

 idea of encountering a gaunt, weather-beaten, sun- 

 burnt savage, in stature six feet four inches good 

 English measure, and with feelings doubly irritated 

 with disease and disappointment. This absurd 

 affair ended with a polite note from the Marchese, 

 w r ho expressed the profoundest respect for the cha- 

 racter of his antagonist 



At Rome, where Bruce remained for some 

 months, he received marks of particular attention 

 from the nobility, and was presented by Pope Cle- 

 ment XIV., the celebrated Ganganelli, with a series 

 of gold medals, relating to several transactions of 

 his pontificate. In the spring of 1774, he returned 

 to France, and very shortly afterwards arrived in 



